West Somerset Railway General Discussion

That's very true. I'm a moderator elsewhere, and a poster created a thread based on the ITV story entitled "Now the WSR is about to go down the pan!". I don't know the poster in question, and don't think they're on here, but it did rather say something about the impression left.

 

according to the WSR FB page they have raised £13,725.00 to date.

 

Ouch, that's, not a lot. I don't think it's just a noisy minority on NatPres who don't think it's worth donating.

 

Is that how much it has raised since the TV blitz or from when it was launched?

 

Perhaps he has found his lost trailer now.

 

When you put it that way, yikes! Very not good.

 

In normal circumstances I would throw something into the kitty. No one takes any pleasure seeing an established Heritage Railway fail. These are not normal circumstances.

There are several reasons, some below, as to why this time I find a donation impossible. I suspect I am not alone.

1. The lamentable and undignified treatment of the S&D Trust by the plc.
2. The petty actions taken by the plc against volunteers, essentially removing them from their hobby and passion.
3. The dictatorial attitude of the small group who make up the plc and collectively appear to lack business and leadership qualities .
4. Lack of real time information as to what any donation will be used for.

It is fairly clear to me from the above where the problems originate. My wallet, I am afraid is closed.

 

And there is the quandary, do they sit still and watch the railway (to quote JJP) "...bleed itself dry of money..."or should they have realised that is what was happening and looked at generating some revenue as a stopgap? Not necessarily running trains but possibly things like opening cafes or bookstalls or holding some sort local event - or anything that would bring in some revenue. The board may claim that the best way was to do nothing (which seems to be the boards usual default position) but it does nothing to encourage me to believe that they have actually made the effort to find out and therefore does nothing to encourage me to support their actions.

 

Look on the bright side, that amount will go some way towards paying the external HR consultants.

 

“We had no choice sadly but to defer and pause the proposed new structure for the WSR and proposed creation of an over-arching charity, because of so many doubts about it, plus doing so would have cost us such a lot of money to implement, and that’s cash we simply don’t have available right now in the business."

Hmmmmm

I have been speaking to Paul Whitehouse a fair bit recently. Remember him? His view, based on taking a similar sized organisation down the charitable status route, is that a low 5-figure sum (under £20,000) is involved. That would be recouped on the first £80,000 of donations, not to speak of all the other advantages of charitable status.

I can't imagine what the 'so many doubts' might be. Perhaps they could be explained?

 

I am one of the ones who have said nothing about the appeal so far. In the last 12 months I gave money to two locomotive restoration projects, two railway companies of which I was a member, and to two more of which I was not.

I will not be giving anything to the WSR. Their £1m appeal seems to be to feed a bottomless pit. I would also be helping to pay legal costs to attack certain of their own volunteers, which I consider outrageous.

I like the line as such. I have travelled on it on an incoming excursion, and travelled on it privately based on a local B&B. The line I like. It's the behaviour of the people (man?) at the top that puts me off completely. Give them money? I'd be feeding the fire.

 

I doubt that they will be explained. Rather like @Signals comments, put on here many posts ago.

 

Isn't the normal heritage railway cliché a pressure gauge, not a thermometer? Thermometers are for church tower appeals ...

Being serious, that's the kind of graphic that should never have seen the light of day: it screams "we are failing". Progress meters are morale boosters when you are making significant progress: "look, we've funded 12 spokes on our new wheel fund, only six more to go" accompanied by picture of wheel with shaded in-spokes. But if you are struggling to make progress, you've got to find something that nonetheless shows a success, not that you are, frankly, dying on your arse.

Not unrelated: if the £1m figure had been broken into a series of smaller, targeted appeals for different outcomes, it would potentially be easier to find a sequence of positive stories, and almost certainly easier to motivate fundraising activity. Look at how a typical new build or loco restoration funds itself. They don't start out saying "we need £x million", but they have a wheel appeal, a cylinder fund, sponsor a boiler tube and so on. Then you have a succession of bites at the PR cherry as each little mini appeal is launched and succeeds.

Tom

 

I quite agree. My initial impression when I saw it was "what on earth...???" - it's just so dismal, it's barely off the bottom of the scale, just so depressing to look at. If you can excuse the pun, it would be difficult IMHO to make the WSR even less 'appealing' if they tried. Sadly, things seem to lurch from bad to worse every time they make some public utterance. I despair.....