Derby was certainly the place to be this summer – The Greatest Gathering in early August was preceded two weeks earlier by arguably an even greater gathering for the Class 56 Group AGM on 19 July.  Following a change of venue to avoid potentially getting caught up in transport chaos around Bury when Oasis were playing nearby at Heaton Park on the same day, we decamped to the Alexandra Hotel in Derby, a venue we had been to previously with its wonderful display of railwayana and fine selection of beers.  And a Class 37 cab in the beer garden – but nobody’s perfect!

The meeting heard about the positive progress being made with 56006, following the influx of new volunteer effort and the transfer of ownership of 5301 to DCR allowing the Group to focus all of its efforts on preservation activities.  As well as participating at the ELR summer diesel gala, 56006 had been rostered for a number of other days which provided excellent running opportunities to keep the loco regularly operational.

A new array of merchandise was starting to generate sales income and the meeting was reminded that the 50^thanniversary of the entry into traffic of Class 56s would soon be upon us, particularly so for 56006 which was the first loco to run for BR in February 1977.

The meeting agreed to proposals to (1) change the date of the AGM and (2) streamline the membership structure.  Moving the AGM to a date in early to mid March would avoid the challenge of finding a date in the summer which didn’t clash with other events or holiday periods.  Changing the membership structure would help simplify our administration by using a database run from the Group’s website, as part of a desire to make more use of technology – thereby minimising the cost of paper-based activities.  In essence, the Group would move to have one category of membership, £15 per annum (subject to annual review), with any member who wanted to continue to receive a paper copy of Gridiron paying an additional £5 per year (also subject to annual review); Gridiron would be available to all members in an electronic format as part of the basic subscription.  The next issue of Gridiron (September 2025) would be issued to all existing members at the date of the AGM on paper, after which we would transition to the new model – although the change to electronic only or paying the £5 supplement for a paper copy would apply from the point an individual member renews. Existing concessionary membership categories would continue to be honoured (subject to annual review of fees) but no new memberships of these types would be issued.

The Group was embarking on an exercise to collect electronic contact information from members to help move to a ‘digital first’ way of working – not just in the delivery of Gridiron, but to assist in more general communications with members, to be able to act more quickly if there is news to pass on and to save money by not posting material.