Buy that man a drink.

I have the misfortune to know a few of these type of people, i call them 'The keyboard warriors' The funniest thing is that in the real world there isn't one of them that would say boo to a goose

It's a shame they don't put some real world effort in to help out, they might actually find they enjoy it

I know what you mean ........

.....but as a relative newcomer to miniature traction scene, compared to the tracked option, I am happy to say I'm one of the chatty ones, I do wonder if I bore the hind legs off folks sometimes :o

I've only really done one small rally so far :o and that was, what I thought, going to be a total failure due to my own stupidity which meant I was unable to be in steam over the whole weekend :( however it did mean as the engine was stone cold it meant folks could get hands on with it and I encouraged folks to turn, push, pull and fiddle with bits as it was safe to do so, this meant I had my hands full most of the weekend showing folks around it, so all was not lost and I really enjoyed it and I think they did too.
Although a lot of caution has to be explained to the younger folks (and sometimes the older ones too) that you cant touch one's in steam.

I think Matt makes a well observed point.

Before I bought my engine, I had tried to engage engine-folk in a bit of "light conversation"; thoughtfully, in many cases engine-men had arranged a fortress of coal sacks and deck chairs to prevent me getting close to starting a conversation. Also, in many cases the "crew" comprised tattooed, moustachioed, rough-looking types, smoking and swearing heavily to put me off. And the men were no better.

Now, some years later, as an engine-owner, with good looks, raffish charm and easy conversation I clearly don't fit in. If only the NTET provided guidance to owners like myself on how to achieve the right degree of disinterest and surliness I would feel my membership money was well spent. Once again the NTET has let me down.

Come on General Council pull your fingers out!

I did, about 2 hours ago...:D

[QUOTE=fourceedee;310900]One big problem with the smaller rallys, monoplies. A well known rally up north with two breweries in the town, a local man has a train shaped woodfired pizza oven which does great value and tasting pizzas, even has a whistle!
As far as I am informed he wanted to go to said rally but was told couldnt be near the beer tent as the guy who does the bar has two catering vans serving in my view substandard rubbish. The pizza man was then told he could park up in the middle of nowhere and miss most of the evening trade due to his alloted location.
Small local rallies are being ruined by monopolies eiter in the trade side or the committe side with the 'click' running the show.

Not quite true. Not as easy running rallies as you think. Small local rallies need to balance the books in order to keep going, and we know that as much as most. A few wet years can soon see you off and we have nearly been there. Our committee is not a 'click', but a hard working group of unpaid volunteers young and old, and ever growing, thank goodness. We do our best and its never good enough for some. Nobody is told to park in the middle of nowhere, but not everyone can park on the same spot and the Pizza man never said he wanted to open at night.
We're all looking forward to celebrating our 50th next year and are already making great plans. Hope we can get some of them right.
PS Barman has no catering vans, caterers are separate. if pizza man applies early enough he may be more
lucky.

Hi Bruce, very droll................. probably digital as my wife gave me a new digital camera for my 60th birthday earlier this year and to be honest, it is a panasonic which is no bigger than a fag packet and it has a 14MP sensor and I am getting some really cracking photos from it. My 1971 Praktica LTL is on it's last legs. The frame counter has just packed up and the shutter has become very noisy and when you depress the shutter release it feels like the shutter is going to come through the base of the camera. I think that this one will soon become a static exhibit.

If I had a choice between operating a computer all day and restoring an engine / helping out with organising an event I know what I would do and that would be not using the computer! Computers are useful for sorting photos, writing articles for magazines and designing and printing publicity material for rallies.

With regard to organising events, I organised the Heritage Open Days at the Robey Trust in 2012, Anyway, most of the volunteers were at the Works on a Saturday and the event was a Saturday and Sunday two dayer. I was told by one of the Directors that we did not have sufficient volunteers for the two days. So, I just typed up a list of things that needed to be done on the two days such as crews for certain engines etc. I asked everyone to look at the list and to decide which days they wanted to help and to decide between themselves what they wanted to do, and I left them to it.

When I turned up on the day, the place was buzzing, a compressor had been hired by one of the Directors who paid for it out of his own pocket and everything that could work did work!

We had a fantastic couple of days and I received a considerable amount of feedback afterwards to say how much the volunteers had enjoyed themselves and there was no shortage of them over the two day event.

The reason why the event was so successful was that I had not rostered the volunteers to specific duties and they all enjoyed the jobs which they were doing. The moral of the story is that if you have a happy crew you will also have a successful event!

Indeed you did, flying scotsman, one more question why was it so late before the showmans engines were allowed near the real ale tent on sat night?

[QUOTE=Flying Scotsman;310984]P.s note the word's as far as I am informed.