Ramsbottom Model Railway Club

Ramsbottom Model Railway Club was established on in 1978 by a few members who put an ad in the Bury Times News Paper looking for other people to form a model railway club. 

The first meeting was held in our chairman Alan Garside's house in 1978 with a backroom full of people interested in joining together to form the club. It was here that Alan Garside spoke up and said that they should base the layout on Ramsbottom as it where they all mostly lived and was easy enough to get to for information and research.

The first AGM was held on the 12th September 1978 where 8 members were present. At this AGM the election of officers were chosen. The first chairman was Harry Dennis who is still a member to this day, Secretary was Norman Piper, Treasurer was Alan Garside, he is now our chairman.  Other items that came up at the first AGM was the Subscription rates( which were £5 per annum plus 50p per week), Membership(The need for more members), Rent(at the time the club rented the building and were trying to agree a rent fee), Meetings (It were agreed that the club would hold weekly meetings of Tuesday and Thursday at 7.30pm), Publicity and Information(They had agreed to contact the Bury Times to get an article published and also contact the Ramsbottom Historical Society), Layout( A draft layout plan was produced by adrian hall and that he could get hold of baseboards to start building) and Administration(A bank account was opened to which the subscriptions could be placed in, to make a constitution and rules and to produce a list of members).

Our first club house was based in the attic of the old Stubbins School based on Bolton Road North in Stubbins Village during December 1978 but 3 months later the school was sold and was due to be demolished when Harry Dennis came across our present home at the Old Patmos Hall on Bury New Road. The Club was able to purchase the building outright due to the members, family and friends all helping to collect waste paper and recycle it, at that time you got paid for it.

Ever since then members have come and gone, some going onto better things and some even returning for a second stint (Dan and Alex). Members came from all walks of life most were postmen, a fireman, an electrician, a computer technician, a teacher and even a salesman!

We currently have 7 members and are always looking for more members to join, help and maintain our model railway. Because we usually only have 4 or 5 members on a Tuesday or Thursday we are not currently able to transport the layout to an exhibitions so it is our intention to have an open day sometime in the future once we have our club house upto a good standard and that extention to our layout is complete.

We are based in Ramsbottom and have our meetings every Tuesday and Thursday 7.30 till 11pm

Below are a copy of Our Club Rules and Constitution