WYTHALL WORKS
With only six weeks including Christmas since the last report on site developments in 'Omnibus', there is relatively little to report. The most significant is that a start has been made on dealing with the café wall alongside the new ramp between this building and the Power Hall. Many visitors last year must have noticed the poor condition of this wall and wondered why we had not done something about it when other parts of the café had been refurbished. The answer is that we were worried about what would be found under the cladding and with all the other work in progress there was just not time to deal with it. Now we know that the reason the wall is bulging is that the weight of the roof is pushing it outwards! Fortunately it is repairable and over the next week or so reinforcing uprights will be put in so that by March reopening it will all be back together again.
Still with the shop and café building, John Rollings and Dave Potts have come up with plans to further improve the shop display and these will be implemented by the first event day of the 2008 season. The shop had a very good year for sales in 2007 which must have been due, at least in part, to the improvements made before that season so hopefully things will be even better in 2008. Another contributory factor to increased shop sales has been the ability to take credit card payment introduced in 2007. This is to be advertised more widely in 2008.
Not recorded on the Museum's stock list, although we sometimes think it should be, is my (well actually owned by others but I get to use it) large trailer. Over the years this has been pressed in to use for all sorts of use for collecting things or disposing of rubbish. Recently it got a major overhaul after the axle fell off but has since been pressed into use again. A recent visit to the local scrap yard with aluminium removed from buses being restored and other scrap metal netted a good return for the Museum.
Further to last time's notes on site developments, Cliff Byrne has got on well with fitting out the cloakroom for school parties and at the time of writing all that remained to be done was the painting.
One of the eyesore areas of the site has been the space below the conifers that separate the mess room from the grass car park area. This has been tidied recently with use found for many of the paving slabs and other items stacked neatly elsewhere on site. A new volunteer, Ted Thornton, further improved the appearance by completing the row of railway sleepers marking the edge of the car parking area. Professional tree surgeons have been on site recently dealing with overgrown boundary trees and tidying a stretch of hedge to encourage it to form a dense boundary rather than becoming long and straggly.
As always, thanks must go to the various volunteers who do all the routine and never ending jobs of keeping the Museum, both inside and out, neat and tidy.
Phil Ireland
Chapel Lane, Wythall, Worcs B47 6JX
Tel : 01564 826471 e-mail us
A registered educational charity no 507191
