News

The latest copy of The Journal (June 2021) is now available online. You can see a list of all available online copies of The Journal here.

This web site has now been moved to a new server platform, which we hope will fix a number of  the long-running problems that we have been experiencing. In particular, you should now be able to get notifications for new forum postings, and the password change mechanism should be working again. I am optimistic that the other changes will be invisible to you – it should just work! However, this will give us the opportunity to introduce some new features.

It is possible that a few things have been broken during the transition, so if you see anything odd, or you find something that does not seem to be working, please contact me so that I can investigate.

Many thanks,

Brian

webmaster@sm-ee.co.uk

Thanks to the good offices of Mike Tilby, the online collection of back issues of The Journal now goes back to 1976, and right up to the latest version hot off the press (April 2021). Many thanks to Mike for his work in scanning back copies which are now easily available to all of us via the web site.

The index to the list of available issues of The Journal is available HERE.

Please note that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, all General Meetings, Rummage Sales and other meetings at Marshall House are currently suspended. Society General Meetings are online. Details are posted in the Calendar as they become available. For security reasons, Zoom links will be sent via e-mail.

Because of Tier 4 restrictions, the workshops are also closed. Online meetings of the Digital Group and Engine Builders’ Groups are continuing as normal.

Further information will be posted on the “Events” page as it becomes available.

I have had reports from several members that they have received emails which mention “SMEE” in the Subject: line, usually with mention of a general meeting presentation topic or similar. However, the “Sender” address is unknown to the recipient, and the addresses that I have seen have nothing to do with SMEE members.

I cannot see any obvious connection between these emails and the SMEE website, and the most likely explanation is that a SMEE member, or possibly a non-SMEE member who has a number of SMEE members in their email contact list, has had their email hacked and a copy of their contact list taken. How or when is impossible to tell. Scammers will then use these email addresses to send emails which either have malicious content, or which have pointers to web sites containing malicious code and encourage the reader to click on the link.

The best advice for any email that you receive from an unknown source is to regard it as suspicious unless proved otherwise. In particular, do not click on any attachments in the email or on any links to other web sites unless you are confident that you know the real sender of the email. You can also report suspicious emails to the National Cyber Security Centre; more information on how to spot and deal with suspicious emails is available from their web site here.

Brian Neale
SMEE Webmaster

We now have an area of the web site dedicated to reports of SMEE competitions. The results of the 2019 Annual Competition, along with pointers to notes on the models concerned, can be found via this page. Congratulations to all competition entrants and especially prize-winners. Even if you were not awarded a prize, there’s a good chance that your entry on display has put ideas into the heads of other members and maybe will inspire them to enter next year!

The Training Course page now has all the dates and prices for the 2020 season. Click on the link for more information, including links to details of each course.

We now have a number of discussion forums on the web site, available to SMEE members. As well as a couple of “special interest” forums for the Engine Builders’ Group and Digital Group. we also have a general discussion forum (ask questions, make suggestions, answer other members’ questions) and a buy/sell/exchange forum where you can post details of items for sale or wanted, or just to give away to get them out of your workshop!

All forums are open to all SMEE members and everyone is invited to participate. This is a way for members who are unable to get to Marshall House on a regular basis to participate a little more in the activities of the Society.

Just go to the “Members” drop-down menu above (just under the title bar on every page) and select “SMEE Members’ Forums” to see a list of all forums, or click on the links above. Look forward to seeing you there!

Some of you might have suffered because of the website problems we have had a couple of times in the last month or so. It seems that it is nothing to do with our site, but the hosting service we use has had some issues that have affected us. They believe that they know where the problems are, and are looking for a suitable solution.

In the meantime, if you go to one of our pages and get a “404 Page not found” error, don’t worry about it, and try again later. I try to keep track of the site but you can always drop me an email just to warn me that something isn’t right. Emails to webmaster@sm-ee.co.uk, please. As soon as I see or hear of a problem, I shall chase the hosting service to fix it as quickly as possible – unfortunately I cannot fix it myself.

Thanks for your understanding,

SMEE Webmaster