Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester

Has anybody been to the Abbey Pumping Station museum in Leicester and seen the fantastic victorian beam engines?

( btw, I'm new here, wheres the rest of the forum? I only see a meet ups section)

Welcome to the forum Sir Edward, I'm glad that you found us.

With regards to the Abbey pumping station, I personally have not been there it sounds great. One for the 2010 calender me thinks. Do they have a website and if they do can you post a link to it?

With regards to the rest of the forum, this is it for the moment. It has been setup to help with arrangements for various meetups and to relieve a little pressure from the main Brass Goggles forum, where VSS topics were becoming huge. (Huzzah!!) If you haven't registered with Brass Goggles I would recommend that you do so as there are many topics on every form of Steampunk you could ever wish for. (Brassgoggles.co.uk)

(Admin please correct me if i'm wrong)

Lady Elsie and I have investigated the Abbey pumping station as a potential venue for steamy happenings. It does have promise but the volunteers we spoke too were a little hostile.

We are considering the possibility of quite a large gathering that also encompasses the Space Centre and have tentative support from Malika for this. She has also advised of how best to get the Abbey station involved.

With regards to developing this forum - I am happy for it to grow. I am making a couple of other people Admins and they are free to expand the forum as they wish.

Admin wrote:
We are considering the possibility of quite a large gathering that also encompasses the Space Centre and have tentative support from Malika for this. She has also advised of how best to get the Abbey station involved.

For anyone who doesn't know Malika is the marketing manager of the Space Centre and also an avid Steampunk

Ah yes, any event at the National Space Centre is a winner! The UK Garrison (whom myself, Sir Ninian, Malika and several other UK Steampunkers are members of) do a lot of events here and they are very welcoming! The pumping station is right next door, literally about 20 steps from the front door of the NSC so this would work out rather well.

Anything that's a little closer up north is always good for me

Admin wrote:Lady Elsie and I have investigated the Abbey pumping station as a potential venue for steamy happenings. It does have promise but the volunteers we spoke too were a little hostile.

Hostile Volunteers?! If I find them I'll fire them ( If you can fire a volunteer). I am The Conservation and Collections Officer ( I look after the big boy's toys ) at the Pumper and I would be more than happy to see you there!

Sorry for the incognito post, I wanted to see what you lot honestly thought of our museum.

Well Sir Pumper, if nothing else you have at least registered that your venue is interested in welcoming Steampunks and that is a good thing. Not all personnel at venues will be totally friendly as Steampunk is still an emerging genre and not that widely known by the masses. I'm sure some people don't know how to receive us yet. Your enthusiasm to welcome Steampunks will transcend through to your staff should a meeting take place at Abbey Pumping Station.

I am sorry that your volunteers were perhaps a little bit less welcoming than you might have wanted. We explored the museum following a meeting at the space centre. We noticed from the signs in the toilet no less that you have space available for meetings and functions. We asked the volunteers on the desk who we should contact to get further information and she offered to show us the room. Whilst doing so though she took time to point out that "you didn't really want just anybody using the place and steampunks visiting was probably not suitable." She wasn't very keen on giving us contact information either.

The Pumping Station does have lots of potential particularly if coupled with the Space Centre thus having steam and SF in one place as it were. We would be happy to chat to you about potential events and visits. Feel free to email me your contact details at majortinker@aol.com

Admin wrote:I am sorry that your volunteers were perhaps a little bit less welcoming than you might have wanted. We explored the museum following a meeting at the space centre. We noticed from the signs in the toilet no less that you have space available for meetings and functions. We asked the volunteers on the desk who we should contact to get further information and she offered to show us the room. Whilst doing so though she took time to point out that "you didn't really want just anybody using the place and steampunks visiting was probably not suitable." She wasn't very keen on giving us contact information either.

The Pumping Station does have lots of potential particularly if coupled with the Space Centre thus having steam and SF in one place as it were. We would be happy to chat to you about potential events and visits. Feel free to email me your contact details at majortinker@aol.com

Tinker, I believe that Malika has been trying to contact you via email, regarding some events at the NSC... not sure if it's in connection with this topic, but thought I'd mention it in case they've hit your spam filter or something