Non member view and thoughts about the Gauge O guild

[Guest Jack Benson]

21 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

A couple of other points related to this. There is only so much that a Facebook group/online forum etc. can do. Things like member-exclusive kits and parts (which most of the specialist scale/gauge societies now do on some level) and making deals with manufacturers are likely to be much easier with a properly constituted group, even if only because it makes it easier for companies to understand who they are working with.

 

 

My apologies for taking just a portion of the posting but the manufacture or even sponsoring the manufacture of member-exclusive kits is an area which the GoG has steadfastly refused to consider let alone enter. As mentioned before, the GoG is not in ‘trade’ but that does beg the question ‘but where does the money go?’ if it isn’t to be used for the encouragement of modelling within this closed community. It is not easy to obtain an accurate list of disbursements but the old saw of ‘follow the money’ is often the only way to tackle an entrenched organisation.

 

Sorry to be the ‘party pooper’ but some cliches really suit this situation.

 

Stay Safe

[sir douglas]

"not in trade" sounds absurd since the whole point of founding it is to support the trade. they arent directly supporting them its more like these little booklets that come through our letterbox  occasionally of adverts of local businesses

 

i just had a look at the Guild's history page and one of the first things the founders did was do a production of over a million chairs

 

https://www.gaugeoguild.com/general/history.aspx

"An initial capital of £25 was raised to get the Guild off the ground and the principal stated aim was to convince the trade that there was still a viable market for the scale. An early success was to persuade Bonds to make a new mould for their rail chairs and within a year they had sold over a million!"

[Guest Jack Benson]

13 minutes ago, sir douglas said:

 

i just had a look at the Guild's history page and one of the first things the founders did was do a production of over a million chairs

 

Gosh, how things have changed.

 

It could be argued that little booklets containing adverts that are another revenue stream for the Guild.

 

Stay Safe 

[jamie92208]

43 minutes ago, Jack Benson said:

My apologies for taking just a portion of the posting but the manufacture or even sponsoring the manufacture of member-exclusive kits is an area which the GoG has steadfastly refused to consider let alone enter. As mentioned before, the GoG is not in ‘trade’ but that does beg the question ‘but where does the money go?’ if it isn’t to be used for the encouragement of modelling within this closed community. It is not easy to obtain an accurate list of disbursements but the old saw of ‘follow the money’ is often the only way to tackle an entrenched organisation.

 

Sorry to be the ‘party pooper’ but some cliches really suit this situation.

 

Stay Safe

Some years ago the guild sponsored the production of a slow acting point motor called an Aardvark. The first batch worked well but unfortunately  there were quality issues and the 2nd tranche wouldn't work upside down.  Then Tortoises became more readily available and the guy that was producing them had to give up for various reasons. I believe that another thing that Jack Ray did in the early days was to get a batch of springs for clockwork mechanisms manufactured.

 

Jamie

[polybear]

19 minutes ago, sir douglas said:

"not in trade" sounds absurd since the whole point of founding it is to support the trade. they arent directly supporting them its more like these little booklets that come through our letterbox  occasionally of adverts of local businesses

 

i just had a look at the Guild's history page and one of the first things the founders did was do a production of over a million chairs

 

https://www.gaugeoguild.com/general/history.aspx

"An initial capital of £25 was raised to get the Guild off the ground and the principal stated aim was to convince the trade that there was still a viable market for the scale. An early success was to persuade Bonds to make a new mould for their rail chairs and within a year they had sold over a million!"

 

I read that as Bonds sold over a million chairs, not the GoG; the GoG's input being to persuade Bond's to do it.

[Ravenser]

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

Also, I seem to remember a couple of situations a few years ago where online forums (for specific gauges or niche interests, as opposed to more wide-ranging sites like RMWeb) rapidly fell apart because of disagreements between different contributors, and a society with some oversight over the forum might (in theory) have provided better ways to resolve this. For others there have been issues with hosting bills for forum sites (which a more formal society could fund from membership fees). I use Facebook and am definitely in the ‘younger’ category of railway modellers but find forums easier to use than Facebook when searching for older content, since they are organised into threads.

 

Or a forum flame war could blow up the society.... That is also a possible scenario 

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, Jack Benson said:

My apologies for taking just a portion of the posting but the manufacture or even sponsoring the manufacture of member-exclusive kits is an area which the GoG has steadfastly refused to consider let alone enter.

 

If true then that is a shame, particularly as they presumably have the means to do so (financially, even if the actual production needs to be sponsored/commissioned rather than made by G0G itself). As an example, the 009 Society has done some injection-moulded plastic kits in recent years - exclusive to members although I seem to recall that Dundas or somebody similar (not completely sure) were involved with actually making the mouldings. However, even in the very early days of the Society (1970s) there were apparently some wagon kits produced with hand-cut plastic sheet parts.

[Pacific231G]

5 hours ago, Barry O said:

but the GoG employ Artitype to do some of the day to day admin.. what does the GoG committee actually do?

 

I don't care how old you are.. but if you are unable to add value why be on the Committee other than

1  Being a Very important person?  (with your own badge!)

2  Having an all expenses paid trip out to meetings and events?

3  Stand around at shows with your badge and do s1d all to do anything to actually help to put the event on?

4  Wielding a particularly nasty method or two of dissuading members from taking over 10 or 2) above??

 

Baz 

 

 

Another way of doing it is to have a committee composed only of "roles". In other words members who actually take on specific roles in the society such as membership secretary, treasurer, editor, librarian, archivist, sales officer, exhiibition organiser, webmaster etc.  according to the society's requirements. That way everyone on the committee is actually working for the society's members and in a large society the "roles" may well have deputies or even small teams of members which should also take care of succession.  You might then directly elect the Chair but nobody else just stands for the commitee.  

This is not the same as people getting onto the committee and then divvying up the roles. It's doing the job that makes them committee members.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Pacific231G

[hayfield]

12 hours ago, sir douglas said:

"not in trade" sounds absurd since the whole point of founding it is to support the trade. they arent directly supporting them its more like these little booklets that come through our letterbox  occasionally of adverts of local businesses

 

i just had a look at the Guild's history page and one of the first things the founders did was do a production of over a million chairs

 

https://www.gaugeoguild.com/general/history.aspx

"An initial capital of £25 was raised to get the Guild off the ground and the principal stated aim was to convince the trade that there was still a viable market for the scale. An early success was to persuade Bonds to make a new mould for their rail chairs and within a year they had sold over a million!"

 

 

The biggest benefit of joining the EM Gauge Society is the stores, the savings I make on track parts alone pays for my subscription. There is a massive market of new 0 gauge modelers to tap into, rightly the RTR trade has realized this and invested accordingly. Perhaps the Guild should take notice

[MarcD]

It's been an option of mine for some time that 7mm both standard gauge and narrow will split and not along age but along RTR and "fine scale" modelling. And there is nothing anyone can do. The Guild in its ostrich mode have not latched on to this. There isn't the skills to build complex kits and with certain "senior" guild members not being willing to embrace kits made from anything manufactured from anything else other than brass it pushes people in the direction of RTR.  

I'm in my 40's I model S7 and fine scale narrow gauge but I am an engineer so do have the skills.

Marc

[Joseph_Pestell]

13 hours ago, sir douglas said:

"not in trade" sounds absurd since the whole point of founding it is to support the trade. they arent directly supporting them its more like these little booklets that come through our letterbox  occasionally of adverts of local businesses

 

i just had a look at the Guild's history page and one of the first things the founders did was do a production of over a million chairs

 

https://www.gaugeoguild.com/general/history.aspx

"An initial capital of £25 was raised to get the Guild off the ground and the principal stated aim was to convince the trade that there was still a viable market for the scale. An early success was to persuade Bonds to make a new mould for their rail chairs and within a year they had sold over a million!"

 

As I read that, GOG just influenced Bond's to do it. GOG did not produce anything.

 

That is not meant as a criticism. It's a perfectly reasonable position for GOG to take when there are manufacturers out there with the capacity to produce what is needed. Other scales/gauges are not in quite such a position and are more involved in the production process. 

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, Lantavian said:

 

There's nothing wrong with being old.

 

But when the average age of committee is just over 71 years, then it's obvious that one age group is dominating the running of the society, and may not take into account the interests of all members.

 

It would be just as bad if the committee's average age was 25. Who might understand the needs of members over-65?

 

People may be put off from joining if one clique, however defined, is in control and the prospective member comes from a different background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One way that might solve some of the problems, which I have seen elsewhere although never in a model railway group, is to make it possible to ‘job share’ committee roles, so that two people effectively divide the duties of one role between them. If it is an elected role then they run for election as a pair in the first place. There are possible issues with some of this but it helps to reduce the problem in which only some sections of the membership have the time to commit to these roles.

 

As trade has been mentioned, has G0G ever had a secondhand sales operation? Is this actually a thing that scale/gauge groups generally do, or is it only the 009 Society and 7mm NGA that have done this?

[009 micro modeller]

2 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

As I read that, GOG just influenced Bond's to do it. GOG did not produce anything.

 

That is not meant as a criticism. It's a perfectly reasonable position for GOG to take when there are manufacturers out there with the capacity to produce what is needed. Other scales/gauges are not in quite such a position and are more involved in the production process. 

 

This is interesting as it suggests lobbying the manufacturer to produce something for general sale, as opposed to what is seemingly now the more common situation of commissioning something to sell to members specifically (thus also giving another reason to join the group).

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Another way of doing it is to have a committee composed only of "roles". In other words members who actually take on specific roles in the society such as membership secretary, treasurer, editor, librarian, archivist, sales officer, exhiibition organiser, webmaster etc.  according to the society's requirements. That way everyone on the committee is actually working for the society's members and in a large society the "roles" may well have deputies or even small teams of members which should also take care of succession.  You might then directly elect the Chair but nobody else just stands for the commitee.  

This is not the same as people getting onto the committee and then divvying up the roles. It's doing the job that makes them committee members.

 

Basically, I agree with this approach. It is how most societies are run - not just in our specialised field.

 

But you are talking there about the day-to-day activities of running the membership services. I think that it is good to have a Management/Operating Committee of those officers so that they can liaise with each other. When the Society becomes big enough to need to incorporate, there is also a need for a Committee (Board of Directors) to run the company. That is a separate function and it may well be better to have different people in that role. How each entity is appointed/elected is a matter for the wider membership and/or shareholders to agree.

 

In one association that I was involved with until recently (WineGB), we needed to have two classes of shareholders to make things work.

[GlenPudzeoch]

I've been a member twice.

the Gazette is good, and has encouraged me to spend money, which is good.

 

I first joined just after a big issue in the politics about which I know little, but sounds to have been a bitter exchange.

 

There were some members who were fireproof and any hint of critisim or challenge of comments resulted in a significant number of supporters rallying to them - this incuded defending comments which would now be seen as offensive, possibly anti-semitic  and possibly homophobic.

 

I felt the comments about one member being asked to review a rtr brass A3 was very much - well, its ready to run, I really don't know, we've never had this before- do we actually do reviews of rtr? They did. In fairness not a bad review.

 

A review of a loco kit by a member - did mention issues but a very aggressive response from the manufactuer.

 

equally a review of a kit by a member also a professional builder who had made alterations to the kit outwith the plans and the review was disparaging. The manufacturer had to persuaded to not withdraw the kit  he did withdraw from attending shows - not a good result.

 

A fried and I did not get our Gazettes. He phoned and sorted his issue it - he asked if there was an isue with GlenPudzeoch's magazine too. He was given by address details by the person on the phone and was told I was no longer a paid up member of the Guild.  I could get very unhappy about this breach of data protection security.

 

I have been to several O gauge clubs in Scotland and England,  At one I was asked to show my Gauge O card.  The Guild may not have associated clubs, but some clubs clearly associate with it - this may not be within the Guild's control, but if it is against their rules they need t make clubs listing with them know.

 

One club memntione dthey had built  a test track with money from the Guild.  When I went to a different club who had issues with a test track needing replaced they advised that they had been told the Guild did not give money to clubs etc for building things....

 

I asked in their online forum when new about whether the Guild arranged discounst on sales items from traders.  I was slapped down - how dare I not know that the aim of the Guild was to show the trade that there was a market for them selling O gauge items.

Well it didnt work for Just Like the Real Thing

It didn't work for JM Models

It didn't work for Bachmann brass

It has not worked for Tower Models

Can the Guild list their successes?

 

Competitions - it's nice for the builders and if they produce models or build professionally great advertising but ....?

 

Telford and Kettering great foer the midlands, but useless for Scotland or the south. (I know there are shows in Pollokshaws and Linlithgow but they are not Guild organised ones.

 

If there is a clause saying a member has to have been a member for 10 years before they can seek office it would be liable to legal challenge for age discrimination and would make an interesting case.

 

A scale organisation which covers fine scale, narrow gauge, coarse scale and live steam, electric and radio control has a lot on its plate - I wish them well, but my experiences above suggest they have a long way to convince me to rejoin.  Convince me, and I'll happily rejoin.

 

 Glen P

 

 

 

[chris p bacon]

22 minutes ago, GlenPudzeoch said:

If there is a clause saying a member has to have been a member for 10 years before they can seek office it would be liable to legal challenge for age discrimination and would make an interesting case.

 

I think it was established further back that there wasn't such a clause.  If there was I doubt it could be challenged as the rules/terms of the guild are voted on by the members and it could not be proved that it was age related (what is to stop a 16 year old joining and running for committee at 26)

[jim.snowdon]

3 minutes ago, chris p bacon said:

 

I think it was established further back that there wasn't such a clause.  If there was I doubt it could be challenged as the rules/terms of the guild are voted on by the members and it could not be proved that it was age related (what is to stop a 16 year old joining and running for committee at 26)

There is indeed no such clause, but I can understand how the perception may have developed. Essentially, the senior members of the Guild encouraged an informal system where to be considered as a candidate for higher office you had to have served time as a volunteer with one of the teams, or as an area rep., so that management got to know whether you were a 'good egg' or a reactionary. Reactionaries, as you might guess, are not encouraged.

 

Jim

[Joseph_Pestell]

5 minutes ago, Lantavian said:

 

Are such restrictions on members seeing the accounts normal in societies?

 

The members get to see the accounts. That is how they know that there is an eye-watering c £250k in "Miscellaneous Expenses". What Clause 10.4 is intended to achieve is the Treasurer's/Accountant's life being made impossible by endless requests from individual members about detailed items such as committee members' expenses. One can understand that.

It does not preclude a more detailed presentation of what those "miscellaneous expenses" are or any other part of the accounts that are of concern. Members could put forward a resolution at AGM or EGM to get more information.

In my view, the Directors would be wise to provide a bit more information voluntarily before it comes to that.

[GlenPudzeoch]

I would have expected any Auditor to report on a large sum in Mescellaneous Expenses or Sundries - good accounting practice is to have such items as a minimum and book headings with as much detail as possible for anyone looking at the accounts to see clearly and transparently what the enspenses are. 

 

In reality not many members look at, or disect Accounts of railway clubs. There are few "lower deck lawyers" than there used to be, but they exist.  It s after all their money.

 

If the Guild were a Charity is is likley that this would be highlighted.

 

Perhaps check the 2.30 at Haydock to see if "Miscellaneous Expenses " is running.  Or if it's berthed in Port Solent Marina!

 

Glen P

[GeoffAlan]

11 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

If true then that is a shame, particularly as they presumably have the means to do so (financially, even if the actual production needs to be sponsored/commissioned rather than made by G0G itself). As an example, the 009 Society has done some injection-moulded plastic kits in recent years - exclusive to members although I seem to recall that Dundas or somebody similar (not completely sure) were involved with actually making the mouldings. However, even in the very early days of the Society (1970s) there were apparently some wagon kits produced with hand-cut plastic sheet parts.

As do the N Gauge Society. They have kits, RTR rolling stock and soon a loco, mostly made just for them and available only to members.

[ianathompson]

28 minutes ago, GeoffAlan said:

As do the N Gauge Society. They have kits, RTR rolling stock and soon a loco, mostly made just for them and available only to members.

 

A little digression and probably off track. If so tell me and I will reach for the tin helmet and creep back under my stone!!

 

A few years ago I attended York exhibition where the N gauge society had a stand, packed with lots of N Gauge Society 'goodies'.

I picked up a 6 wheel brake (Stove R) and tried to buy one.

I was rather rudely told by the woman serving, in no uncertain terms, that I could not do so as I was not a member of the Society.

There was no sign to this effect on the stand.

 

My point is: why were they allowed to occupy space at a puiblic exhibition but only sell to their established members?

I would quite happily have paid a premium for buying an item available to members at a discount.

 

Ian T (A very infrequent attender of exhibitions)

Edited August 4, 2020 by ianathompson
grammar

[AY Mod]

3 minutes ago, ianathompson said:

My point is: why were they allowed to occupy space at a puiblic exhibition but only sell to their established members?

 

To show the products that were available to members visiting the show or to encourage non-members to join the society if they were interested in purchasing any of those items. Simple really.

[Phil Parker]

7 minutes ago, ianathompson said:

My point is: why were they allowed to occupy space at a puiblic exhibition but only sell to their established members?

I would quite happily have paid a premium for buying an item available to members at a discount.

 

The 3mm Society looked at this years ago. Selling to non-members involves some "interesting" tax overheads making the whole process more trouble than it was worth.

 

You could have paid for membership and bought the models. Presumably, you wanted to pay less than the £16 premium this would have been though.

[Mike Bellamy]

 

The Guild is a Limited Company and as far as I am aware, the accounts published are in accordance with the Company's Act and have been signed off by the Guild's accountants prior to submission as required by Company Law.

 

However under previous Treasurers, a more detailed breakdown was provided and published on the Guild website. For example, in 2013/14 the Board and Council expenditure was around £13,000, Administration £23,000 (including Artytype £12,000), Membership £19,000 (Artytype £13,000) and in the Events section we can see that in 2013 the hall hire at Telford was £33,000 (with other costs such as Artytype £6,000 and Miscellaneous £6,000!)

 

Since then, it seems the introduction of the clause mentioned above put a stop to that. That is why the Reform Group has given a commitment to press for greater transparency and a more detailed breakdown of the expenditure. After all, we are members and should have some idea where our subscriptions are being spent.

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest Jack Benson]

1 hour ago, jim.snowdon said:

There is indeed no such clause, but I can understand how the perception may have developed. Essentially, the senior members of the Guild encouraged an informal system where to be considered as a candidate for higher office you had to have served time as a volunteer with one of the teams, or as an area rep., so that management got to know whether you were a 'good egg' or a reactionary. Reactionaries, as you might guess, are not encouraged.

 

Jim

Sorry Jim, 

 

But I think that you meant to say radical - relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.

 

A reactionary response is exactly the GoG's approach - opposing political or social progress or reform.

 

Taking off the pedant's cap

 

Cheers and Stay Safe