Improving Website usage (and membership) ...

John, I heartily agree with you on the subject of sending each member a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year. May your stockings be filled with shiny new Dinky Toys, or at least your dreams filled with thoughts of the same! I gently disagree about not liking later Dinky Toys, but will not belabor the point. As my collecting friends know, I appreciate *every* Dinky Toy, as long as it was a product of Meccano Ltd. We can disagree with the decisions the company sometimes made -- ironic that Dinkys came full circle, from toys that were slightly fanciful (no exact prototype) back to the same again (Convoy series -- but all real Dinky Toys had integrity in that they were designed to appeal to children (not adults) and they were original, not copies of anything! Cheers, Jon

I am also of the opinion that, primarily, the Dinky collector of today was a child of the 40s, 50s, or 60s. I'm a case in point. it's one of the reasons I don't particularly like the later Dinkys. Windows, jewelled headlights, steering, opening doors, bonnets, and boots all destroy the purity of the earlier toys. If the DTCA is to thrive it needs children to begin playing with Dinkys as we played with them. The trouble is that now children are being inculcated with ideas that personal transport is poisoning the planet and that if something doesn't have batteries it's not green. I also feel that cutting and pasting items from the Forum into The Journal is counter-productive. I relish seeing articles on subjects NOT dealt with here. Sadly, we are a dwindling band. Let's try and make our twilight enjoyable. I'd like to take this opportunity to wish every member a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. John

As one who often visits this forum, I must admit that I tend to skip most forum items in the Journal, but there may well be a number of members who are not online, and don't have access to the forum, so for them such articles will be new. Another point is that if we all contributed just one article to Mike, there might not be the need to include forum snippets to fill out the magazine. I must also admit that I am guilty myself, having contributed very little over the years of my membership - a situation which I intend to rectify in the future. Wishing you all a happy Christmas and a New Year full of collecting successes !