there was some quick guides at one stage but as always it finding the info amongst the huge volume of posts.

the idea of letting youngsters have a ride on a machine is a problem form a insurance and OHS stand point as these machines are not designed for that by default.
and in my country as we have national ohs laws is illegal unless there is proper seating provided. easy to do on the large machines but little machines not so much if someone was to fall and get caught in the track gear or other moving parts that would be a tragedy had to come back from. have i had the friends boy sitting in my lap and let him "work" the controls yes but that was at home on private land.

and yes dont forget the other halves. it has been said before. "behind every great man is a good woman"

same with letting slightly older kids work a machine, insurance is the problem.
however if they are members of a machinery club and as such are covered by their clubs insurance that is not a problem.

other than the usual issue of land owners not wanting to let us have a digging area often due to the perception that we wont leave it as good as we found it just minus the grass and in some cases the reluctance is founded as some people havent kept there end of the deal and cleaned up after themselves. it simple blade it smooth and throw some lawn or pasture seed in it.

Hi, trainzkid88
The issues that you raise are all valid ones but not ones that have never been encountered before and overcome.

Re kids riding on machines, we had one man turn up at a show over here with 3 of his kids seated in the bucket of his F.E. loader backhoe and one sitting on a fender. We told him that this was unacceptable, that the kids would have to have real seats to sit on. He immediately went home - which was a whole 1/2 mile away - and modified 4 plastic garden chairs, 3 to fit in the bucket and one with the legs cut off and tied down to the fender. The kids were loving every minute of it, The show management didn't have the heart to tell him "no" again.

Just my 0.02.

Just noticed my membership expired a couple on months ago. I will take care of it tomorrow. I use to visit this site daily but it is now about once a week and then I am lucky if I sign in. There might be a topic in that time that I am interested in. If it is not a gas burner or a very early diesel, Diesel 60, 65 or 70 I am not much interested.
My reasons for not being interested in a board position is the time and financial commitment. I would rather put what little time I have and my extra money into my projects. I would be interested in the model and merchandise committee

naylorbros wrote:

Just noticed my membership expired a couple on months ago. I will take care of it tomorrow. I use to visit this site daily but it is now about once a week and then I am lucky if I sign in. There might be a topic in that time that I am interested in. If it is not a gas burner or a very early diesel, Diesel 60, 65 or 70 I am not much interested.
My reasons for not being interested in a board position is the time and financial commitment. I would rather put what little time I have and my extra money into my projects. I would be interested in the model and merchandise committee
 

Ken, I think you would be a great asset working with the model and merchandise group. Hint!  Hint!  Hint!  You have a lot of experience and knowledge and especially with some of the older tractors.   

I would love it if memberships could be put on automatic renewal. One less thing to remember.

John, just to say that I am now a paid-up member of ACMOC.

Just as an aside here in the west-country we are finding that the exodus of the younger people from the region is starting to hit the job market and also the local social groups, our local vintage machinery group is really struggling to get members at the moment, same with the town's local history group. Now in April they are banning the use of red diesel for anything other than agricultural use which legally means all the machinery rallies and road runs will have to run on white diesel, its just another nail in the rural coffin.....Quite what will be left in 20 yrs time I dread to think

Good work John, thanks for setting that up, I'm sure that will make Mary's life a lot easier, not having to deal with lapsed and overdue memberships.

Keep all this good work up for the Club, and I'll be forced to write to the Queen putting you up for a gong, "Sir John" would be appropriate I think.........

Richard-J-W, thanks for joining, every bit helps....
Mike