North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Noted in the new Moors Line that Phil Sash is listed as part of the 'Core Leadership Team' with the title of 'Director of Civils'.

Also, with reference to the increase in membership rates of 50% referrred to by D7076, the justification for this seems to be that they have consulted with a professional fundraising consultancy. It is a little concerning, with so many people on the NYMR's own books, they still have to pay a consultancy (or perhaps I've got it wrong and their services were provided for free?).

The same consultancy appears to have advised on Moors Line itself, , as, rather than going back to the old style mag, they want something that is 'visually appealing and content rich'. Dubiously cropped pictures, columns that don't line up, wasted space, etc.... I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

 

My Moors Line hasn't landed yet but£60! That isn't in alignment with similar lines such as the SVR. I can't justify £60 for membership. I have been a member since 1992.

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The current Friends of the GCR Adult rate is £28 per annum which is less than half that the NYMR are asking, though, admittedly the discount off travel (about 40%) isn't quite as generous as you get on the NYMR (50%)....

 

It’s £35 at the Bluebell, with 50% off travel (including galas) and 10% in the shop.

There was a very interesting article from Mark Allatt in the latest issue of Trackside, making the point that a railway’s supporters were a relationship to be nurtured. It was very much a long-term view. He also made the point that trying to balance the books by chasing grants was folly, because often those grants came with strings attached that diverted you from what you really wanted to do.

Needless to say, £60 for an annual membership is not that - it’s tantamount to saying “we don’t want you”. From his writings here it is obvious that @Lineisclear is of the view that members represent a burden to be borne, not a source of strength and vitality. This seems to be the logical next step in running the membership side down.

(My prediction for next steps: membership numbers fall dramatically; the per member cost of supporting members rises; Moorsline is cut, further price rises imposed to try to balance the books. Meanwhile, fewer committed people to consider donations or legacies.)

Tom

 

There are two reasons for employing external consultants.

One is to provide access to skills and expertise that are important in the here-and-know, but for which you don't have sufficient regular need to make it worth having in-house.

The other reason is to give you a report that tells you what have already decided, but in a way that allows you to sell it to a sceptical audience by claiming "look, an independent review by specialists in the field tell us we must do this".

Which one is going on here is left as an exercise for the readers.

Tom

 

The Talyllyn, which shares/shared similar senior people involved with the NYMR, have gone for a similar approach where the membership are seen as sponges to be soaked to support TRPS and subsidise the operating company. Membership is now £44 for a 'principal member' and I fear the same results as you suggest.

 

If you care to look at the accounts the Talyllyn operating company has made a loss year after year that is balanced by the supporters group. It could be argued that's why a supporters group is in being. Presumably if you feel something is worth supporting then it's worth putting money into it. I note that unlike some railways the NYMR doesn't require volunteers to be members of the supporters group so the increase will have no impact on these activities. But, I would be the first to say that £60 is quite a hit, almost as much as filling the Range Rover with diesel!

 

I’m not totally sure that’s a fair reading (or a fair comparison) when it comes to the Talyllyn.

the main difference is that the TRPS has pretty well step by step walked the membership through the finances openly, including talking about relative purchasing power/sacrifice of income on the part of the membership from the early 1950s to now, to demonstrate that in the past the members were in real terms giving more than they have been in the last few years.

my take is that the TRPS are likely to be pretty successful in bringing the membership with them - because of openness, transparency, and demonstration of actual understanding (on both sides).

 

The Watercressline has gone for tiered membership. Online supporter at £20, member at £35 and premium or something at £50.

I think @Jamessquared is right, the impression is that having decided that members are a drain (and indeed there is a cost to running a membership organisation) the Moors are testing the idea that fewer members paying more will be the answer.

I fear they make this change from a position of weakness though when the relationships are already strained. Will there be a catastrophic fall in members rather than the expected presumably planned for slight nudge downward? If there is a major fall, will that worsen the financial situation? I suspect it might both by further discouraging members to donate, signalling to the wider enthusiast world they aren’t wanted, and perhaps by demonstrating to grant bodies and other donors that the Moors isn’t aligned with public sentiment……your numbers are falling!

 

Also, even though it’s not my ‘main’ railway membership, I would say without hesitation that the Talyllyn is the railway I feel the closest connection to. The SVR I have all the memories of volunteering there 20-odd years ago, growing up with the line, and knowing many of the people. The Talyllyn though does the best job in my opinion of making the armchair member feel involved, and of explaining what is happening and why. I feel like I know everyone there, even though I don’t.

 

Probably just as well it doesn’t require volunteers to be members.

Your last sentence is a fascinating comment. You would think perhaps that membership of one’s favourite railway might be worth more than a tank of fuel, perhaps several tanks of fuel. Why isn’t it? Because I agree with you that most will not think that it is.

 

I think the point is, for many people railway X won't be their favourite railway. How many of us (amongst the more committed of railway supporters in general) are members of several different railways or railway groups? I suspect many are, but we'll each have perhaps one railway we are deeply committed to, but a handful of others we also support in a more casual way. At which point, the railway has to set a membership price that is right to entice the "causal committed person" as well as the "deeply committed person" - if that makes sense. Why even bother with the "casual committed person?" Because there is always then the opportunity to turn them into the "deeply committed".

As an example, I'd say I'm a "deeply committed" person to the Bluebell. I give many multiples per year of the NYMR £60 membership. So why not just pay a higher membership fee? Well, primarily because by donating each month, I can control where my "deep commitment" runs in ways I couldn't do if I just paid a higher membership fee.

I think there are broadly two benchmark figures you could look at for setting the boundary of how much is a membership worth.

The upper figure is £96 for a single adult (£169 for a family). Why? Because that is what the National Trust charge. But in their case, you get free entry to all their properties thereafter, and because they have properties all over the country, I suspect for many people, it is quite realistic to think you might visit half a dozen in a year, at which point the cost looks quite reasonable even for the "casually committed" member. I'm not committed enough to put my hand in my pocket every time there is a new NT appeal, but feel the membership is still reasonable value for money, because I can visit local properties; I can visit properties near my parents when visiting them; I can visit properties when I am on holiday etc.

Unfortunately, there aren't any railways that can offer a similar spread of locations. At which point you get to lower bound of a sensible membership fee, which is about the price of an adult day rover ticket (provided that is sufficient to cover the fixed costs of membership). Why? Because with a typical incentive of half-price travel, the "casually committed" member just about breaks even by buying a membership and visiting again, so it is a fairly easy "upsell" to a walk-up-and-ride passenger. ("If you take out membership, we'll knock half today's ticket price off, you'll get all these other benefits like a free magazine and if you come again that ticket will be half price too").

At £60, the NYMR are pushing towards National Trust territory (and crucially, have breached the £50 threshold, which I'd say is a significant psychological barrier). But they can't offer the breadth of attractions that the NT can: crucially, someone riding the line on holiday is unlikely to see the value of being a member of a line which might be hundreds of miles away from their home. Essentially, they are dissuading the "casually committed" from joining, while for the "deeply committed", there are more efficient ways in which they can display that commitment than through an enhanced membership fee.

Tom

 

This suddenly increased annual membership is starting to look like the fruition of @Lineisclear's plan to take the railway private: appoint an inexperienced CEO which can easily be manipulated and led get rid of the old-style (enthusiast-led) Trust Board, and pack it with acolytes with a similar train of thought and who have no near practical experience of running a railway, in principle or in practice, kill of the in house publication (Moors Line) by turning it into an advertising publication, kill off all release of information to other than a privileged few, but appeal for more and more donations for a diminishing membership. Before you know it it will have come about and @Lineisclear will be duly elected Plc chairman with effectively sole control.

Sadly, I think it's on its way, to be followed shortly after by an exodus of any carriages other than Trust/Plc MK 1s and a stripping out of privately owned locos other than those with close ties to the new regime. Effectively, the Trust will be wound down to a point where it becomes insignificant other than as a rolling stock and land-owning entity - and it can be seen happening already. Those of you taking advice from @Lineisclear should do so with their eyes open to the likelihood he may be advising the best way descent into a similar circle of decay.

 

Your argument is essential what I was saying in a previous post. This strategy is high risk because it will deter people, and there is much in your thoughts about why that is the case. The question is though (and I don’t have the data to know the answer) has the lower membership costs been effective in bringing in donations greater than you can get without having memberships. I suspect it has been, but I cannot definitely prove that case. I doubt the Moors can either, and so, because this price hike will reduce the number of members, it is very brave and I hope they’ve done the numbers and the projections work.

 

I think it is more likely that the trustees and management believe they are doing their best, and that because they are good people doing their best, that is the best that can be done. They are completely convinced that theirs is the only strategy that can work, that the problem is that everyone else doesn’t understand the issues. Which is probably true, because the management and boards don’t communicate very well. As I have said before, the most worrying thing is that people don’t feel they can speak up without fear. That in itself is for me strong evidence that the current direction cannot ultimately succeed.

 

There may be faint hope that we saw one or two more traditional working members elected to the TB, but it will take several years to get a wider-ranging replacement, and can the NYMR last that long? In addition, although the TB has the majority shareholding in the PLC I think it has little influence in terms of who gets elected to it, and they seem to be calling the shots - for example "Moors Line" is a Trust Publication, but now seems to be produced by the Plc staff, and predominantly advertised their policies and actions, as do any (few though they may be) communications.

 

Regarding the bit in bold, you'd have thought they might have twigged that it doesn't work when they put up ticket prices and watched the passenger numbers fall!

It's interesting comparing membership fees. A family membership for the Bluebell will be less than one adult for the NYMR, with broadly similar benefits. The best value for families is KWVR ‐ £80 for a family for the year but includes three family day rovers, worth over £150.

A couple of groups I'm a member of have in the last few months put up their membership prices by roughly a tenner. Both gave the equivalent of a full page of A4 explaining why the price rises are necessary and why some of the benefits are being cut back. One hadn't put up fees for a decade! I haven't heard a single grumble about the increases as they were all clearly communicated well in advance and they're still affordable. £60 annual membership for a family that allows free entry is vastly better value than £60 for one adult that only includes discounted entry. Putting the price up from £40 to £60 overnight is bound to put a lot of people off.

 

A cynical person might say that less supporter money coming in and less 'nuisance' supporters' labour means that the exec team 'reluctantly' has to make the decision to curtail operations to the Whitby section only, meaning a commercial version in the north of what is the Paignton railway in the south.

 

....A commercial operation in the south with a lot of its facilities paid for by the HLF. One wonders what they'll make of any future grant applications? Perhaps it will not matter to the the commercial operation, though both sides will have to do some major rebuilding - the Plc don't own any locos or carriages and don't have any workshop facilities - will they have to hire them, as well as the rails and trackbed from the Trust? - if they do I hope they'll get royally fleeced for bringing this situation to a head.