Brooklands visit.

:diablo: My rates are very modest!

Joking aside, in the voluntary sector it’s difficult to get the correct balance; usually you’re dammed if you do something and dammed if you don’t!

Just keep working at it and accept that you’ll never please everyone!! 🙂

I do think that Brooklands does not promote its self as well as it should in general.They have a website which isn’t always kept Upton date on coming events.Perhaps they should take lessons from Newark’s plugmeister. 😉
mmitch.

I can’t comment on the involvement of Tangmere1940 with previous jumbles at Brooklands as I have absolutely no idea how they worked together but it is good to see that someone involved with Brooklands made the effort to post and try to explain the situation.
I am too far away to have any involvement but it does seem that an opportunity is being lost for an aviation section at the Brooklands event which would benefit both the organisers and sellers. Hopefully Fasteddie will be able to work with some of the interested parties here to improve the aviation section in future jumbles for the benefit of both the museum and traders.
Brooklands is a unique place and needs all the help it can get to be able to conserve and improve the museum and the facilities.

I thought the fuselage section of Jeremys Lanc was a replica built by the BBC for the TV thing with Edward Woodward…..`Night Journey` ?

thought jeremy halls bomb aimers section came from Bernie salters stuff?

I rather take issue (in fact, serious issue!) with some of Fasteddie’s comments regarding my involvement in the early days of the Brooklands aerojumble.

We are clearly talking about different events.

Hi fasteddie and thanks for taking the time to register and explain the background to the Brooklands Auto/aerojumble.

Let me say straight off that I would so like the event to be one of the major annual ‘jumbles, and I believe it could be with better advertising and promotion.

I was dismayed a few years back when attending a weekend long autojumble, to be presented with the Classic Car free newspaper (May edition, iirc) with a half page ad for the Brooklands Autojumble. I say dismayed because I don’t think you have advertised the aerojumble in the aeronautical press for a long time now (Flypast and Aeroplane Monthly are the natural candidates). I have absolutely no idea how much the mags charge for advertising but was I alone in spotting a quite large ad. placed in the most recent Aeroplane by (I’m fairly certain) a forum member, appealing for parts and drawings etc for his Snipe project – so it can’t be too extortionate, can it? And of course, there has to be a cost/benefit analysis at the end of the day – spend a bit on advertising, get a few more through the gate.

Also, I think you waste an opportunity for a bit of free promotion (I’d better not say advertising…) by ignoring this Board, which in my opinion has become the online “hangout” of many of the collectors who would be interested in attending your event. It is to the credit of Key Publishing and the Board’s moderators that they will effectively turn a blind eye to the odd bit of blatant event promotion. Look at the superb efforts of TwinOtter23 in promoting Newark Air Museum and its various events. Why shouldn’t Brooklands do something similar?

It has been said to me by visitors at more than one Brooklands ‘jumble that had it not been for my own posts on this Board, they would have been unaware of the show. If I can do it, why can’t Brooklands do it themselves?

I’d better leave off now. I don’t wish to scare you away and my paella is almost ready anyway. A man’s gotta eat sometime! 🙂

Brooklands had a stall at Race Retro at Stoneleigh this year and last if thats advertising ?

Brooklands Jumble

Someone steered me in the direction of this thread as I have been involved running the Brooklands Jumble for the past five years.

First allow me to explain the structure of the Museum and its supporters.

The Museum is run by a paid Staff, on behalf of the Brooklands Museum Trust, a Registered Charity. The Museum Director reports to a Board of Trustees.

The Museum is reliant on a Team of Volunteers who as the name suggests, work free of charge. Without the Volunteers the Museum would not be able to open. On a normal visit it is the Volunteers you will normally meet. They tend to work in Teams , Aircraft, Auto, Motorcycle, etc. There are several different Aero Teams. The Volunteers man the sheds and displays, work on the machines and generally do most of the work onsite. There are over 400 Volunteers registered. Anyone can apply to be a Volunteer.

There is also the Brooklands Trust Members (BTM) who currently have around 3500 paying members. The committee of the BTM run various events for the benefit of Members and to raise funds for the Museum. The Members consist of Aero, Auto and Motor Cycle enthusiasts who pay to be Members, this year The BTM expect to raise over £200,000 for the Museum Trust through Membership Fees and Event Organisation.

So , Staff, Volunteers, BTM. Three separate entities.

The Museum is not run by “Posh Car Boys” and I’m sure that comment would cause offence to the staff, many of whom are from an aviation background, including the Museum Director. Also a large number of Trustees are ex Aero Industry. The Bus Museum paid for their new building by selling their old site in Cobham.

It is a team of supporters from the BTM that runs the Jumble. So any criticism of the Jumble should be aimed at us, not the Staff/Trust or Volunteers. The basic idea is that the income from stall charges (Vendors) is spent on advertising and marketing. We aim to break even on this balance. The Gate Money provides the Profit that goes to the Museum, the increase in footfall produces the Profit for the day. Unless we make a Profit for the Museum there is little point in doing the exercise.

The first two years we did a joint venture, on the Aero side only, with one of your forumists. He was paid a commission for each Aero Stall. After a couple of years it became apparent that the Aero side was very small, was not growing and could not justify a spend large enough to advertise it properly, especially when the majority of the Aero income was being paid out in commission. Also most of the Aero vendors wanted undercover stalls. We can only offer these upstairs, many of the Aero Stallholders did not want to be upstairs. We also had issues with Health and Safety with radioactivity levels on Instruments. Brooklands has to be whiter than white in this area.

As a result we find ourselves with a Jumble which does include a small percentage of Aero material. We do not actively pursue Aero as it has not proved easy or profitable. I have to admit we are short of Aero based people on the committee of the BTM. However we have to work with those who offer their time, if the majority are Auto based that is a comment on the kind of people who offer. If you are an Aero fan, feel strongly enough to give up a few days a month , pay to join the BTM and become a Member, then we would be delighted to see you. We are looking to expand the Aero expertise on the BTM Committee.

We did have a survey from Stallholders the first two years but had little feedback from Aero Vendors. The past two years have shown a dip in overall numbers but stall numbers were back up this year, largely due to a very successful drive to get our own Members to buy Car Boot Spaces selling a wide variety of items, which went down well with Vendors and Visitors.

The event raises on average approximately £7000 per annum for the Trust. The Brooklands Museum Trust receives no regular lottery or government budget; it has to pay its own way. The Brooklands Jumble, run by members helps to raise a useful amount each year for the Museum. If more Aero Vendors would like to take part we’d be delighted to see them. It is however a Charity event, run by amateurs, for the benefit of the Museum.

As some of your more astute Forumists have pointed out, you may find a bargain but if not at least you can have a nice day out at Brooklands and help support the Birthplace of British Aviation.

Aerojumbles at museums can also have a positive effect on sales as there is always the chance that some of the people who visited the museum for the day might have a look around the stalls and land up putting their hand in their pocket for some of the less specialist items on offer. This can help boost sales a little and might just set what was a casual visitor on the path to becoming an incurable collector.
There is also the chance that they might just mention something they have in the loft that came from a long lost relative that they want to sell. There has been the odd real gem turn up this way.

Personally I think aviation museums are the perfect venue for an Aerojumble; my last two visits to Brooklands only happened because of the Aerojumbles there. As has been said many of the facilities that have to be provided on a bare-field-site are already in place at a museum and it never hurts to get more punters through the doors. I also feel that my (often long and expensive) journey hasn’t been wasted even if I buy nothing.

Have to agree with that. Like all aerojumbles i visit i went with money to spend in the hope of finding ‘another needle from the haystack’. And although there were a few nice pieces in the end i didn’t buy anything. BUT having the museum already there on site meant that for me it wasn’t a day totally wasted.!

the very nice chap who had his (motor-home) stall set-up just outside the museum shop was it? I bought my only real purchase of the day from him within minutes of arriving (a ‘Merlin’ piston ashtray, that wasn’t a Merlin piston ashtray).

No, Graham’s stall was on the outside of the wrought iron fence that encloses the Clubhouse.

I’m not actually aware of the location of the museum shop, but I doubt it was the same chap (and he definitely doesn’t have a motor home).

I simply love Brooklands; history just seems to ooze out of every part of the site but I agree with much of what has been said about the ‘feel’ of the site. The Wellington is a simply stunning exhibit, all the more-so since most of it is left un-skinned so you can see how it is constructed and how well (or not) it survived decades of immersion; the hangar it is in though also looks like it spent decades at the bottom of Loch Ness! Undoubtedly historic in its own right but I’m sure it gives completely the wrong impression to the uninitiated visitor (who must be in the majority).

I agree also with what has been said about the Aerojumble; a great opportunity missed! 🙁

Personally I think aviation museums are the perfect venue for an Aerojumble; my last two visits to Brooklands only happened because of the Aerojumbles there. As has been said many of the facilities that have to be provided on a bare-field-site are already in place at a museum and it never hurts to get more punters through the doors. I also feel that my (often long and expensive) journey hasn’t been wasted even if I buy nothing.

…it was nice to see Graham (you know, “Popham Graham”) and his partner Carol attending for the first time…

That wasn’t the very nice chap who had his (motor-home) stall set-up just outside the museum shop was it? I bought my only real purchase of the day from him within minutes of arriving (a ‘Merlin’ piston ashtray, that wasn’t a Merlin piston ashtray).

I am definitely not anti Brooklands. The place has fascinated me for a long time and I remember going to Farnborough by train in 68 or 70 and the train was stuck at a signal right beside the airfield for ages. It was the first time I ever saw the banking and that view from the train made the place all the more tantalising as there was no chance of access in those days.
It is a tragedy that the whole place wasn’t preserved but equally it is mainly through the genorosity of Gallaghers that there is anything left at all.
Having visited several times I love the atmosphere of the place BUT it is obvious that more funds are sorely needed and that on occassions they don’t appear to maximise the fund raising opportunities available to them through events like the aero/autojumble.
Without adequate funds the place may eventually fall into total disrepair again. Ironically it could be said that a lack of maintenance was what saved the place for posterity as Hawker and BAC didn’t take (or didn’t need to take) full advantage of all the space available on the airfield that was taken up by the race circuit BUT failure of the museum at any time in the future would almost certainly mean the end as the land must be quite valuable particularly as it is now in the middle of a retail development and inevitably we would lose the remaining parts of the circuit and airfield forever – something which I would hate to see happen – so Brooklands ( like all other museums) need to work to maximise the return from ALL events.

It’s a shame this is turning into a anti Brooklands thread, it began so well.

The aircraft volunteers work in teams on days that suit them best. However, the Vanguard team has always included Saturdays as one of their days and have been after new volunteers for some years.

Asking generally will not get the correct answer as some teams never see others and stewards certainly will not know what is going on. Your friend should have been directed to the Manager responsible. It is difficult trying to integrate willing volunteers who can only work weekends, as unless there are at least two, it just doesn’t work. Anyway, it’s good that Hendon are making use of his skills, at least they are not wasted.

If they don’t know, they can’t act.

Hi Crosswind and thanks for the suggestion.

Sadly though, I think we on the aerojumble side have long since concluded that, for whatever reason, they are content with the present arrangements. If they really wanted to change things surely they would have indulged in a little post-jumble debriefing from all parties concerned, i.e. a “how was it for you” survey? They haven’t, to my knowledge.

They just don’t seem bothered that the aerojumble is dying on its **** (some would say it’s already died).

Yet, whenever I think about it, the possibilities are huge.

Andy Saunders has resurrected the Shoreham Aerojumble in 2011, against severe odds (fuel costs, economic depression, apathy, competition from ebay etc, etc) while the Brooklands event flounders.

Using Google maps, I did a little research, using Charing Cross as the centre of London (and hence roughly the centre of “the South” hey, I’m from up North, what do I know? :rolleyes:).

The results:-

Charing Cross to Brooklands Museum 24.9 miles, 49 minutes, fuel cost £5.07.

Charing Cross to Shoreham Airport 57.6 miles, 1 hr 30 mins, fuel cost £11.01.

I think the fuel costs may be a little out of date!

They already have all the facilities on site that Andy has to hire in as well as a superb venue and tremendous “pull” for the motoring/aviation enthusiast.

It could be a premiere annual event, yet they choose to keep it low key and little publicised.

There’s really nothing else to say about it. 🙁

I had my suspicions but hoped that I was wrong. I remember applying for a post there some years ago which involved running the museum shop. I got the impression from the outset that I wasn’t “the right type of chap” even though I had plenty of experience in running aviation/motorsport based memorabilia shops.

Same thing happened to the mate I was with at the weekend,he went to see about volunteering a few years ago. He’s worked on all sorts stuff from Concorde to Apaches, they just were not bothered. The fact that they only work a couple of days during the week also puts out anyone with a job. Hendon gets his time now. He had a word with a couple of the aviation volunteers who were really nice people and said that things had changed a lot there since he was turned down, but with a full time job its still no use to him.

I think WJ244 may not be too far out on his assessment of the mindset at Brooklands.

One thing strikes me quite vividly – the “hands on” volunteers seem to be poles apart from the organisers, i.e. the usual down-to-earth, practical types that it’s a pleasure to chat to. They seem, however, by their own admission, to have little influence over how things are organised.

I’m probably guilty of a gross simplification or mis-interpretation but that’s how things appear to me.

Spot on there, the Museum is run by the posh car boys and gels, the aviation people come off second best. The volunteers I met there at the weekend were exellent, I gather there have been some changes and things are getting a bit better.

The Lanc. is owned by Jeremy Hall and indeed it is he who also owns the nose section.

The Jumble was organised by the Brooklands Trust Members, who are a separate organisation from the museum itself. It may be an idea to drop them a line C/o Brooklands Museum outlining the concerns. If they don’t know, they can’t act. I very much doubt if any of them frequent these forums so why not drop them a line. There is an email address for them on the museum website.

Jayce- Kermit’s Lancaster didnt have all its fuselage replaced. The sections used for it centre around from the wing trailing edge going backwards.

Ah, OK. So has Jeremy just borrowed the ‘976 identity for his reconstruction then or was the MR nose removed before (or at) Strathallan?