London Model Engineering Exhibition 19th -21st January 2018
As most of you will know this is a three day show and coincides with the World Masters Snooker Event at the same venue.
Set up was Thursday afternoon and as is the way now all came together smoothly.
Our favourite watering hole is the Springfield, normally a 10 minute drive from Ally Pally and close to Bounds Green tube station. On Friday evening it was 30 minutes, a combination of snooker traffic, us and Friday evening rush hour! We like it so much that we were there for all three nights. The manager was so appreciative of our custom that we were given complimentary desserts on our final evening. Chris Oakes liked it even more and stopped there on his way home, I think Nick Beard may have been with him as well making it four consecutive evenings!
There were seven of us on duty, Richard Hallam couldn’t be with us due to illness, we all wish him a speedy recovery.
We were asked to be on parade by 9am on Friday morning to attend a press event as part of the push by government to support 2018 Engineering Year; the minister in attendance was impressed by our small engineering marvels and came to our stand when invited by our chairman Adrian Campbell. We expect to get some good publicity from this a members of the national press were also in attendance.
The attendance was at a similar level to last year, but we were extremely busy on all three days, but particularly so on Saturday. The organisers noted this, which is good news.
I spent most of my time manning the technical help desk; it only quietened off a little on Sunday afternoon. Nick also had a successful show with the shop, which is great news as it supports your club, many thanks to all those who support the shop.
Tony Whibley came along and collected his Flying Scotsman on Saturday; we wish him many happy steaming miles.
We also had the opportunity to purchase an unused Flying Scotsman set, which will be appearing for sale shortly.
George James did an excellent job looking after the public loop, particularly with the younger members of the public. So much so that the grandmother of one young man gave George £20 to treat himself to lunch, where are the rest of us going wrong? See George in one of the pictures below.
We now move on to Doncaster on February 10th and 11th, we look forward to seeing you all there.
Maurice (Trigo)
George earning his £20!
Sorry Maurice, I shouldn't have accused you of being AWOL. I should have known better.
As far as the cameraman was concerned, I think that we must have been passing the parcel with him as I sent him to see Chris from the other end of the layout. He must have arrived at Maurice who then passed him on to Chris and the music stopped!!!