This was one of our informal quarterly meetings where our members showed off their latest Meccano creations.
At around 2:00pm we had a short committee meeting, followed by the Model Tour in which members were invited to give a short talk about their models — in particular their entries for the Secretary’s Challenge!
The Nuclear Power Secretary’s Challenge
In our anniversary year the Secretary’s Challenge for the Easter meeting was related to another anniversary — this time going back just 60 years to 1956 when the Queen switched on the world’s first full-scale nuclear power station at Calder Hall in Cumberland.
At its peak, Calder Hall generated four times as much electricity as it did in 1956, although by modern standards its size — 196MW — is considered small. Calder Hall closed in 2003, after more than 40 years providing electricity, but three years earlier than planned.
The challenge, therefore, was to build a model that had something to do with nuclear power.