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Good on you Nick. Super of you to take the time to complete the much needed repairs to the track etc. Looking forward to steaming up next time round.

I concur with Eric's comments.

That's fantastic! I had NO idea we had sold that many,- thats heading for £20,000! How did I miss that in the shop and annual reports? The marketing professional in me still thinks we could improve though; website promnence - pricing - packaging - distribution channels - bundling - magazine reader offer - The ideas to promote a good product don't stop there.

It is expected that Chairman of the OO Live Steam Club will conduct all club business in an appropriate manner. This unnecessary outburst falls well short of the expected standard. Having answered every accusation and query in full and proved that they are all unfounded then the least that all those implicated should expect is a full retraction of the unfunded accusations and a full apology.

I can help Nick collect parts on the 23rd of October if this helps Trip to Margate I can do 9th but the 8th I think I'm at work

Your very adept at covering your butt Chris. firstly. For whatever promises in respect of abundant future funds. The fact is we are down to very little capital in the kitty due primarily to your reckless spending. secondly. No. the members of the committee cannot see the financial details as they are supposed to be recorded on the Website Google drive. For whatever reason(s) you have resrticted access to Yourself, Nick , Nigel and obviously the treasurer. HAve you never heard of "Read only access " available to the committe at all times. All the stuff posted on the committee forum eg Finance , Loco sales and shop sales . is mainly significantly and up until very recently totally, misleadingly out of date. eg the last finnce report uo to a few days ago ended in sept 2nd with a balance od approx 8k. So what happened with sept 2nd to Oct 2nd and now suprisingly(Oct 24th.) As for the Loco sales there was virtually nothing. 3RD. Every time I undertake a posting. Up pop Dear ole Dave and Val. With very strong views against virtually anything I post. Do I suspect something particularly odd. The fact they mentioned the Blue BELL. I thougfht it was a lovely enjoyable event. Unfortunately,. Chris did his very best to cover upo the proposed LOCO purchases from myself. which naturally as Chair, I thought somewhat bizarre let alone odd and somewhat "SECRETIVE" Only apparently, several such as Dav and Val were aware.As you can see from the totally misleading statement they have made supporting this very odd and very overvalued proposed purchase. Whatever I write up . They seemingly object. Yet every so often they when it suits their ittinery, they turn up. To continue. Eventually I discovered where the items were being sold at a dealer on the bluebell site. I went and had a look. Most of it was total crap. There where two very play worn Papyrus Models in total rubbish boxes. Approx 5 to 7 items in total second rate condition which no self respecting collector would have given a second look. Believe me. i've been buying and selling Model Diecast and Model Rail for years. It was rubbish which in a vectis auction might just have cleared 2k with commission added. i spoke to Chris over a drop of lunch. I told him directly that I wouldnt have paid mor than £450 each for the Papyrys's. they where frankly dreadful,. Firstly Chris was pretty cheesed off that I had even found out about the potential purchase. No probs Another example of his total control mentality over the website, Combined as a deep resentment of myself as I had won the Chaimanship over his chosen poodle combined with his total unsuitability to comprehend the sustainable purchase value of the goods, to the available club finances, When I confronted Chris over lunch over what precisely the heck was going on eg Under any normal circumstances you would have thought (AND PRESUMABLY BELONING TO THE SAME TEAM) "Hey Charles guess what., someones offered us some Locos.Come and have a look . But not from Chris. hIS IMMEDIATE REACTION. IVE RECENTLY SUFFERED A HEART ATTACH, CANT YOU SEE.????> oH YES Chris I could indeed see. To sum it all up what did he do. He asked a highly valued and fairly recent member OF OUR ROADSHOW TEAM to back up the purchase (totally behind (THE OOLSC cHAIRMANS BACK) TO FUND THE TRANSACTION TO A TUNE OF £4000. I would suggest If David and Val knew about this (as they have just suggested they were fully aware) on the Whats App . To perhaps offer an explanation. Maybe Chris "Answer toEverything" Oakes, might enlighten us/ the committee further. On the Whats App you sure have given him a one heck of a lot of rope. Finally to settle it all I suggest we bring in professional accountants. Let them look at the books, OFFER COMMENTS ON THE SOMEWHAT EXTRAVAGANT CLAIMS OF ACTUAL AND FUTURE FINANCIAL BENEFITS. We should the go on from there to establish the priorities for the next AGM. -Hopefully, This lovely club (obviuosly envied by many inc sadly within it will at some stage, get back on the Rails. Meanwhile. We have a return invite to my old chum the late (Sir Bill McAlpine) to a summer bash at Fawley. Anyone interested.

OK .if you believe I've a duty to make any apologies. Please accept my sincere apologies. However this a good example of what happens when there is out of date info posted up. Eg I have only been aware of incomplete financial statements last dated Sept 2nd and recording approx 8k in the kitty. Which is precisely why I quite reasonably requested access to the Google drive to gain a full picture of where as a club, we were all about. Not an unreasonable request when the air is full of rumours about apparant lack of funds and quite worrying amounts going apparently on purchasing, locos Also, it was information Chris could quite easily have made available on the drive IN "READ ONLY FORMAT.I totally agree that Eric is indeed among the most ethical of persons one could ever wish to meet. i consider myself entirely lucky to count Eric among my very good chums.Ive known him a long time. I totally resent any implication otherwise. i find it very odd that all these supposed open discussions,phone calls etal were going on in respect of the collection at the BlueBell. On the contrary, I consider it was somewhat otherwise, deliberately keeping me out of the picture. I also consider it highly unethical to ask a member of the club to put up 4k as aloan to purchase the said lot. If anything Chris should have approached myself (as the Chaiman) direct to fund the deal.

"Is This Really necessary"? It seems we are in danger of introducing a somewhat unnecessary dollop of negativity into the OOLive Steam Brand. When we started the OOLSC, our various Events were often frequented by a large cohort of vociferous and opinionated visitors who were openly hostile to the Hornby Live Steam Brand. We are all aware that it was suffering the brunt from a totally unjustified label of unreliability which followed on from the initial, somewhat disastrous introduction of OOLive Steam into the market place. After 20 years, the OOLSC has largely negated that particular and highly destructive stigma attached to the brand whilst also putting it back on track toward becoming an important and sought after feature at Model Railway Events; and a "must have" element within the collections of a significant number of enthusiasts. I would ask. Is it really necessary to introduce any elements of negativity into the existing and wider collectors market that might imply that there is a potential problem real or imagined, with respect to Hornby Live Steam There is nothing particularly unusual in a collector of any form of 12volt, OO gauge (or any other gauge Locos) discovering that their variously acquired trains should be treated with due care upon running an particular ,often high value item. At most we need to simply indicate were appropriate a significantly light touch approach which is merely an acknowledgement to common sense. Charles.

We've just bought a loco, spent hours servicing it only to discover its scrap. We nearly lost one in the post recently. These 'costs' have to be built in to our sales price plus some profit to subsidise and I would like to think expand the Roadshow. Making a profit on a loco sale does to turn us into a profit seeking enterprise. It just supports costs elsewhere. I think average ebay price plus say £100 for the service and guarantee is fair and our customers would see that.

Lovely hanging baskets !!!!

Can’t see the card Chris , only the article and the Newsletter

I have . . . several times whist compiling the notes of the meeting . . . "I pitch our target selling price below the EBay average where possible - we are trying to draw members away from EBay to come to us – for a serviced and guaranteed loco" This is in line with what Maurice started, I continued and Nigel is pursuing.   Have a look at the Loco Sales discussion where the ethos behind what we do is fully explained. https://membership284.wixsite.com/ools-com/forum/policy-discussions-decisions/ools-loco-sales-policy?searchTerm=ethos&origin=notification   The OOLS Loco Sales Policy reference at the end of the first post will be posted for review in the next couple of days.