MERG West Midlands Area Group

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Contact Us

To contact us use the MERG West Midlands Area Group contact form.

For MERG members, you might also like to look at our area group forum.

Co-ordinator

Allan Gardner

MEETINGS

The July meeting of the West Midlands Area Group has been cancelled. See below :

Important information about our next meeting

In the view of the ongoing Coronavirus situation and the advice received from MERG Committee, my WMAG colleagues and I have decided to cancel our meeting on Sunday 12th July 2020.
So our next meeting should be Saturday 10th October (but note the weasel word indicating lack of certainty!)
We shall, like many others, monitor the situation and decide whether future meetings will take place nearer the time.

About Titford Pump House.

Titford Pump House, Engine Street, OLDBURY, West Midlands B69 4NL.

Google Map

There is plenty of car parking – mostly on Engine Street, some within the Pump House compound. The address above includes a Google maps link. All facilities are at ground level.

This quarters topics:

None - as the meeting has been cancelled.

The rest of the programme has been left unchanged, so that the format remains for future meetings.

Programme

10:00 Coffee & Registration

10:15 Welcome Introduction: Allan Gardner

Housekeeping: Fire exit & procedure, First aid, Toilet, Dishwasher.

Other matters

10.30 Talk 1

11:30 Refreshment Break

Tea, Coffee, and cake.

11:45 Talk 2

12:15 Talk 3

12.45 Discussion: Any Questions and any Answers!!

Opportunity to discuss things further from this morning sessions.

13:00 Lunch

Bring your own or eat loads of cake!

For Saturday meetings, there are nearby sandwich shops - for Sunday meetings, if you haven't your own sandwiches, you will need to head in to Sainsbury's in Oldbury.

13:30 Practical Workshop Session 1

Our usual informal session. Chat to colleagues or work on your current project. We will do our best to help with construction and problem-solving. Bring your own tools etc.

14:30 Refreshment Break

14:45 Practical Workshop Session 2

Continuance of the practical session

15:45 Clean up, Wash Up and close

Interested in attending?

The meeting is open to all MERG Members.

To give us an idea of numbers, could you let us know you are coming by contacting me allanhgardner@gmail.com or use the MERG contact form above.

We will need a contribution of £3 to cover the costs of the meeting.

Meeting dates for 2020

The dates below are for the quarterly meetings for 2020.

Winter - Sunday 12th January

Spring - Saturday 11th April (This meeting was cancelled)

Summer - Sunday 12th July (This meeting was cancelled)

Autumn - Saturday 10th October (With a bit of luck, this meeting will go ahead)

We have booked the Titford Pump House for these dates.

Format of Future Meetings

We are seeking views from members with regards to the structure and format of future meetings.

The areas we would welcome comments on are:

Fixing dates for the next year

Saturday or Sunday

Venue

Meeting format

Speaker and contents

If you have a view on any of the above, please share with the co-ordinator using the contact form above.

Previous meetings

January 2020

David Roberts gave two talks.

John Fletcher talked about 'My MERG Journey'

October 2019

John Gowers came and talked about the mechanics of a steam engine. Capturing real sounds and applying them to your model railway

Inserting sound chips in locos and how to use them effectively.

July 2019

Electrostatic Discharge: What it is and Why it is Important. David Roberts

David will explain to us what Electrostatic Discharge is, how it is caused and the damage that it can cause to modern electronic devices and systems. Simple and affordable measures to mitigate the problems will also be described.

The Theory and Practice of a Simple MERG Kit: David Roberts

Some of us assemble kits without knowing very little about the types of components used and why they are important. David’s presentation will consider a simple MERG kit – the CANACT – look at the components used and explain why they are chosen and how it works.

April 2019

What is Arduino and what can it do for railway modellers

Tony Chamberlain and Dave Thomas will present all things Arduino

October 2018

‘Wiring and Power supplies for the Railway Modeller’

We were delighted to welcome David Roberts as our keynote speaker on that occasion.

David gave two talks in the morning.

The first one, focused on wiring for the railway modeller and included

• Theoretical aspects of electrical wiring • Design & Implementation of electrical wiring • Examples of wires, tools and terminations

His second talk was Power Supplies and explored:

• History • Direct Current (DC) Supplies • Linear Mode Supplies • Switch - mode Supplies • Sources of Power Supplies • Commercial Devices • Surplus Computer Supplies

July 2018

Howard Watkins as our keynote speaker.

The theme of our meeting was ‘Back to Basics’

AM - Two talks given by Howard to include

- Theory and practise of Soldering. - Tools and Supplies - Component recognition - Using LEDs

PM - Practical 'HANDS ON' session to include an opportunity to build a track tester,

Links

Help page for coordinators