I see the fund is now past £79K. I have been thinking this has become a liability and will bring unwanted problems. It is time to take what they need and pledge the rest to some worthy cause. I understand that they were just hoping to raise £500.
I had a nice reply to my email from their chairman, I do not envy him one bit with the decision that needs to be taken though. What ever it is it will upset someone. I would not be surprised if we suddenly hear about lawyers being involved.
regards Roy
Roy please don't think that I am getting at you but this illustrates the problem well. "It is time to take what they need". There are so may unsaid thoughts in that simple sentence.
Who are "they" in this context? The club, the traders, the model builders, the ????
"need". I am afraid that I don't even understand this. How do you define need in this context? I am guessing that the hall was covered by insurance as I hope were the traders. Money will not repair the work that goes into building a model railway although it might help encourage some very upset modellers to build something new & hopefully better. I can see lots of room for debate. What duty of care did the organizers owe the participants & did they fulfill it?
"pledge the rest to some worthy cause". I am afraid that I don't agree with this at all. Your worthy cause is my waste of money & probably vice versa. I gave money specifically to try & repair, or at least try & help control the damage that these 4 idiots caused. I did not give money for a "worthy cause". If they don't have a use for the money directly related to the tragedy they should stop collecting it and probably should have stopped some time ago. At the moment it seems to be the ambition to collect as much as possible but I am still asking for what purpose.
Please don't read into the above that I am not desperately sorry for the cub, the modellers, the traders & anyone else that was damaged by this.