I trust you and your families had a lovely Christmas and may I be one of the first to wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year.
2013 promises to be a very exciting year for our club and your continued help and support will go a very long way to making that so.
We start the year with our own Annual show at Felpham over the weekend of 11th, 12th and 13th of January and I urge you and any family help you can gather to play a big part in this by fully supporting our Exhibition Manager and his assistant (Paul & John). There is a saying that many hands make light work and this is very true. The show is our chance to not only show off our own club exhibits, but to build on an excellent reputation in the South of putting on an excellent weekend exhibition. It is also our best opportunity to raise much needed funds for the club, our new premises and to ensure we continue to grow by attracting new members.
As I said, 2013 will be a very exciting year for the club. Once the excitement of our show is over we then start to look forward towards new premises in the shape of both the Signal Box and The Barn. I have copied Mike Burton in on this email as I would like to formally thank him, his fellow trustees and volunteers for the massive effort they have put in these last 3 years to get the Signal Box looking wonderful and now the subject of much plaudits from the passing public. I would encourage all members to do give any help they can to Mike and his team so that this project is complete in 2013 and we as a club can start to benefit from such wonderful premises.
As your elected Chairman I have tried to lead from the front and have devoted much of my short time in post to obtaining and developing further facilities that will allow us as a club to expand and develop our love of modelling. My desire is to have a club that we can all be proud of and we can all, whatever our leaning and favour, enjoy. The Barn together with the Signal Box will meet that aim. There will be space to sit and chat, read & research, play and learn to operate a model railway and finally a proper space to build, repair and store our wonderful exhibits. These facilities will be open to all, young & old (that's most of us then!) and I hope we can expand our club to pull in more junior members from the village and locality as well as further encouraging the participation of those with disability. In respect of the latter I think we have done more than any other user group on the site to attract a varied membership.
I for one wont miss our old building (I'm sure others 5' 10 and above will share my sentiments!) and I look forward to enjoying our new premises in 2013. Both Mike and myself need any help you can give on both buildings to achive this so we can anticipate a completion/moving in date in Summer 2013. There is still the little matter of formal leases for both buildings, but Mike and Myself are working with the Trustees of the site to obtain these at the earliest opportunity.
To celebrate our move I plan on holding a Summer show, inviting all the local and National press/railway magazines etc, the local community and hope to have someone of note in attendance to cut the ribbon(s). Early days yet as I will need the approval for such a function from the ACSC Trustees, but I hope to gain this as working with other user groups we could use the show as a springboard to promote not only our own new fascilities, but all the other fascilities on site.
Finally I would like to thank all the officers of the club for their hard work and support given this last year. We need to remember that without their support and voluntary time given that we could not continue as a club. Thank you; John, Paul, Dave, Philip, Chris and Stephen. A big thank you also to Jock, Cliff & Bob for carrying out refreshment duties throughout the year.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Adrian
CHAIRMAN
BRMRC & BOGNOR REGIS MRC LIMITED
01243 544351
