December Boardroom News

I promised to post updates after each Board meeting and apologise for this one being later than intended. At our Board meetings we often approve an action but cannot report it until after it has been implemented. First some changes at Board level - Richard Drewitt has taken on the role of Resources Planning Director - this is a new role in response to our need to produce more detailed plans for our development so as to take account of our rapidly moving expansion to Broadway and our further aspirations. When we reach Broadway we will need three train sets to maintain a reasonable schedule - this means more locos, more coaches and, most importantly the volunteers and resources to support them. This year has been a great year - I am told that it is our best ever! I congratulate everyone on their contributions in making this possible. We can now look with confidence to our future and Richard has been tasked with producing a detailed 5-year plan so that all aspects of the railway can be assessed and proposals put forward to ensure our readiness for the future. Also we have been aware for some time that there is confusion caused by the titles of our two engineering directors, Darren Fairley and Andrew Goodman. To better describe their roles, they titles have been changed respectively to Civil Engineering Director and Permanent Way Director. Their respective activities continue unchanged. Secondly we have looked at the ever growing role of the Administration Dept. We need to be able to cope with a vast range of queries relating to not only our regular activities but all our special events and the many secondary activities we now provide. Richard Warner and his team have fielded an ever expanding range of enquiries reflecting the importance of the Admin team. We felt that the time has come to give more support to Admin and also relieve some of the load on Richard who now spends so much time looking after the on-line systems that have been developed over the last few years and now handle a lot of our event and advance bookings. To this end we have appointed Maxine Barton-Hawkins as Office Manager to handle the on-site Admin activities, leaving Richard to look after the on-line business as well as his Share Registrar role. A transition period of the month of January 2014 has been set for the hand-over. Richard fully supports this action and has emailed all the Admin team notifying them of this change. I will be making further updates to the Boardroom blog as they come to fruition so keep watching this blog! In the meantime I am helping the Santa Specials team and am about to set off for Cheltenham to be an on-train helper - looking out of the window at the rain I just wish that it had held off for a couple more days! So far this year's Santa has proved to be a great success and will round off a very good year. I wish everyone a Happy Christmas and look forward to another great year with our railway even better prepared for our future enjoyment. Alan Bielby