Warley MRC membership

Welcome to WARLEY MODEL RAILWAY CLUB

WARLEY MODEL RAILWAY CLUB is always ready to welcome new members. If you would like to find out more about the club, its membership and its benefits these notes should help. You will, of course, want to visit the club and to avoid a wasted journey it is recommended that you contact someone first. OO & N groups normally meet on Tuesdays, and O & EM groups usually meet on Wednesdays. There is also a Friday group, and also a Student Members club, meeting on alternate Friday evenings. There are a few evenings when the clubroom is not open, or when formal members meetings are taking place. This invitation is extended to everyone.

What's on offer

What does the club offer?

Joining us has lots of benefits. As well as being able to be part of probably the best model railway exhibition in the country, there’s the education, the chance to learn new modelling skills or develop existing ones, there’s the social life, and of course the layouts!

Expert members

Being in the club has the advantage that there’s always an ‘expert’ in your favourite subject, be it GWR steam, painting Virgin coaches, building Welsh narrow gauge layouts and so on. Tap into the huge amount of knowledge that these experts have. We’re all there to help each other.

More about us....

Social Life

The club organises social events from time to time, and these are great opportunities to meet those members that don’t make it to the clubroom every week.

Library

There is an extensive library of books, magazines DVD’s and videos, and these are available free of charge to members. As well as interesting browsing, it means that members can get modelling inspiration and then accurately research their next project.

Screwlink

SCREWLINK is the name given to our newsletter. This is issued several times a year and provides details of events in which the club is involved. It contains exhibition updates, notice of meetings, and other matters of interest to club members.

Club evenings

The main club evenings are Tuesdays Wednesdays & Fridays. As a general rule, the OO modellers meet on both Tuesday and Friday, N modellers on Tuesday; O and S7 on Wednesday, together with the EM group. Of course it is not rigid and members are welcome any or all evenings, which generally run from about 19:00 to 22:00. Committee meetings and general meetings are usually held on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Members are told about these as necessary.

Exhibition
The main focal point of the club is the annual exhibition at the NEC each autumn. As a member you will have an opportunity to get involved in the set up, the operation, and the dismantling of the country’s premier model railway show. The clubs wholly owned limited company-WARLEY MRC EXHIBITIONS LIMITED runs the exhibition.

Partners and Friends

Get your partner or friend to come along too! There are a million and one things that our partners or friends can do (and do better than us!) especially at show times, when their non modelling abilities can come to the fore. Without the help of many partners and other friends to organise ticket sales, look after the children, sell programmes, direct the public, etc, the show would never get off the ground.

Visit the Clubroom

Visit the club room

We would like to invite you to visit our Oldbury Club Room and facilities on virtually any club evening (the only time that we can not accommodate visitors is on formal meeting nights, so you might like to phone first). Our address is 1F, Pearsall Drive, Oldbury, West Midlands, B69 2RA

Membership - types

Membership

There are several types of membership available and these are designed to suit all needs:

Full	Full membership is available to all persons over 18 years of age.
Student	Open to all persons from the age of 12 years until their 18^th birthday. Student members shall be accompanied by a parent or adult appointed by the parents when the student attends the club rooms or club event. Parents of Student members may apply to join the club.
Associate	Membership is available for those who do not live locally. There are no voting rights with associate membership and is suited for those who want to be kept in touch with the club activities
Out of Town	Out of Town membership is available for people who live more than 50 miles away. This grade of membership contains voting rights and the right to stand on the committee, and is ideal for active members who can’t visit the club regularly.
Retired	Persons over the age of 60 are welcome as retired members.

Membership - how much?

All rates are per annum and there are various means of paying.

The following rates were approved at the AGM 2 March 2011

Full £120
Retired £78
Student £30
Associate £15
Out of Town Full £60
Out of Town Retired £39

As a cold statement you may feel that the subs represent a lot of money, but remember as a full member it is just over £2 per week - the equivalent of a lot less than two litres of car fuel, less than a pint in your local, less than a cup of coffee in a lot of places and less than a return trip to Birmingham on a West Midlands bus. Not only that, but for your subscription you have access to the clubroom on each and every club evening - currently 3 evenings per week; a free cup of tea or coffee every evening you attend (remember £2 a cup in most outlets); access to your own show - The Warley National - as well as the Open Days. I think you may agree that is not a bad return on being a member.

Layouts

Layouts under construction

At the moment there are several layouts being built, and these offer a good chance to get ‘stuck in-to’ a project, and make your mark. You might even help shape the way the final layout looks!

Scales & gauges

We have members interested in all the main scales & gauges: G 0, EM, 00, N, 009 and so on. We also have members interested in some of the not so popular scales. We even have our ever-popular ‘Thomas the Tank’ layout, which is always a great hit at shows and exhibitions.

Exhibitions
When the club gets invited to other exhibitions there is often the opportunity to be "one of the team". Of course this opportunity is greatest at our own exhibition.

Further Information

Further information

Hopefully this page has told you all you need to know, but if you would like further information, please e-mail the membership secretary: Chris Wright: members{at}warley-mrc.org.uk (replacing {at} by the @ sign or text/leave a message on 0794 107 2061.

membership application