Hello Valued supporter of Project 22
When this project was started in 2014 we were full of excitement and optimism at the thought of building another Class 22 locomotive. A committee was quickly formed through a Facebook group and a Society formed. The level of interest and positive support was encouraging and P22 when on tour on the Heritage Railway circuit, it was very interesting and the membership grow very quickly.
A lot of work was done with a small committee of 7 people. Over the next 2 years, the committee was reduced to only 4 active members and the realisation dawned on us that P22 was formed with nothing that was technically tangible other than an initial feasibility review and it was going to take years of work to complete the technical and design requirements required to take the project forward.
Being a society with membership required a lot of work a hundred members paying £15 a year needs a lot of attention for very little return, so In 2018 it was decided to put the Society aspect of the group on hold, no longer have members, and only ask for Investors to make a monthly contribution to help fund the technical work needed. This was successful and the income increased from £150 a year to £5000 a year of donations. We managed to buy an engine, hundreds of drawings needed for the design and fund the website. We also purchased some unique Class 22 memorabilia for the stand, including a builder’s plate and set of gauges from D6319. Other than this spending P22 funds does not happen we just save. As of today, we have nearly £20,000 saved from donations and sales of our two Class 22 books. We do have 2 loans, which are long-term and would only be paid up if the project stopped, to the value of £4000.
So today we find ourselves in the difficult position of deciding what to do next. With people expecting regular up-dates, which isn’t unreasonable if you are making donations to the fund, we find that we don’t have the people to produce the “Lister” Journal. The technical design work is progressing but only at the pace that would be expected be from two people doing this as a hobby, even though it is being done very well, it is impossible to forecast a time scale of when the project could be relaunched and make substantial progress, other than to say we are almost ready to get quotations to build the mainframe with all of the CAD and design work completed. (This has taken 3 years to complete)
We were able to locate a Voith transmission, the exact type needed for the project from an Italian Company, Dinazzano Po. Unfortunately, we were not able to raise the funds needed because we have stopped proactively fundraising, our marketing has stopped. It’s a shame because we spent 3 years locating it by making contacts across Europe. However, we now know that transmissions are available and what they cost, leaving us in a better position. We have always believed that the only thing that would stop this project is us deciding we didn’t want to do it anymore. It’s still feasible if we could find the right people who would want to see a Class 22 built, but more importantly, would have the times and skills needed to really re-launch the Project?
We have had a number of people offer to volunteer but we struggled to find something practical to do, especially without the stand visiting shows. So this small group has a decision to make about the future where we don’t want to waste the good work already done so far. We have an excellent springboard for a great project, if we had what we had today when we started things may have been very different now. This up-date is also an appeal to see if any people would like to come and take this forward as it would need a committee, there are only a few left from the original organisation.
We know that we can find the right committee of dedicated people, it just takes time. The positions we are looking for include, Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, Website Manager, Newsletter Editor, Archivist, Education Officer, Membership Secretary, and Project Leader. We need ideas and a new plan going forward and create a new proactive committee. The eventual aim is to create a Charitable Organisation to take over our society so that our committee will become the trustees. This is a big step but needs to be done if a Class 22 locomotive is going to be built.
Please contact us if you would like to take up one of these important roles on the committee so we can all make the right decision to go forward. If we can get enough interest we will organize a meeting where we can meet and discuss plans for the future.
Dough Parfitt and Richard Benyon
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