THE EARLY DAYS

OF THE

TRANSVAAL MECCANO GUILD

by

Peter Matthews

The first Meccanoman I contacted when I came into the Country from England was Charlie Roth, who assured me that he didn't think that it would be possible to start a Meccano Club in Johannesburg.

THE FIRST MEETING TOOK PLACE ON THE 1ST SEPTEMBER 1972

The first meeting took place in response to names and addresses left at the "Rand Hobby Show" in Johannesburg, where I met Graeme Davie and Clifford Brown, I sent a letter inviting these people to contact me with the view to forming a Meccano club.

I got quite a few replies and Charlie kindly arranged for us to use an empty shop in the Carlton Centre for our first meeting.

MEMBERSHIP FEES WERE SET AT R1.00 PER ANNUM.

A discussion took place regarding the spares situation. Members were not satisfied with the situation regarding the shortage of spares.

THE MEETING CLOSED AT 9PM.

2ND MEETING HELD ON THE 25TH OF NOVEMBER 1972

The Transvaal Meccano Guild was officially made members of the Meccano Guild and were duly sent a club certificate signed by the then managing director of Meccano Ltd, Joe Fallmann.

When I originally applied for the certificate I eas told that certificate's for clubs did not exist.

I duly sent them a blank certificate which I had acquired from the factory in Liverpool with the Guild name filled in ready for signature.

We were most certainly the last club ever to be affiliated to the Meccano Guild and as far as I know the only one still practising.

14 Members were present.

Balance in the account was R7.42

3RD MEETING HELD ON THE 1OTH OF FEBRUARY 1973

For this meeting I had obtained athe use of a church hall at Malvern which was in close proximity to the original hall used by the pre-war Malvern Meccano Club.

It was announced that John Orrs would be recieving a shipment of Meccano spares shortly.

4TH MEETING HELD ON THE 14TH OF APRIL 1973

J. J. Pienaar was present. Mr Pienaar was the leader of the pre-war Turfontein Meccano Club.

Nuts and Bolts were available to much work by Clifford Brown. These were on sale at R13.00 per 1000 nuts and bolts. Paul Hatty was offering couplings at 35c end handrail couplings at 30c.

Members agreed to take part in the Rand Hobbies Fair to be held from the 23rd to the 30th of June.

Mr Silberman of Regal Trading (The then agents for Meccano) offered to place an order for spare parts for the club.

Club membership stands at 19 Members.

Dave Feinstein joins the Guild.

5TH MEETING HELD ON THE 26TH OF MAY 1973

Meccano No.10 set now selling at R400.00 complete with cabinet.

Membership now at 20.

6TH MEETING RAND HOBBIES FAIR HELD FROM THE 23RD TO 3OTH JUNE 1973

This was a milestone for the T.M.G. because after only ten months since the clubs inception it was about to stage probably the largest exhibition of Meccano models in the Southern Hemisphere.

120 models were on display from the T.M.G. many members from the Cape Town Meccano club came up for the Exhibition bringing many more models.

Visitors included the Mayor of Johannesburg.

We were filmed by African Mirror and had a large front page picture on the Star newspaper.

Charlie Roth won a Silver Medal and Colin Cohen won a Bronze

Charlie Roth also won the cup for the best T.M.G. model of the show.

Charles Aberdein won the cup for the best model of the entire show.

The T.M.G. won the Hector Falconer Trophy for the best exhibit of the entire Hobbies Fair. We were to win this trophy on another two occasions, making three in all and thereby kept the Cup.

7TH MEETING HELD ON THE 1ST OF SEPTEMBER 1973

The T.M.G. was now one year old and membership had risen to 29 members.

Dave Feinstein was selling India ashtray tyres at 75c each.

Thick Meccano size washers were available at R2.50 per 1000.

8TH MEETING HELD ON THE 27TH OF OCTOBER 1973

Paul Hatty showed members some 5/32" Whitworth square nuts that were available but at a larger size and Paul suggested filling out the Meccano spanner to fit them.

Two Meccano Magazines were stolen from my table at the meeting.

Membership is now 32.

9TH MEETING HELD ON THE 8TH OF DECEMBER 1973

Charles Roth demonstrates his loom. He may not have known much about loom's before he started but he sure did after building this one! When asked what the retail selling price of the material was he replied that at the rate he was going it would be about R100 per square foot.

10TH MEETING HELD ON THE 9TH OF FEBRUARY 1974

Price increases of 20% on Meccano spares.

Membership now at 33.

NOTES

As exhibitions made up a large part of our Mecano activities in the early years of the T.M.G.'s progress I went through our past records and made a list of the exhibitions. The Guild did not take part in all of these as many of them, (especially in 1980) were staged by the late Frank McClement and myself.

The clubs records from 1972 to today are available for anyone to read should they wish to do so.