Members of the Saturday team were busy at Chatham Historic Dockyard over the weekend with Martin, Brian, Joe , Andrew, David and Daniel together with the carnival float. So a good team effort.

They handed out information about the works in Ramsgate and the ship's time line leaflet as well as details of Dunkirk. Some remaining plastic "Dunkirk soldiers" were used to engage with families. Donations were welcomed of course! Footfall and engagement were good with many asking about the ship. The highlight was a visit by the "D Day Darlings" who performed on one of the two stages and who kindly posed with the ship model and lucky Joe Stokes. 

Photo: Martin Goodhew

The rest of us have been busy too. Mark and Pam, together with other Saturday team members have taken an information table to Ramsgate on Saturdays and pitched near the ship to collect donations, give out information and recruit new members - with considerable success.

Further afield Medway Queen West (aka Reading Support Group) have attended two events in September: a small railway club open day in Basingstoke on the 4th and the much larger "International N Gauge Show" in the Warwickshire Event Centre on 11th/12th. The latter is the group's largest regular event and a good outlet for the N Gauge model railway wagons. The group have sold 60 of their allocation of 85 models in about 3 weeks!

The PR teams are as essential to our project as the workshop volunteers. More help is always needed if you feel so inclined and details of suitable events for our attention would also be welcome.
​Contact info@medwayqueen.co.uk

On Monday, 13th September, a group of our volunteers and trustees were able to visit the yard and inspect the work being undertaken. Bob Stokes took the following pictures showing progress on the paddle wheels, deck railing stanchions and hull. Click on a picture to enter the gallery and then click < > arrows to step through the collection.

It doesn't really feel like hibernation as the group have concentrated on mail order and preparing various fund-raising schemes during the pandemic. New N gauge railway wagons are now available in cooperation with the GSNLRS. Dapol GPV in red and blue at £11.90 each plus £3.75 UK P&P per order. They'll be on the Medway Queen West pages of our website very soon.

The group's exhibition stand is coming back to life and there is movement, at last, on the long-awaited PS Ryde book. The exhibition stand was out for the first time since March 2020 yesterday, at a railway club open day in Basingstoke. Next weekend is the BIG ONE at "The International N Gauge Show", Warwickshire. Please note that the group is unable to process card payments. That will be reviewed but in the meantime it's cash, cheques or bank transfers - contact richardhalton1502@gmail.com.