February half term has been and gone and, unbelievably, the Easter holiday is now less than three weeks away. The changeable nature of this particular Christian festival means that the school Spring term is often ridiculously short. This year there is just 24 teaching days between the February half term and the Easter break!
Whilst the term length is always unpredictable, the Spring term always represents an important time in the planning of the Weston on Trent Model Railway Show. It is unbelievable to think that it is exactly five years since I first embarked on the journey of organising this particular event. Then I started out with a blank canvass, unsure of whether I would get enough layouts to fill the event. Many of the staff present at the first meeting have since moved on, but one thing remains, the yearly worries over whether I can get the enough exhibits. To the outsider this may seem a strange worry. After all, the show has grown year on year. Last year it filled 4 of the school's 5 classrooms as well as both main corridors. A total of 20 layouts was the highest I had ever achieved and I continue to use that as the target number for each event.
One of my big worries concerns managing the finances. The Weston show operates with a "zero budget". Therefore any money I spend on layout expenses has to be generated by selling tables to the trade. We may have made £1000 profit last year, but none of that was carried forward to help with funding this event - it all went into the school funds for the new library area. This means I start again, and have to manage those expenses very carefully. I cannot let them mount up if I want to maximise the benefit to the school. It is a careful balancing act.
In the past we have benefitted from a lot of goodwill from exhibitors. As we are effectively a charity show, raising money for the school, some have waived their expenses or even massively reduced them. In return we do make sure that we look after our exhibitors by providing free drinks all day and a decent hot meal. My on-going worry is whether that goodwill will continue to last for ever, after all exhibitors do have to cover their costs as well. Time will tell I suppose.

The money raised last year was a huge help in the developing of the new library area. This is now well underway and should be completely stocked and computerised by the time the 2016 show comes around. This year the fundraising focus returns to the school's computing curriculum. We are looking to purchase more IPads and laptops for use in the classrooms. All money raised will go towards this.

In my last blog I reported that I had begun to send out the layout information forms to those exhibitors who had expressed an interest about this year's show or whose details remained on file. Things have started to come back and the show is slowly beginning to take shape. Five forms have been returned whilst I have verbal confirmation that 8 more will be attending. Three of these have just received their forms so hopefully they will be back soon. That makes a tentative total of 13 layouts so far. There are other forms still to be returned so the total may still grow during the next couple of months.
Recently I have been out on the layout hunt at the Sileby and Trowell shows. I handed out details to a couple of layout owners, but have had no reply yet. I also have another interested trader who I need to contact. This will give us someone who sells scenic items - this is something we were missing last year after Derby Trees dropped out. They are also double booked this year and so will not be returning.
I suffered a little set back today. There were a couple of people I wanted to speak to you about possible exhibits. Sadly, due to a combination of "Mother's Day" and a poorly daughter it looks certain that I will miss out on the show. These things can't be helped of course, but it is still frustrating.

I also mentioned in my last blog about my dilemma over "Skaleby West's" participation. I have pretty much decided that it will not be at the show this year. The next project, Skaleby Quay, will be nowhere near ready either. After giving it some thought my mind is turning towards building another layout specifically for the show. Given a working title of "Skaleby North Yard" the new project will be a quick build shunting puzzle type layout using the classic Inglenook 5, 3, 3 layout. I have a spare 4ft x 1ft baseboard doing nothing so that is likely to be used. If and when progress is made I will post details either on here, or via a specific layout thread.

Until next time..