Richard has stolen my thunder, so that there is not much else left to say! Theoretically, my role is do things at these meetings, and on other occasions, if Richard is otherwise engaged; since this hasn’t happened yet, I have virtually nothing to say. Also due to the fortunate circumstances around the appointment of our new editor, I didn’t even have to help in producing the magazine last year.

When it comes to important decisions, it’s great to see that the committee members are almost always in agreement. As a result, my wife, Elaine, and I have had the opportunity to enjoy frequent long holidays in the confidence that RR is in safe hands.

Due to other commitments, like our first grandchild (living 450 miles away), our railway rambling has been rather limited lately. However, we were delighted to be around in the Chilterns Area on New Year’s Day to lead Geoff Sargeant’s walk along the Grand Union Canal, when he and Rosemary were in hospital, and we’ve joined in on several walks in the Scottish Area. It’s great to see Geoff back in fine fettle – long may his RR and other walking continue!

During some of our local walks we have explored the possibility of dividing the Scottish Area into two parts, to cut down the travelling involved, but haven’t yet come to any decision – a discussion point.

Dear Graham,

Many thanks for your letter. Yes, I would be delighted to carry on as your President as I do so enjoy reading your bulletin magazine. Nice to keep in touch and regards to you all.

David

I have pleasure in presenting the accounts for year ended 31 December 2009. We have had a financially successful year with increased income and reduced expenditure, resulting in a surplus on the General Fund of £2,001.83. Subscriptions from new members increased by £276 and renewals by £110.

The costs of Railway Ramblings have remained constant but I expect an increase in the current year because of the extra numbers distributed and additional printing, distribution and postage costs.

Area expenses were claimed by Eastern, Midlands, North West, Southern, Wales and Yorkshire groups. These have all been within the current £2.50 capitation per member. As costs are increasing, I recommend that this is raised to £3.50.

In view of the Club’s healthy financial position I recommend that subscription rates remain unchanged.

The Footpath Fund has benefited from donations from members 'rounding up' their subscriptions.

Interest on our Alliance & Leicester account has reduced in line with general interest rates, and we are now receiving 0.10% compared with 4.45% two years ago.

If there are any questions that cannot be answered in my absence I will be happy to send a written explanation.

I would like to thank all members for their support and cooperation over the past year and have pleasure in proposing adoption of the accounts.

• Railway Ramblers' website: 74
• 'Railway Walks', BBC4/BBC2: 61
• Via existing member: 25
• Along Lost Lines by Paul Atterbury: 11
• Membership applications submitted on forms supplied with RR colour leaflets: 9
• Railway & Canal Historical Society: 5
• Disused Stations website (www.disused-stations.org.uk): 6
• Ramblers' Association: 3
• Branch Line Society: 2
• 'Steam Railway': 2
• A Walk along the Tracks by Hunter Davies: 1
• Old members rejoined: 1
• Railway Magazine: 1
• Railway magazine/book (unspecified): 1
• Walking Old Railways by Christopher Somerville: 1

Graham Lambert commented that it could clearly be seen that the last two years had witnessed significant increases, namely 28.75% and 23.66%, making 59% for these two years, following eight years of static membership. While the report itself made good reading, the statistics for 'lapsed members' could be cause for concern, particularly as in the first quarter of the current year the numbers were higher in those areas with good walks programmes, which rather contradicted the committee’s concerns that would be discussed later in the meeting.

Following the resignation of the previous editors, Hilary and Maurice Blencowe after they produced issue no. 123, I took over the post in September 2009. I have produced three issues to date. I wish to thank the former editors for handing over so smoothly and for all the work they have done in editing 'Railway Ramblings' for many years. It is only now that I realise what a massive and thankless task it is!

There have been teething problems since I took over and I wish to apologise to the membership, particularly concerning omissions of part of the walks programme in issue no. 125. When I agreed to become editor, I did not realise the scale of the job and the time needed to produce each issue.

I moved forward from the previous editors’ approach by preparing the complete magazine in Microsoft Publisher. I believe this was the correct decision. However, the current layout, font type and size still leave room for improvement. For every issue, there is a substantial amount of reformatting required, partly due to the varied forms of submissions from walk leaders and the general membership. The source of notes and news items can be varied and duplicated. Much raw material is too wordy and requires précis. The walks programme from the different areas needs a standard template.

In the next year, assuming I am elected to continue, I want to address some key issues for the magazine. In particular:

• What is the magazine for? To be read for entertainment? Informative, e.g. by publicising walks programmes? Educational, i.e. a source of accurate information on former railways? Current? This is difficult to achieve with a quarterly issue
• Is it still needed now we that have extensive web coverage?
• Should the format be improved? Possibilities include increasing the font size (10 is too small for an ageing membership), changing the font to Verdana or Arial for clarity, and changing the magazine size to A4 (larger font and larger pictures).
• Should the magazine have more/less pages
• Should the magazine be issued monthly?
• Is some of the current content more suited for the web?
• Are there additional features that should be included?

I appreciate that this report will not appear in the magazine until the autumn so members' views will not be considered for at least 6 months, so – for now – it is more of the same!

It has been encouraging and pleasing to see so many new members join in 2009-2010. This has kept me busy with the mailing operation. A member did suggest to me that we could use TNT instead of Royal Mail. I followed this up with TNT and they rather 'flattered to deceive'. Following an encouraging chat with one of their reps, they showed themselves to be not really interested in the job as emails went unanswered. I daresay we can look at the idea again with a different carrier, at some stage, subject to committee approval?

These days I am tending to find there is not much price advantage with brown manilla envelopes versus white envelopes, so if anyone wonders about this it is because we've had a good deal on the white envelopes!

I must hold up my hands and say there were perhaps half a dozen glitches (I hope it wasn't any more than that!) during the year where I slipped up, so apologies to any member affected.

Main Developments During 2009

• Further pages were added to the website, including ten new photo galleries and a section for the year’s news.
• The online gazetteer was completed with every entry (except the few in Ireland) including six figure grid references.

Key Statistics to 31 December 2009 (with last year’s figures in brackets)

• Number of pages accessible to the public: 110 (86)
• Number of pages accessible to members: 116 (92)
• Number of visitors to end of year: 83,471 (59,252)
• Number of visitors this year: 24,219 (18,708) – up 29% (28%)
• Pro rata number of visitors per month: 2,018 (1,559)
• Pro rata number of visitors per week: 466 (358)
• Pro rata number of visitors per day: 66 (51)
• Proportion of new visitors: 86% (85%)
• Proportion of returning visitors: 14% (15%)
• Number of in-bound links from other sites (but note that these statistics vary widely, which makes it difficult to judge their accuracy and reliability):
  • Per www.submitexpress.com: 521 (870)
  • Per www.yahoo.com: 248 (N/A)
  • Per www.google.co.uk: 136 (N/A)
• Amount of server space available: 100 megabytes (100 megabytes)
• Amount of server space used: 86 megabytes (62 megabytes)

Recurring Costs

• Website hosting by Madasafish (now a subsidiary of British Telecom): Nil (Nil).
• Facility to update from any broadband connection: £19.56 (£20.00) p.a.
• Telephone calls via standby dial-up connection: Nil (less than £10).
• Message board by Boardhost Inc.: $61.58 ($61.58) p.a. or £39.44 (£32.28) p.a. after currency conversion and bank charges in November 2009.

Forthcoming Problems and Proposed Action

The club may run out of web space in 2010, and will definitely do so in 2011. This is earlier than expected and arises from the expanded gazetteer and the amount of news now being published. Some compression is possible, e.g. by reducing the resolution of pictures (indiscernible on screen), but this is a short-term solution only. An extra 100 megabytes of space from www.123-reg.co.uk will cost £2.49 p.c.m. (£29.88 p.a.), which is a small price to pay given the website’s value as a publicity and recruitment tool. There will also be some one-off set-up costs amounting to ca. £25.

Other Activities Promoting the Club

• Answered all e-mail enquiries, some of which should have resulted in new members.
• Updated all four Railway Walks books, which are now available from The History Press; further railway-related publications are planned for 2010 and 2011. All of these titles include a reference to the club in the ‘Appendix of Useful Addresses’.

Acted as consultant to:

• Plum Pictures Ltd. on episode 6 of 'James May's Toy Stories' (BBC2).
• The Gamma Project on episode 1 of a six-part documentary series about the history of railways in Great Britain (National Geographic Channel).

• Frequency of walks
• Months covered by the walks, e.g. throughout the year, March-October only, etc.
• Whether the walks are within the area or outside
• Average attendance per walk
• No. of walk leaders in the area
• Estimated no. of different members who turn out for area events during the course of a year
• No. of local newsletters per year
• The percentage of the budget spent by the area in a typical year
• Suggestions as to what the club could do to encourage more local volunteers and more local activities, with ideas from local members especially invited

Jeff presented the following report for debate:

Can the Club's Area Achieve More?

Findings to Date
The recent survey of area organisers has produced some interesting results but, at the time of writing this summary, I have not seen the response from every single area. These are the key points to emerge so far:

1. Many volunteers who lead walks are very busy people who feel that they are already stretched in terms of what they do.
2. The larger areas, such as Wales, need multiple walk leaders in order to cover the territory. The same is true of Scotland and the South West.
3. It would be useful for local members to provide the area organiser with their email address so that he/she can supply details of walks that are organised at short notice.
4. In some areas, the membership can seem inert and unresponsive. Bob Prigg remarks thus: ‘Most popular ideas [have been] tried, including monthly newsletters, appeals to get involved in planning, [an] appeal for requests - all of which have failed’.
5. Most areas claim nothing from the annual budget that is allocated to them.

To the extent that Railway Ramblers is a voluntary organisation dependent on the voluntary efforts of its members, the onus for improving the situation rests largely with the members themselves. However, the committee can make a number of suggestions which have been found to work in areas such as the South and Yorkshire. It is, of course, recognised that some of these are aspirational and can only be implemented if there are enough volunteers in the first place.

• Organise a team to run the area so that the workload is shared and a decent number of participants can be guaranteed for most events.
• Provide regular opportunities for members to contribute and do not hesitate on these occasions to ask for volunteers. The Southern Area holds an annual planning meeting, and the Yorkshire area a monthly social event.
• Use the article published in the Spring 2010 magazine (no. 125) for ideas to develop a varied programme of events.
• Make sure the programme reaches the editor by the magazine’s quarterly copy deadline to ensure publicity in the magazine – members from other areas may join your walks, e.g. when on holiday.
• Use the club’s message board to promote events.
• Use the budget available to finance local newsletters – a six- or twelve-monthly programme in advance is the minimum required.
• Contact Jeff Vinter for supplies of full colour posters and/or Pete Walker for supplies of full colour membership brochures.

The committee intends to re-consider how the areas can spend their budgets, in case this might have an effect on stimulating area activity. The current guidelines were formulated to control past over-spending but may now be too restrictive or even out-of-date. The relevant sections from the club’s Expenses Policy appear below.

Expenses which will be reimbursed are listed below.

For All Club Officers

• Postage
• Stationery, e.g. photocopies, envelopes, typewriter ribbons, files, folders, etc.
• Computer consumables, e.g. disks, toner/ink cartridges, computer paper, etc.

For Area Organisers

• Expenses arising from the organisation of walks and other events advertised to members generally, e.g. rambles over private land; trips by bus, minibus, train or canal boat; video or film shows; Christmas social events; etc. Note that expenses will be reimbursed only for walks which comply with the club’s rules (particularly in respect of trespass) and are carried out in the name of the club.
• Expenses arising from publicising the above events.
• Subsidies for the above events when the monies raised do not cover their full cost, although area groups should aim to make special events self-financing.

The committee also recognises that it is desirable to re-evaluate the club’s area boundaries. For example, the Southern Western area comprises Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset – one of the richest areas in the country for disused railways, but a massive region across which to expect members to travel for a day’s walking. It would be more sensible to divide the area up, e.g. into individual counties or pairs of counties. Should we wait for volunteers before doing this, or re-structure the area in the hope of encouraging volunteers to come forward?

Volunteers are frequently difficult to find and depend largely on having (1) a cause, and (2) a substantial membership. Other organisations, such as Camra and Sustrans, have had the same problems in the past, but have now achieved both widespread recognition for their aims and the ‘critical mass’ of a large membership. Over the last two years, supported by a number of books and television programmes, Railway Ramblers has made steps in the right direction, but are the club’s aims – and is its purpose – understood clearly enough by the public at large? Probably not. The traditional remedy is to spend money on publicity, but the committee has tried this in the past and spent considerable sums on advertisements in the railway press which yielded only a handful of new members. At the time, such new members cost about 20 times their subscription to recruit, so this is clearly not a viable option.

Therefore, it may be best to continue using methods which have worked in the past, namely books, articles in magazines, and television programmes. Obviously, the club has little influence over the latter, where whim, vagary and fashion have an influence. However, the History Press has proposed a programme of development for my Railway Walks books which will keep me busy – and the books in circulation – until 2018. Even if the club does nothing else, these books will be its biggest promotional tool for almost a decade, and will cost it not a single penny.

Following Jeff's presentation, the following suggestions were made:

• An experienced walk leader should 'take ownership' of an adjacent area where no walks were presently advertised and devise a programme of walks on publicly owned trails/cycle routes that were on former rail lines. This should require a minimum of organisation and members then taking part could be canvassed as to suitable future walk leaders and given help and advice in that regard.
• Make contact with The Ramblers' Association to ascertain if they plan walks on disused rail lines in those areas where no walks are advertised.
• Encourage members to write to other walking groups in their areas.
• Possibly seek publicity assistance from the club's newly elected Vice President, although it was pointed out that he is probably too busy with his existing professional engagements.
• Use AGM walks in poorly supported areas as a push to re-establish these areas, perhaps by issuing a newsletter in advance with details of the AGM events, followed by a subsequent walk in the area up to three months later; this would provide some activity in the area for a period and might be enough to set the ball rolling.
• Advertise directly to the members in poorly supported areas offering support and guidance.
• Split the larger areas, such as the South West and Yorkshire (even though the latter is an active area).
• Place an advert for walk leaders in 'Railway Ramblings'.
• Create a manual on 'How how to Organise a Railway Walk' and let the membership know of its availability.
• Ask members in 'no walk areas' to organise walks.

It was noted that some areas that previously had a programme of walks had discontinued them through lack of support – the expression 'use it or lose it' sprang to mind!

It was agreed that the Committee would study these suggestions and attempt to implement those deemed suitable.

It was noted that Phillip Earnshaw had recently agreed to take temporary responsibility for the Midlands, East and West, for which the meeting thanked him.