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Medway Queen Preservation Society
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Salute to the '40s

23/9/2017

 
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Barry Ellen’s thirty year old model of Medway Queen, mounted on its carnival trailer, made its annual visit to the 1940s weekend at Chatham Dockyard on the 16/17th September. The model has had a major overhaul with navigation, masthead and purser’s office lights all now working. The impression of “steam up” being given by the smoke coming out of the funnel. This is thanks to Andrew Haskell who took on the overhaul job and who also towed the model round to the dockyard for the event.

We use this large local event to give out the latest information on Medway Queen’s progress and to “drum up” trade for the ship on subsequent weekends. This year we were in the excellent company of tribute acts to George Formby and Glenn Miller which added to the atmosphere. As usual it proved to be a busy weekend for giving out our details to prospective future visitors and for filling the collecting boxes. Thanks to all those who turned out as “crew” and to all those visitors who supported us.

​Brian Goodhew

It was a busy weekend

11/9/2017

 
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We hoped it was going to be a busy weekend and so it turned out. Entries for the Art and Photographic exhibition on board Medway Queen came from students at MidKent College and elsewhere, including our own members. Thank you all. We had a good stream of visitors, a number of whom had only just heard of the ship and came for the first time, as well as a couple of possible new volunteers. Footfall for Sunday alone was estimated at almost 80 visitors with many saying that they wanted to return at a later date for an official guided tour.
 
The whole point of Heritage Open Days is that admission is free so it was never planned to be a money spinner. Some exhibits were sold and that along with refreshments, donations and shop sales brings in some much needed income. We achieved the aim of getting our message to different groups of people, some of whom will be interested enough to return and do the guided tour on a normal open day. If you are one of them please do follow up on the event and come back for the tour.
 
By contrast, in the far regions of Warwickshire, many miles to the North West, our Reading Support Group were actively adding fund-raising to their efforts to spread the word about Medway Queen. The group have never taken “Reading” in their title to be any sort of geographical limitation and The International N Gauge Show is one of the larger events that the group regularly attends. This year saw exceptionally high levels of interest and sales takings. Saturday is always the busiest day and our daily record was duly shattered (as were our volunteers); the weekend as a whole was equivalent to 5 days of average activity! It is also some distance from “base” so we got to know the M40 quite well in the process.
 
We need to undertake more of these types of activity both on Gillingham Pier and further afield in the way the London & South of England Support Group (based near Swanage), Mark and Pam Bathurst (talks) and the Reading Support Group do. The limitation is numbers of volunteers in the relevant teams. If you think you can help, locally or further away, in any capacity, please get in touch via the website contact page. Even if you want to help but are not sure how, come and talk to us, we'll find something for you..

Preparing for a busy weekend

5/9/2017

 
Not long now to the Heritage Open Days weekend and the Art and Photographic Exhibition on board Medway Queen. Some exhibits have already been delivered (by prior arrangement) to the Visitor Centre and more are known to be on their way. Friday afternoon is the big set-up time when you can just turn up with exhibits and your entry form - which can be downloaded from our website. The show will be open, with some exhibits on sale, from 11am to 4pm on both Saturday 9th September and Sunday 10th.

Remember, for this weekend only, admission to the ship is free for everyone. The souvenir and bookshop will be open of course and Roy still has secondhand transport related books for sale as well as the usual round of Medway Queen souvenirs, books and so on.
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Click for Art & Photo Event Details
It really is a busy weekend for the society! During this same weekend, Reading Support Group will be at The International N Gauge Show (TINGS) near Leamington Spa with their promotional and sales stand. This is one of the busiest shows in the group's diary and we hope that continues. Set up for us is on Friday 8th and then 2 full days Saturday and Sunday advertising Medway Queen and raising money for her. If model railways is your interest come and see us. Naturally, the society's promotional model railway wagons are one of the favourites at this event.
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Ship's boat on the Move

3/9/2017

 
The ship's boat, that has resided in the workshops for a number of years now, was constructed by our apprentices as part of the EU supported "Heroes to See" project. It was intended for one of our partner organisations in that scheme.

It does not appear to be wanted by that partner at present so we have made it available to the local Sea Scouts who collected it from our yard recently

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  • Home
  • MQPS
    • Work program
    • About MQPS
    • Contact Us
    • Our Sponsors & Links
    • Membership & Donations
    • Volunteers
    • Talks and Presentations
    • Medway Queen - West & Wagons
    • NHS-UK
    • General Steam Navigation
    • Pier Activity Arcade
    • HMS Medway
  • Events & Visits
  • History
  • News
  • SHOPPING