How can I help?

By reading this you are obviously interested in the Ashover Light Railway and the ALRS.

One way of helping us is, obviously, to become a member of the Society.  Go to the membership page and download the application form.  We would be very interested if you have any specific skills or experience that could be put to the benefit of our aims.

We have operated the ALRS tote for a number of years.  Again, a link to the appropriate forms can be found on this website.

The ALRS is a charity, which means that U.K. taxpayers can “Gift Aid” their contributions to the Society.  The Government will then refund the tax paid to us.  Millionaire philanthropists can (at the moment anyway!) still donate and receive favourable tax treatment.

Shop Online and Raise Money!

Have you heard about easyfundraising yet? It’s the easiest way to help raise money for The Ashover Light Railway Society! If you already shop online with retailers such as Amazon, M&S, Argos, John Lewis, Comet, Vodafone, eBay, Boden and Play.com, then we need you to sign up for free to raise money while you shop!

So how does it work?

You shop directly with the retailer as you would normally, but if you sign up to http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/alrs for free and use the links on the easyfundraising site to take you to the retailer, then a percentage of whatever you spend comes directly to us at no extra cost to yourself.

How much can you raise? Spend £100 with M&S online or Amazon and you raise £2.50 for us. £100 with WH Smith puts £2.00 in our pocket and so on.  There’s over 2,000 retailers on their site, and some of the donations can be as much as 15% of your purchase.

Save money too!easyfundraising is FREE to use plus you’ll get access to hundreds of exclusive discounts and voucher codes, so not only will you be helping us, you’ll be saving money yourself.

We’ve raised over £800 with easyfundraising so far but we need your help to keep donations coming in. Sign up at http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/alrs and start making a difference…simply by shopping.

Thanks!

Raise Money As You Search!

Are you one of the 6.4m people that use a search engine every day? Did you know you can raise money for The Ashover Light Railway Society while you search?

http://alrs.easysearch.org.uk combines the results of several search engines such as Yahoo!, Bing and Ask to ensure you can always find what you’re looking for. But the fantastic thing is that EVERY TIME you search, half a penny is raised for The Ashover Light Railway Society. Search just 15 times a day and you can raise around £25 a year for us.

The current (March 2018) total is over £230.

See what people are saying about easysearch

“easysearch is a great idea and just as good as Google for the results! I’ve recommended it to my friends and I think this site is the best around as it does something for people. Well done!”

“What a fantastic idea! I was using Google anyway but this way I get to raise money for my good cause every time I search…brilliant! I’ve made easysearch my homepage!”

So the next time you need to find something online, please use http://alrs.easysearch.org.uk and raise money for The Ashover Light Railway Society with every search you make.

A Volunteers Report on a Workshop Working Party

Brendan Gibbs here. Here is my journal of a day spent volunteering at the ALRS workshop in Sheffield. I really enjoyed my Saturday volunteering to help in the ALRS workshop. It was great to meet some old faces once again and also to meet one or two new ones.

One of the new folk, Jonathan G showed me round and explained what he wanted to achieve during the day.

Firstly, there was an urgent need for Breakfast and a cuppa. We left Graham Ludlam in charge of the brew whilst Jonathan G and I set off to the local greasy spoon. This turned out to be Mrs Miggins Pie Shop just round the corner. Top notch Liver and bacon butties they were too.My involvement with the ALR goes back 15 years to a time when I walked with a friend from Wheatcroft to the Old Poet’s public house at Ashover.Whilst we walked towards Ashover he explained about a long lost light railway. I was fascinated when he showed me the old track bed and stuff.
Re-instating it seemed like a pipe dream.

When the ALRS was set up and arranged outings such as the trip to Leighton Buzzard I began to believe that we were at the start of something achievable but without much in the way of direction or purpose.

We have had a few ups and downs since then and many times I have thought about not renewing my membership. However, meeting committee members at the workshop has led me to acknowledge a metanoia (look it up).

I have to say a special thank you to JG for explaining in some detail the progress made with the restoration of the rolling stock. 15 minutes spent with him talking about the Rushton and the Electric motor thingy has inspired me.

Please pass on my thanks to our Landlord for making the workbench available to us. I feel quite proud to have been associated with its movement to the workshop.

Not too sure about the other members comments about my DIY skills. I freely admit I have no DIY skills at all. Others seem to allude that I might have some skills in that area. NO….not so !!What I am good at is paying for someone who has those skills. (Good old Auntie Penny left us a legacy). Hence my commitment to despatch a cheque for £50 to be ring fenced for the Rushton Restoration.

Onwards and upwards.