Author: Al Lowe

Gerry Leone, NMRA Communications Director

Thanks to generous donations of members, The NMRA Online Archives should open by March 1^st. We’ve scanned and posted 10,000 photos, drawings, and plans, which will be available for download at a discount price by NMRA members and at full price by non-NMRA members. Watch NMRA Magazine for the Grand Opening announcement. And remember: the more you donate, the more we can scan!

The NMRA is planning to help Regions and Divisions promote National Model Railroad Month next November with materials downloadable from our website, like poster and flyer templates, press releases, etc. Watch NMRA Magazine for more details this summer.

Jim Zinser’s Division Business Car column is a great place to see how other Divisions and Regions promote themselves, raise money, and have fun with model railroading. Take a few moments every other month to read Jim’s column for ideas.

The winter Board Meeting is being held concurrently with the Budget and Operations meetings this year in Las Vegas at the Palace Station Hotel (about 5 miles from the airport). The Budget and Operations meetings, which are by invitation only, begin on Tuesday, February 22 at 9 a.m. The Board Meeting runs from 9 to 5 (or later) on Wednesday, February 23, and 9 to 5 (or later) on Thursday, February 24. All NMRA members are welcome to attend.

Check the Help Wanted ads in NMRA Magazine. We’ve filled several positions, thanks to generous volunteers, but we still need your help. Remember: we’re a volunteer organization always in need of able bodies. Here are the positions we’re looking for—if you fit the qualifications, email the address in the magazine.

• Electronics engineers with experience in setting up control systems needed to take part in discussions and development of NMRANET. Current bus is designed using CAN. Time commitment: several hours per week.

• IT staff volunteer with experience in Content Management Systems. Able to program in PHP and PostGreSQL/MySQL, and good experience in HTML and CSS. IIS and VB experience a plus. Time commitment: ~3 hours per week.

Gerry Leone

Don’t subscribe to NMRA Magazine? There’s a section on the NMRA website devoted to reporting the same NMRA news found in The Bulletin section of the magazine every month.

We’d also like you to remind your editors about the “Division Business Car” column (also known as NMRA@Home) found in NMRA Magazine every other month. It’s written by Jim Zinser MMR and features interesting summaries of articles he’s found in Division newsletters from all around the world.

John Stevens, our national Boy Scout coordinator, wanted me to forward this to everyone: In order to create the most secure environment possible for its youth members, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has developed numerous procedural and leadership selection policies for its adult leaders. Effective June 1, 2010, those policies included Youth Protection Training. After that date, no adult may register with the BSA as an adult leader in any capacity without first completing this training. The training is good for two years and can be accomplished online. The training can be found at scouting.org. Click “My Scouting” near the top of the page, create an account, and you can then access the training. Upon completion of the training, print a certificate of completion to include with your next Adult Leader Application. The whole process should take under an hour. If you have any questions, contact John Stevens, scouts@hq.nmra.org.

Trainfest, which takes place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is operated by the WISE Division of the NMRA, set an all-time attendance record this November with 23,476 attendees, the highest in the event’s 39-year history.

x2011, the Sacramento 2011 Convention, report that they’ve now implemented RSS feeds from their website. Attendees and potential attendees can simply subscribe to the RSS feed and they’ll receive email messages when items are added or changed on the website. Go to x2011west.org and click the orange RSS box.

And x2011 online registration is up and running. It’s presently limited to convention registration, but once tour information is released, registrants will also be able to sign up for tours and extra fare events online. Not only will this be convenient, but registrants will be able to see immediately if a tour is sold out.

Al Lowe

At the national convention in Milwaukee this past summer, the NMRA created a new position, Vice President of Special Projects. Bill Kaufman, a well-known modeler in the San Francisco Bay area, is the first holder of this position.

In a recent interview with The Model Railway Show, Bill spoke to co-host Trevor Marshall about his plans to use this position to strengthen the ties between the national organization and its Divisions and Regions, including the creation of a “best-practices” manual. It’s well worth a listen.

The Model Railway Show is a free Internet-based newsmagazine show about our hobby, delivered twice monthly as a podcast on iTunes or by direct download. Each show includes two interviews on a broad range of topics and runs about 20 minutes. Bill’s interview appears in Episode 2, which is now available. For more information, including how to listen, click The Model Railway Show.

Al Lowe

Here’s what’s been going on at HQ recently:

• Headquarters just completed an analysis of our RailPass Program to see how many RailPass members went on to become full NMRA members. The statistics show that, since January 1, 2009, a whopping 65% have “re-upped!” That’s just about 2 out of every 3 RailPass members who’ve stayed with us. From the time the RailPass program started in 2005, about 48% have renewed … again a great statistic.

  A lot of the credit for that retention goes to everyone in our Regions and Divisions. You’re making new members feel welcome, and you’re showing them the benefits of NMRA membership. So … THANKS!

• Huge progress is being made with Diamond Club scanning. Craig Sutherland, the man in charge of the project, reports that they have about 500 sets of diesel loco plans (average size: 24″x30″). In addition, he and Stephen Priest brought about 50 boxes of photographs (with about 700 photos each) back to Historical Archives Services (the company doing the scanning) from our Kalmbach Memorial Library. They mentioned that there are a lot of black and white steam loco shots, some early diesel shots, and a lot of photos that caused these seasoned pros to say “wow.” Stephen called the collection “an unknown treasure.”

  We’re finding out that our archives are even more vast than we thought! So if you or your members haven’t made a donation yet, please do so so we can get these railroad treasures on the web … and eventually into your hands.

• The Winter Board Meeting is being held concurrently with the Budget and Operations meetings this year in Las Vegas at the Palace Station Hotel (about 5 miles from the airport). The Budget and Operations meetings, which are by invitation only, begin on Tuesday, February 22 at 9 a.m. The Board Meeting runs from 9 to 5 (or later) on Wednesday, February 23, and 9 to 5 (or later) on Thursday, February 24. All NMRA members are welcome to attend.
• As you probably read in the October of NMRA Magazine, the X2011 West NMRA Convention committee is making extensive use of social media to promote their Sacramento convention. Over the next several months they’ll be posting detailed information about layout and prototype tours, clinics, sights to see, and other pertinent facts. If you haven’t visited them on Facebook or signed up to follow them on Twitter, this is the perfect time to get your feet wet and see what the “social media” buzz is all about! Both Facebook and Twitter are free.