Mickleover (Derby) 2nd & 3rd October

[Mike Bellamy]

Mickleover Model Railway Group's annual exhibition will be held this weekend - details below - although as I'm the only regular user of RMweb on the committee, I'm waiting for some information about a couple of layouts . . . . . . . information will be added as and when it is received as this has all been organised at rather short notice due to a few Covid related issues both within the Club and at the Community Centre. All now resolved and we are looking forward to maintaining the tradition of holding a local exhibition in Mickleover which we have done for more than 50 years

 

Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd October 2021.

 

Mickleover Community Centre, Uttoxeter Road, Mickleover, Derby, DE3 0DA.

 

Sat. 10.00am - 5.00pm  Sun. 10.00am - 4.00pm.

 

Adults £5. All accompanied children Free.

 

Clubrooms also open.

 

A total of 14 Layouts, 1 Demo & 5 Trade stands.

 

Seven combinations of scale and gauge - N, HO, OO9, OO, P4, O & Gn15.

 

The Old School Tearooms will be open for drinks and light refreshments.

 

Very limited parking available at the rear of the hall - entrance off Vicarage Road past the Library.

 

Layouts expected

 

In the Clubroom - Warner Street (O), Duffield (OO), Hillandale (OO).

 

In the Community Centre - Betley (OO), Splott (P4), Ella Road (OO), Fall Mill (OO9), Northworthy (OO), Derwent Valley (N), Cowley Yard (O), The Yard (Gn15), Croft Mills (OO), Combourg (HO), Thomas (OO).

 

Traders - Railway Bookshop, John Sammans, A2B Model Shop, Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, Club Second-hand Sales.

 

Demonstration - David Wright Scenic Modelling.

 

Out of the 14 layouts, seven have not been seen before at this show, in fact one wasn't even bare boards two months ago . . . ! !

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by Mike Bellamy

[Mike Bellamy]

 

First edit to above information - spelling of Combourg (a French trolley bus layout) which makes seven layouts that have not been to this show before - and as we always have layouts that belong to the club or its members, it just shows the variety of interests within the membership.

[andyram]

Looking forward to attending the show with my A2B Model Railways trade stand and getting to a chance to catch up with some old friends. Always a good show and well worth a visit.

[Mike Bellamy]

Second Edit to above information - I now have the names of all of the layouts and one that I was led to believe was a small O Gauge is actually 1/24 scale using 16.5mm track so I guess we'll call that Gn15. That means that for a small show with 14 layouts in the village hall, we now have 7 different scale / gauge combinations and there can't be many bigger shows that can offer that. Whilst I do of course appreciate that OO is by far the most popular, it's good to see plenty of variety rather than several layouts that are the same (personal opinion and not all will agree with me)!!

[ELTEL]

Hi Mike

 

Hope to make it over the weekend.

 

Terry

Stafford Railway Circle 

[Mike Bellamy]

 

Pleased to say we had a very successful weekend which exceeded our expectations. A great number who I served on the door were first time visitors and most were local. We have to ask if they have been before as the show makes use of all three rooms in the Community Centre and we also have our clubroom open with three larger static layouts that won't fit in the centre - so I spent most of the two days telling them which way to go so they didn't get lost - I was told I sounded like an air hostess - 'toilets on the left and refreshments in the tearooms on the right'.

 

At times when we weren't busy I would ask how they had found out about the show and was surprised at the number who said they had seen the show advertised on Facebook. We paid the local paper for this and for £240 they sent targeted adverts for 7 days to all those who were linked to their Facebook pages. As part of the deal we also got a full page advert in the paper (as they need to fill the space as they don't have any news) - the same deal in 2019 for the same cost only gave us 1/8 page advert. 

 

Previously we had charged £4 for adults (inc OAP) and £2 children but this year changed to £5 adults and all children free and it was noticeable especially Sunday afternoon how many young families were there - obviously not enthusiasts but just a family day out. End result was that numbers were not far off previous years with 230 adults Saturday and 157 Sunday - plus an unknown number of kids.

 

We had notices up to encourage wearing a face covering and I had mask on - many people read the notice and/or saw me and pulled a mask out of their pocket - although it was noticeable that some had seen a lot of use and couldn't be described as clean! We did have masks available for free for those who wanted one but out of almost 400 visitors only about 15 were taken. Couple of minor issues when setting up - a 16ft layout won't fit in an 8ft space and the 14ft layout had a 10ft space with the fiddle yard right across the main entrance door - both resolved before the exhibition manager had arrived !!

 

A great success and this is where I would normally remind you about the big Derby show in May - but that isn't going to happen. As reported elsewhere on RMweb, Derby College who operate the Roundhouse closed immediately on first lockdown last year and as soon as they were able to reopen the college they said they needed extra space for the students and they closed their subsidiary company Roundhouse Events, switched off the website and made the event staff redundant. We had dates booked and deposits paid for the next three years and this was all refunded. We are still trying to decide what to do as we are not aware of any affordable venues in the area.

.

[laurenceb]

Talking to your organiser ( can't remember his name ) at the swopmeet last week, he said that if the total at the show was 18% down he would be happy. He must be very happy today.

[big jim]

Mickleover is one of my ‘must go’ small shows I try to make an effort to get to but I’ll be honest I didn’t see it advertised anywhere this year and must have totally missed this thread too, gutted

 

oh well always next year

 

 

[Mike Bellamy]

Sorry Jim, it was a late decision to go ahead and we missed the Railway Modeller deadline for advertising - the October issue comes out early September so cut off date was around mid July - I think it's 6 weeks before publication. Our near neighbours at Nottingham (Clifton) 18/19 Sept were affected in the same way as they also missed out on a Modeller advert.