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Vote for a Railway Preservation project to receive £500 (Result inside!)

Which project should the Forum support?


  • Total voters
    164
  • Poll closed .
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ainsworth74

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As we let everyone know on this thread the Forum Staff are seeking to donate £500 of surplus funds accumulated from operating the forum to a Railway Preservation project to be chosen by the membership.

We've now gathered a list of suggestions and this is your opportunity to select which project should get the forum's support!

Please vote using the poll above and see below for a list of the projects with links to the projects website (if available) and to the proposers post on the original thread with reasons why you should support the project:


Please think carefully about which project you think the forum should support and vote according using the poll above.

The winner will be the project with the most votes and will be announced after the poll closes on Sunday 16 November.

The Forum Staff would like to thank everyone who has suggested a project, it has been really interesting to find out about all these projects going on all over the country.

Unfortunately not all the projects suggested were eligible for going into the poll. Please see this post for our reasons for excluding them. Anyone is of course welcome to donate to those deserving projects themselves but they did not meet the criteria we were looking for.

Happy voting!
 
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ainsworth74

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Just a reminder to everyone that you've still got a few more days to choose a project to get £500. So if you've not voted yet now might be a good time to do so! :)
 

Len Stanway

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I voted for Wensleydale as a shed is vital to attracting/retaining preserved motive power for this fledgling operation.
 

ainsworth74

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Thanks to all those that voted and nominated different projects. It's been interesting to learn about so many of them. I would encourage anyone who has some spare change to consider donating to any of these worthy causes.

In order to ensure a fair vote and to make sure the wishes of our genuine members are met, any votes by people who have signed up the forum since the poll went live but have not contributed to any threads (i.e. they joined purely to vote) have been discounted from the top scoring projects to ensure an accurate top three results.

So it is with great pleasure that I am able to announce that the winning project is:

Closing the Loughborough Gap

The following projects came in Second and Third place respectively:

Swindon Panel Preservation and Project Commuter

Please see below if you want a reminder of what projects were nominated:

 

bnm

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Congratulations to the winner. A worthy project.

I am a little disappointed to read though that there was a retrospective rule used to exclude some votes. No mention was made prior to, or during, the poll that votes from new members with a zero post count would be excluded.

How many votes were excluded? I note the vote count was well over 200 yesterday but has a final tally of 164. It would seen that around 25% of the votes have been disallowed.

It really should have been made clear before the poll went live that new members would be ineligible. To retrospectively change the rules and exclude votes really isn't on. Would the result have been different? Will you publish the unamended results?
 
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Temple Meads

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Congratulations to the winner. A worthy project.

I am a little disappointed to read though that there was a retrospective rule used to exclude some votes. No mention was made prior to, or during, the poll that votes from new members with a zero post count would be excluded.

How many votes were excluded? I note the vote count was well over 200 yesterday but has a final tally of 164. It would seen that around 25% of the votes have been disallowed.

It really should have been made clear before the poll went live that new members would be ineligible. To retrospectively change the rules and exclude votes really isn't on. Would the result have been different? Will you publish the unamended results?

I agree, as I suggested the second placed project, I'd be very interested to know if this rule has affected the result..

I can certainly see why the rule was put in place, but I'd rather not see the goalposts moved after the final whistle has blown. :P

_________

Anyway well done to to the GCR - an excellent project - and thanks to everyone who voted for the SPS!
 

Mojo

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I am not going to say which appeal had a number of votes withdrawn because I do not wish to embarrass the volunteers and staff of the organisation concerned in public. All I will say is that at least the second and third-place appeals would still not have won had suspect votes not been removed.

This was a vote of our membership to see who they would like to have surplus forum funds donated to. Had we not have taken this action, the results would not have been reflective of those members, many of whom have generated these funds in the first place. To create accounts with the sole intention of voting in a poll is completely against the spirit of this activity.
 

ac6000cw

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This was a vote of our membership to see who they would like to have surplus forum funds donated to. Had we not have taken this action, the results would not have been reflective of those members, many of whom have generated these funds in the first place. To create accounts with the sole intention of voting in a poll is completely against the spirit of this activity.

I agree completely - people joining up solely to vote (in the hope that money might flow to 'their' project) does feel slightly underhand, even if they did with the best of intentions.....
 

carriageline

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I agree completely - people joining up solely to vote (in the hope that money might flow to 'their' project) does feel slightly underhand, even if they did with the best of intentions.....


Precisely. After all, it is 'forum' money, and should go to where the forum members want it to go. Suddenly getting 25 of your mates to sign up and vote for something is cheating.


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wra_relay

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Although I understand the reasoning behind the decision to discount votes, I would point out that the Poll has had the effect of publicizing the existence of RailUKforums to many railway supporters who may well become active users of the Forums with the right encouragement.

I would ask the Administrators to email the members whose votes were discounted to explain the decision BUT also to say that the Forum would welcome their contributions in the future.
 

yorkie

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...BUT also to say that the Forum would welcome their contributions in the future.
I can absolutely assure you that their contributions would be welcome, and indeed anyone who joined after voting had started and did contribute in any other way to the forum (other than in this thread) did have their vote counted.:)

To avoid any potential issues it's likely that any future poll would be limited to current members and have clear guidance published.
 

LateThanNever

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I can absolutely assure you that their contributions would be welcome, and indeed anyone who joined after voting had started and did contribute in any other way to the forum (other than in this thread) did have their vote counted.:)

To avoid any potential issues it's likely that any future poll would be limited to current members and have clear guidance published.
Hurray!
Excellent work. Thank you. Even agree with the outcome but sshh it's not a secret ballot...!
And also may I say that although I've had my differences with The Moderators, I'm very appreciative that, in spite of those differences, voting has been 'without prejudice'!
 
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bnm

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To avoid any potential issues it's likely that any future poll would be limited to current members and have clear guidance published.

Indeed. If you are giving away a monkey, or any prize of value, there really should be clearly defined rules for a competition/poll.
 
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IanD

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What I find odd is that some people obviously didn't even vote for the projects they put forward - that's just bizarre.

I was going to vote for the Wensleydale thing (having been a member of said organisation from almost day 1) but changed to a more local project at the last minute and I'm glad I did.
 

Trainfan344

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I was going to vote for the NNR, but changed my mind after having a good read and deciding to go with the Swindon Pannel Project, I already give enough money to the NNR.
 

GatwickDepress

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Congrats to the Loughborough Gap project! Though it was nice to see Project Commuter had a bit of interest.
 

table38

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What I find odd is that some people obviously didn't even vote for the projects they put forward - that's just bizarre.

I didn't even notice that voting had started :oops:

I guess my brain filtered it out because the title was so similar to the old "Suggest a Railway Preservation project to receive £500" one :(
 
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