SiF Member Meetings (AU)

The Australian members of Sodor Island Forums have held several meetings over the last 18 months or so. Originally, only three members – those being thehalford, Jim522 and Jarrah White – participated in the meetings, but as the number of Sydney-based members has increased, so have they joined these meetings – members such as tm85, Sodor18, gonzerelli and hartleymartin have all been a part of these meetings.

The first meeting was hosted by Jim522 on June 26, 2005. After the initial awkwardness of meeting people in the flesh after talking to them for so long behind a keyboard, Jim522, thehalford and Jarrah White had quite a nice day talking about Thomas and such. Several more meetings with only these three members followed, before tm85 hosted a meeting on January 2, 2006. This time, Jarrah had brought some friends to join the fun.

This meeting brought about several jokes that would continue on the forum and in future meetings – Jarrah had brought along some videos of James Bond Junior, and one of the characters (Brighton Millbanks) looked remarkably like John Cleese. As such, everyone else made John Cleese jokes, which riled Jarrah no end, as he did not like Cleese’s portrayal of Q in the James Bond movies. This brought about the John Cleese gag in ‘A Very SiF Summer Holiday’.

Also, another video of 80s cartoons was brought along, including two episodes of Super Mario Brothers. At the insistence of everyone, these episodes were watched, much to Jarrah’s chagrin. Again, this joke has grown into ‘one of those things’.

Indeed, although the majority of members, and hence meetings, have been in Sydney, there was a meeting in Melbourne on January 25, 2006 to coincide with thehalford’s first filming of the TV show, The Einstein Factor. Melbourne member The Old Bean met up with Jim522 and Jarrah to watch the filming of this episode.

Since then, the Australian meetings have been infrequent, although all members retain contact both through the forum and telephone.

Since the Melbourne meeting, which coincided with the filming of TheHalford’s first episode of The Einstein Factor, several new members have joined in the fun. The first of these was hartleymartin, who met with Jarrah at a narrow-gauge railway in Albion Park, just south of Wollongong – sadly, no other members were able to make this meeting. Which was unfortunate, as both Martin and Jarrah were able to take footplate rides around the yard!

In 2007, there have been meetings at the Illawarra Mini Live Steamers, the Loftus Tram Museum and several days in Sydney’s CBD. The Mini Steamers meeting consisted of only three members – TheHalford, Jarrah and newcomer Sodor18, who has since become a regular. All three rode around the tracks plenty of times – the engines were only 5” gauge, so very small. The most memorable moment came when TheHalford and Jarrah were on a train which derailed going around a corner!

The Tram Museum meeting introduced another newcomer, 01salty, who had come down from Brisbane with his family and was able to make the meeting. It was a fortunately timed meeting, as the day we went was the celebration of one of the museum’s trams running again after 38 years! There were many interesting trams and pictures on display, and a thoroughly good time was had by all.

Since then, the meetings have become less frequent, although with American member Ciremi in Sydney on a study trip, the opportunity was taken up to meet him in the city CBD. This meeting was special for several reasons – it was the first to feature a non-Australian member, it featured the most members in total (5) and importantly, the Director’s Cut script of Thomas And The Magic Railroad was available for perusal. Nothing really out of the ordinary happened, although some of the things we have done in the city include riding the monorail (a thoroughly enjoyable experience), visiting the Powerhouse Museum and Locomotive 1 – the first loco in NSW (this was only TheHalford, Jarrah and Sodor18) and going through the famous Paddy’s Markets (ditto).

Ciremi has also been to Melbourne whilst in Australia, and took the opportunity to meet up for dinner with The Old Bean. Meanwhile, fellow Melbourne member Green Arrow (kyle1987) was in Sydney with family, and was able to meet up with hartleymartin, Jim522 and Jarrah at Martin’s model exhibit in Hurstville in October. Most recently, Ciremi came to Wollongong for a weekend of drinking and good times – Jim joined in on the Sunday, and we went to the Mini Live Steamers again before lunch at North Wollongong pub with the World Series playing behind us (congrats, Boston!).

As the 5^th anniversary of SiF draws nearer, plans are being discussed for another meeting, but at the moment nothing is concrete. But it doesn’t have to be – I am of the opinion that these aren’t really SiF meetings any more. We all know each other so well it’s simply a matter of friends meeting up – friends who just happen to still love Thomas and SiF.