As the title and time of publication suggests, it is the holiday season. As I write this to you a few days into 2023, I’d like to take this opportunity, especially if you didn’t hear it from me, to wish you a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year. It’s the time for celebration, gift giving, setting promises to ourselves we may never keep and letting go a bit for than just the finances. However for me, this is probably a very good space to summarise 2022 and the Thamesiders as a year, and what we as a group are looking forward to in 2023.

As you saw from the previous information and our calendars, December was the downtime month in terms of physical layout meets, where we met for the Annual General Meeting and Christmas Lunch. The main points from the AGM I recall are the well deserved recognition and appreciation of the hard work Paul E did in setting up and managing the NMRA May Meet for us, and the motion to make Martin G an Honorary Member. We also discussed at a high level our annual subs and our event for 2023, the Open Day at St Osyth.

There was also time allotted for the annual bring and buy between members, where I recall in earlier years I staunchly stood against the ideal of selling any of my models, however moving in the direction of potentially starting to focus on a single era and area, I brought some items for sale this time around. After both sessions we moved on to the Christmas Lunch where I am afraid to say I didn’t manage to get many pictures. Apologies; I was enjoying it a little too much! Maybe next year…?

Next time I’ll be sure to get the waitress to get a group photo, but there will be plenty of opportunity to grab something in 2023 so watch out guys…

For me the meal at the Swan was a welcoming closure to what had been a lovely year (in my opinion). Now before you roll your eyes at me, let me defend the claim…

Already mentioned was the May meet, and although we weren’t the biggest show in town we did get our expenses covered and had some well-rounded interest from the local groups and villages.

Obviously the May meet goes to the top of the list, but some of the other noteworthy achievements include the HO changing the setup by introducing the 7×0 layout (previously mentioned as the 5×2 or 7×2).

The N Scale saw some good progression in terms of scenery, particularly the crossing at Taggart.

And let’s not forget Paul H being able to secure a storage solution for us. This was highlighted during the AGM and from my perspective has played a key role in having better access to our inventory. This also allowed Mike A to kindly bring Laxton up (HO branch) where it is now stored with the other layouts.

This obviously isn’t every highlight, and I implore you to look back through the blog to see individual meets as well as the Ditchlight, but for me these were some of the good, well-rounded achievements for us this year as a group.

Looking forward to 2023 then, the main excitement will be our open day at St Osyth, currently set for 24 June. We’re not planning to run this as big as we did for the May Meet in 2022, but with reservations for the hall running from the Friday eve this is the next step up from our usual physical meets. We’ll be looking to distribute some localised publicity for the community as well as some of the local clubs over the next few months.

At the AGM there was also discussions around getting Laxton up to speed and aligned with the Essex Belt Lines. One key component of those discussions was around aligning the two sets of modules in a way where we could directly utilise the EBL staging, instead of having to complete a loop on the main before our trains could gain access to Laxton. I’m excited to see how that comes along, as well as what I can do to support such a venture.

There have also been some interest from a few members regarding making our own modules. I must profess I have started looking into this prospect so will be looking forward to doing something beyond the starting board I have (below).

So 2023 is set to be another good year I think. Aside from getting some working modules running, my only other resolution this year is to move forward with focusing on a specific era and area, and to really up the ante when it comes to publicity for the N Scale.

Just under 12 months to go; here’s to maybe achieving at least one of those goals, and for another great year ahead of us…

Happy modelling and see you soon!

Neal K.