Scalefour Forum

Edited to add: Subsequently, the Covid-19 pandemic has been the reason for cancelling the 2020 Exhibition at Stoke Mandeville. - John McAleely


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Scaleforum 2020 will be at Stoke Mandeville Stadium Aylesbury on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th September 2020

10:30am to 5:30pm on Saturday (advance ticket holders from 10:15)
10:00am to 4:30pm on Sunday (advance ticket holders from 9:45)

An early post just for those who worry about such things

Advance ticket sales will open in July 2020

More details will follow in due course

All the Best
Danny

Well, I wonder if the stadium and Olympic Lodge will be vacated by the end of September? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-b ... s-52160852

Captain Kernow wrote:Well, I wonder if the stadium and Olympic Lodge will be vacated by the end of September? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-b ... s-52160852

Rest assured that the Committee virtual meeting has been in session for some time now about this year's Scaleforum, amid the current fog of uncertainty. This particular spanner clogs up the works quite considerably, but we're working on it. We want Scaleforum to happen just as much as you do, but life is not exactly easy at the moment......
Regards to all
TreasurerChris

Captain Kernow wrote:Well, I wonder if the stadium and Olympic Lodge will be vacated by the end of September? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-b ... s-52160852

Given that some seem to think that "normality" might only start to come back around August / September time, maybe it's too close to call at the moment

As the old Sydney Youngblood song goes, "all we can do is just sit and wait"

The talk amongst the university sector is that if they relax back to ‘social distancing’ then the next clamp down will be at the start of the Autumn semester, and Scaleforum occurs right at the start of that. So that begs the question about how we begin teaching and deliver lab based courses in science and engineering in the Windows that arise between lockdowns.

Any relaxing will cause the rate of hospital admissions to rise, it is a case of how many?. We really need to rely upon the scientist. At least their work is being made open access. It is worth reading. It is in accessible language.

https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/bits ... port-9.pdf

Thanks for that. Most interesting and not reassuring.

philip-griffiths wrote:It is in accessible language.

but it does include some statistical analysis.

It is one of a series on related topics, accessible at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/covid-19. Clicking on the "Find out more >" links will access a summary page, from which the respective Report .pdf can be accessed [this one is number 9].

I have briefly scanned through the report and it does make for depressing reading. Bottom line is, things are never going to be the same again, at least for some time and probably much longer than most are admitting to. Social distancing is likely to become the new norm.

stephenfreeman wrote:..... Social distancing is likely to become the new norm.

With that in mind, perhaps this year's Scaleforum will be a virtual one, which we can visit online

A virtual Scaleforum could be interesting, if a challenge to organise... There would be no excuse for "layouts that never leave home?"
If would be good if there was something?

Martin

Even if Scaleforum were to be put on, I am aware of people who, given their age (and consider the age profile of the Society's membership) have indicated that they would give the show a miss. They are not prepared a) to travel and b) mix with people from other parts of the country until there is either an effective treatment or a vaccine for this bug.

Given this attitude, in my opinion very reasonable, were Scaleforum to be staged, I imaging attendance would be seriously reduced and the consequent loss even greater than usual.

Wise comments David.

David B wrote:Even if Scaleforum were to be put on, I am aware of people who, given their age (and consider the age profile of the Society's membership) have indicated that they would give the show a miss. They are not prepared a) to travel and b) mix with people from other parts of the country until there is either an effective treatment or a vaccine for this bug.

Given this attitude, in my opinion very reasonable, were Scaleforum to be staged, I imaging attendance would be seriously reduced and the consequent loss even greater than usual.

A fair point to make and one which the committee will need to consider when the decision about whether we proceed is taken - and that won't be for a while yet. Of course if people wait until an effective vaccine or treatment is available it may be a very long time before they go to an exhibition or anywhere else again.

Terry Bendall

Terry Bendall wrote:Of course if people wait until an effective vaccine or treatment is available it may be a very long time before they go to an exhibition or anywhere else again.

And that, sadly (and particularly for those for whom a whole year represents a significant part of their remaining active life), may well turn out to be the truth of the matter, no matter how much some politicians may wish to convey the impression that the problem will just go away earlier. With considerable luck, we may be able to return to the absolute essentials of life sooner rather than later without killing too many people, but I suspect that the reality is that the majority of frills, including even holidays away from home, will just have to be suspended for 2020 and probably at least the first quarter of 2021 as well.

That may sound drastic but note that I live in Belgium where the (caretaker minority) government seems to be making a much more effective fist of controlling the whole issue than looks to be the case in anglophone countries.

Martin M wrote:A virtual Scaleforum could be interesting, if a challenge to organise... There would be no excuse for "layouts that never leave home?"
If would be good if there was something?

Martin

I have my views on the likelihood of Scaleforum going ahead (considering the possibility of the leisure centre being used as a hospital, and the issue of social distancing), but it's not my call other than as an individual.

Maybe there's an opportunity here to specifically involve only 'layouts that never leave home'? There's a lot of online innovation going on with other activities which may or may not suit us, but even if those members who have home-based P4 layouts could do some sort of video that can be hosted then that would be something.

I'm not so sure about a 500-person Zoom conference to go with it though ...

An aspect which has not been mentioned yet is those of us who have been asked to bring a club layout. Effectively work has ceased on any collaborative working. We have already missed one weekend when we were hoping to set up the layout in a hall. The local show in August we would have used as a dry run for Scaleforum may well not take place. We also have a problem in that we were expecting to produce a lighting rig in aluminium which required professional welding. Another spanner

I have much sympathy for the organiser of Scaleforum. Talk about a baptism of fire.

Tony Comber

Rod Cameron wrote:
Maybe there's an opportunity here to specifically involve only 'layouts that never leave home'? There's a lot of online innovation going on with other activities which may or may not suit us, but even if those members who have home-based P4 layouts could do some sort of video that can be hosted then that would be something.

I'm not so sure about a 500-person Zoom conference to go with it though ...

And can we see all of them in the forty minutes before Zoom kicks us out?

Makes a Saturday afternoon dash around Aylesbury seem like a blissfully long holiday...

Cheers
Flymo

David B wrote:Even if Scaleforum were to be put on, I am aware of people who, given their age (and consider the age profile of the Society's membership) have indicated that they would give the show a miss. They are not prepared a) to travel and b) mix with people from other parts of the country until there is either an effective treatment or a vaccine for this bug.

Given this attitude, in my opinion very reasonable, were Scaleforum to be staged, I imaging attendance would be seriously reduced and the consequent loss even greater than usual.

Very good points David.

Best wishes,

Nick.

I am inclined to write the rest of this year off. It's not just the possibility of catching this nasty thing, but the whole problem of social distancing.

Scaleforum is not as well attended as (say) Railex so in the same hall, at any Scaleforum we may, in comparison, already be practising social distancing. The problem really arises with demonstrators and interacting with traders. As has been pointed out, layouts need bringing up to scratch and testing before an exhibition and that is well nigh impossible if we are to keep at least 2m apart.

Social distancing and railway modelling are poor bedfellows.

We only talking about this last night. In my mind model Railway Exhibitions are in the same category as going out to pubs, restaurants and the cinema. There is no way that I can see them reopening this year. The problem will be that there will an insufficient number of us who will be immune to CV19 and hospital capacity/staff numbers won’t be high enough to handle those getting infected.

Since I’m one of those who have been advised to self isolate I’m not expecting to get out much. I won’t go to an exhibition or pub until I can be reasonable sure that I won’t get infected. Fortunately I’m happy at home dividing my time between modelling and the garden.

Penrhos1920 wrote:We only talking about this last night. In my mind model Railway Exhibitions are in the same category as going out to pubs, restaurants and the cinema.

The same applies to heritage railways. When/if things get back to some semblance of normality, they will probably be in the same category as exhibitions, pubs concerts, etc. Many of the railways are facing the same problems as other businesses with no income, and most have made appeals for funds since there are still bills that need paying.

Terry Bendall

I reckon that the whole covid thing will be over by the end of May. If shows are cancelled into the autumn it will be because of 'civil unrest' caused by the government playing safe and not lifting the lockdown.

Of course, we all have a choice of whether we listen to people who look at the real data, and those who make up stories as they go along.

I know that there is a health problem caused by the covid-19 virus.

I was unaware that the crow, rook, raven family of birds (genus Corvus) were in danger too.

Perhaps Bill can explain.

Keep well

Joe

Joe Newman wrote:I know that there is a health problem caused by the covid-19 virus.

I was unaware that the crow, rook, raven family of birds (genus Corvus) were in danger too.

Perhaps Bill can explain.

HTH
Flymo

I wonder what the birds in the picture are? They're probably not corvids...

Flymo748 wrote:

Rod Cameron wrote:
Maybe there's an opportunity here to specifically involve only 'layouts that never leave home'? There's a lot of online innovation going on with other activities which may or may not suit us, but even if those members who have home-based P4 layouts could do some sort of video that can be hosted then that would be something.

I'm not so sure about a 500-person Zoom conference to go with it though ...

And can we see all of them in the forty minutes before Zoom kicks us out?

Makes a Saturday afternoon dash around Aylesbury seem like a blissfully long holiday...

Cheers
Flymo

If the host has a paid subscription to Zoom, then the time limit does not apply. The guests don't need the subscription. The subscription may limit the number who may join a meeting.

Zoom meetings with ~100 viewers are certainly possible --- I've been in conferences done this way --- and I don't know how it scales above that. The main limitation is that in a big meeting everybody but the designated presenter has to STFU and mute. Also, the text-chat channel won't cope very well with >100 users.