Once again, the ESNG AGM has arrived – and gone again.  Amazingly, this is the 27th AGM of the club.  We’re getting quite aged – but nothing like as old as the club members.

For the neutral observer, our AGM’s are an exercise in managed mayhem.  They have never been the same after the passing of our President, who brought the rigors of the BP boardroom to a club wih a score of members.  It might have been more correct, but it wasn’t half as much fun!

The meeting was due to start at 7:30pm, but there was an extraordinary motion (rather painful?) to start the meeting early as all but one member likely to attend had arrived, drunk their cup of tea, and were seated ready to begin.  Said member shambled in during the discussion so we got things under way a bit early.

The committee reports were received with only limited heckling.  The committee realised years ago that it was safer to remove the fruit from the tins before the meeting started.  We did have a new report this year.  The Cha(i)rman has promoted himself to Catering Manager, so provided a report.  This sums up the state of British industry, when even the tea boy has delusions of grandeur.

There were the usual flood of nominations for committee posts.  Forget the secret ballot – a show of hands prolonged the agony of the existing members for another year.

We did have some useful discussions, though.  Having failed to hold our own exhibition this year, we may move the date a little later into May, when there seem to be less exhibitions in SE England.  I had resigned as Exhibition Manager last year, but I don’t think anyone believed me.  I need to do the impossible and may a three figure loss on the show to get sacked. 

We also discussed club projects.  We will carry on maintenance and make some improvements to our existing club modules.  For example, Raysden has a lovely GWR footbridge that won’t pass double-stack containers and the pantographs from Swiss Crocodile locos.  Brunel was spinning in his grave…..   We will also try out a few mini-modules, T-Track or the even smaller single track version, to get more members to make something.  We haven’t managed a club day out this year, but we may have another go, hopefully a little further afield than the local curry house.

The meeting closed around 8:30pm, and I thought, “Great, an early evening!”  However, being ESNG we continued to talk about everything else for quite some time…. 

As always, we could use a few more members, but we seem to have had a consistent number coming to our meetings.  We’re definitely solvent, and (mostly) enjoy the club activities.  Above all….