The Great Get Together 2011
Report written by Brian Elvidge for our September 2011 Newsletter
Saturday 25 June 2011
Royal Artillery Barracks
Woolwich
Arriving at the Ha Ha Road entrance to the Greenwich Great Get Together at the Royal Artillery Barracks, I was greeted by Security and, not knowing where I had to go, was directed to the marquee under an activity tent banner. Frank Paine and Tim Surtell were already setting up around eight tables and covering them with blue cloths. They were soon joined by Chris Fry, Brian Leach and Chris Warrell, later by Peter Clay and Jim Arthur. Alan Wenbourne decided not to attend due to the likelihood of a shortage of tables, since he would have needed two for his London Eye model. In the event an extra table was taken from a stack of spare tables!
Our stand in the marquee
Soon we had nine tables of Meccano items on show, from early sets to modern models. I will mention a few here of note: Tim’s electronic game machine soon captivated the public and proved very popular, as were Chris’s Bridge and Peter’s Meccanograph models. The stands were also sprinkled with exhibition flyers which seemed to disappear alarmingly quickly.
Watch Brian Leach’s video of our stand
The power supply as usual at these events was problematical; the club did not possess a suitable 16A socket to 13A socket adapter, which had to be borrowed, after much persuading, and returned to a kindly neighbouring tent. Getting this supply up and running also proved an issue, with two power outages.
Much interest was shown by a first year university student studying Civil Engineering at Coventry who was keen to start building Meccano models and seemed genuinely interested in joining our club. Let’s see if he turns up to our September meeting as promised.
Tim Surtell keeps a watchful eye on one of many players of his electronic game
Frank Paine captivates the large crowd
The long day was very busy with the public, and it was enjoyed by most of the exhibitors, but some felt it to be too long, the event not finishing until 6:00pm. Even then, some time had to elapse before we could bring our cars back onto the field.