Derby 2015

Basic Details

Date: Saturday 14th November 2015
Time: 12noon to 6pm
Location: The Brunswick Inn, 1 Railway Terrace, Derby, DE1 2RU
Price: £2.00 payable on the door.
Brunswick Inn web-site

How To Get There

Train

CrossCountry trains serve Derby from various parts of the country. A direct service is available from London on the Midland Main Line, provided by East Midlands Trains . Lots of local services mean access from other cities is easy. The pub is about 300 yards walking distance from the railway station main entrance: go out of the station's main entrance, turn right, walk across the car park entrance and up to the main road, cross the road at the pedestrian crossing, turn right, follow this road parallel to the railway and the pub is on the left-hand side shortly before the junction.

Bus

Bus services 6,44,45 and 73 run between Derby Bus Station and Derby Rail Station, passing The Brunswick. Information about these services is available from the Derby Connected web-site.

Coach

National Express coaches use the new Riverlights bus station, so proceed as for local buses above. The local buses to the meet go from the same building.

Car

There is no parking at the pub itself however there are several short- and long-stay car parks within a mile of it - SatNav users are advised to use the postcode DE1 1RU. There is on-street parking for up to 4 hours in some of the streets close to the venue. If you're staying overnight then your hotel or B&B might have parking.

Facilities and Venue Details

Food

Food is not being provided at this meet, but The Brunswick have a bar menu which can be viewed on their website .

Drink

Prices subject to change (although normally rather less expensive than many parts of the country). The pub has its own microbrewery on site and also serves a good range of other cask beers as well as the usual lagers, ciders and "smooth" beers. Drinks will be served from the main bar downstairs.

WiFi

Free WiFi available

Room Layout

Function Room (photos courtesy of DerbyBest).

Function Room as shown on Brunswick Inn web-site

(Photo copied with their permission)

The Meet

Times

Those with laptops for use by the SimSig public, please arrive by 11:30 to set up. If you are fetching your laptop you are advised to set up a separate User Account for the meet so that your personal information and data cannot be accessed. There will be someone at the meet (fingers crossed) who will be able to grant temporary licences if anyone's machine does not have a licence for a sim that is to be used for multiplay and chaining.

Those without laptops, please wait until noon when (hopefully) everything will be ready.

Entrance Fee

The entrance fee is £2.00 payable on the door. If you are going to attend, could you please add your name to the Derby Meet topic on the Forum so that we can advise the Brunswick of the likely demand for bar food. If you have signed up as tentative, could you please confirm as a Yes or No as soon as possible so that we have the best information to pass on.

There is no entrance fee for those arriving after 2pm.

What's Included

Shared access to multiplayer simulations.

Where To Stay

The Smart Aston Court Hotel is very close to both the railway station and the venue.

The Hallmark Inn is a short distance further than the Aston Court.

Please offer other recommendations if you know of further suitable accommodation.

Friday night

Please offer recommendations. Previous years have included a meal at a Mexican restaurant followed by drinks at one or more local pubs.

Saturday night

About half of those attending for the meet went on for a curry. More details (including a couple of photos)here

Sunday

There is no visit arranged to date.

Simulations In Use

An evening peak at Rugby SCC

What Actually Happened

The evening peak at Rugby concentrated many minds while other parts of the room saw earnest discussions about WTTs, other sims and SimSig developments. Thanks particularly to JamesN and mfcooper for their work in getting things set up (and to Matt as ever for being the voice of SimSig).

Despite our advice to the venue about the number attending and likely to want feeding, we managed to crash the kitchen and food ordering was suspended for an hour towards the end of lunch time while the backlog of orders was cleared. Everyone got fed in the end but some people had rather a long wait between their breakfast and their next instalment of solid sustenance.

There was also some discussion at the end of the meet about how and when meets should take place in the future. It was certainly agreed that we should try and recognise the 10th. Anniversary of SimSig meets in March 2016 which has now been taken forward. The comments made at that time and on the Forum indicate that a good time was had by all at the meet. Even allowing for the glitch with the kitchen most people seemed to be happy to order their own food rather than having a buffet supplied. This enabled the entry charge to be kept to a minimum which may give a pointer about how things go forward for future meets.

There is a Forum topic about the meet (including a couple of pics of the Rogues Gallery shot while curry was being taken) here .

Last edited by GeoffM on 15/09/2016 at 03:00