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This Saturday on June 6 we will feature two impressive layouts.
These are virtual layout tours of Bill Sorinsin (HO) and Janice & Barry Dupler (HO/HOn3) These follow our scheduled Board Meeting.
Time: Jun 6, 2020 – The virtual tours will start at approximately 11 AM.
Check your Grab Iron email for the Zoom meeting information.
If you need help, call Russ at 206 200 2211
Russ
We are going high-tech! This year’s Annual Meeting cannot be held at a hotel, so no mediocre lunch or uncomfortable meeting room chairs. In fact, it’s FREE!
You can attend in your casuals, just need tops for sure. We will meet online using Zoom. All you will need is a computer with built in camera and audio or a tablet or smart phone. Many of you have already been in such meetings and know how it works.
All 4D Board Members will be there. We will convene a brief business meeting which will give opportunity for any members to ask questions.
A brief review of last year will be given and some ideas of how we will go forward, including any changes required to deal with the current health crisis.
We will present the Golden Grab Iron Award, as well as some special recognitions by the Superintendent.
The meeting will be followed by two online clinics, each 45 minutes, including time for questions.
So, save the date. You will receive an invitation a few days before the meeting via email with a link to the meeting and the password you’ll need to get in. SAVE THIS EMAIL AND PASSWORD!
So mark your calendar: May 23 at 9:30 AM
Russ Segner
206 200 2211
russseg@gmail.com
We are going high-tech! This year’s Annual Meeting cannot be held at a hotel, so no mediocre lunch or uncomfortable meeting room chairs. In fact, it’s FREE!
You can attend in your casuals, just need tops for sure. We will meet online using Zoom. All you will need is a computer with camera and audio or a tablet or smartphone . Many of you have already been in such meetings and know how it works.
All 4D Board Members will be there. We will convene a brief business meeting which will give opportunity for any members to ask questions.
A brief review of last year will be given and some ideas of how we will go forward, including any changes required to deal with the current health crisis.
We will also present the Golden Grab Iron Award, as well as some special recognitions by the Superintendent.
The meeting will be followed by two online clinics, each 45 minutes, including time for questions.
So, save the date. You will receive an invitation a few days before the meeting via email with a link to the meeting and the password you’ll need to get in.
So mark your calendar: May 23 at 9:30 AM
Russ Segner
206 200 2211
russseg@gmail.com
I was invited to an on-line clinic yesterday by one of the divisions in Texas. It was great. I got to interact with several guys I had met in various Conventions. Lots of good ideas were shared.
This reminded me of a recent conversation. Someone asked me, “What are the advantages of membership in the NMRA?”
So, I wrote a draft statement and shared it with Al Lowe and this is what we came up with:
The advantages of NMRA membership
We share. The NMRA is the one organization dedicated to sharing interest in model railroading.
We care about the future of the hobby by leading in the establishment of standards used by manufacturers and modelers. This has promoted a wide array of factory-built models as well as electronics used in the hobby.
We promote the hobby on a consistent basis to the general public at train shows and museums. A great many of our members are volunteers in restoration and operation of historic railway equipment. The NMRA led in recently establishing a very large permanent exhibit on model railroading at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
We educate one another and the public about railroads, their history and contribution to our economy. We also educate and promote safety around trains.
Membership comes with the NMRA magazine which contains information on activities locally and worldwide as well as articles on model building.
We have an array of local, regional and national meetings to share experience in “how to” clinics, history and research on various rail operations.
We challenge each other in model building contests with awards for excellence. We learn from each other and many work together in construction and operation of home layouts.
We have a program called Master Model Railroader which requires completion of work in the major skills of model railroading. This is a challenging program and the MMR Award and Designation is a lot of work well respected in the hobby.
The 4th Division has a strong effort going with modular layouts in several scales. This a great way to meet and work with other model railroaders, to improve modeling skills and share the hobby with the public. Camaraderie is the glue that keeps us active and strong. Model Railroading is fun.
I invite you to join us.
Russ Segner, 4D Superintendent
206 200 2211
So, if someone asks you about membership in the NMRA, here are some thoughts. Share this message.
The 4th Division Board of Directors conducted an online meeting last Saturday using the application ZOOM. It was very successful with a number of participants in addition to the Board members. The minutes of the meeting will be posted on the 4D website soon. Because there were no additional nominations to fill the one Director position and the Superintendent position, the Board voted to close nominations and submit the names of Ed Ives for Director and Russ Segner as Superintendent to the membership.
One of the actions the Board took was to amend the Rules and Procedures Manual of the By-Laws that related to the conduct of the election. We have in the past done this with a mailed ballot. The Board has decided to handle this election and future elections by electronic ballot to the 399 members who have email addresses on file. A paper ballot will be mailed to the 34 members who do not have email addresses on file.
Jack Hamilton will be sending the electronic ballots via email – a “PNR Special Run” email – and Mike Slease will send the paper ballots as done in previous election.
The email ballots and written ballots will have instructions on how to vote and return your vote. Please respond quickly so you do not forget. We have had great participation in all our elections and I hope this new method will achieve even greater results.
Russ
The report of the Nominating Committee is that Ed Ives has been nominated to another term as Director and Russ Segner has agreed to run for another term. Since there were no other nominations, an informal survey of the current Board supports the idea of not following the required formal sending of ballots by mail to membership. This will save about $500.
At the Board meeting on the 18th, we will open the meeting online using Zoom to receive any further nominations. If however, no further nominations are made, the Board will discuss a formal motion to forego the mailed paper ballot this election cycle. So, if you want to make a nomination on the 18th, be ready to join the meeting via the internet. The link to the Zoom meeting will be sent in a Grab Iron email, so keep an eye on your email. You can also contact me for the meeting link.
Russ Segner, 4D Superintendent
russseg@gmail.com 206 200 2211
The current COVD-19 crisis has certainly altered the way we interact at work and home. It is also forcing some changes in our hobby. We can’t run to the hobby shop or craft store for supplies and we can’t get together to work on or operate our layouts with others. Of course, our health is the most important thing right now. But there are some things we can do together anyway.
Many of us are using social media such as Skype and Zoom to share things over the internet. That’s the way our Board will conduct business for the next few meetings. It is also a way we can better communicate throughout the 4th Division. Distance and traffic have become big impediments to our clinics and train shows. So, we are exploring ways to do clinics over the internet. So, check your email frequently.
Our next Board meeting was scheduled for April 18 at 10 AM . We intend to use the application Zoom to conduct that meeting online. It worked well in a test run Saturday. The neat thing about this is that many of our members who want to participate can do so. Many of you already use this in your workplace. The link to the Zoom meeting will be sent in a Grab Iron email, so keep an eye on your email. You can also contact me for the meeting link. russseg@gmail.com
Invitees will be organized in a waiting room and the moderator of the meeting will invite you in. That way we can control participation to members only. You will be able to ask questions and view any documents or exhibits we are discussing.
If you have questions, please email me or call me at 206 200 2211.
Russ
Some of you may have received an email recently purporting to come on behalf of one of the 4D or PNR officers or board members. The email tries to persuade you to buy gift cards or send money electronically to help someone in distress. THESE ARE SCAMS. No one from the 4D Board or any PNR leader will be asking for money to be handled in a manner in which the funds cannot be traced.
Lots of folks at home right now, so these types of scam are common. Delete the email.
Russ Segner, 4D Superintendent
“I haven’t got time!” I hear that a lot. But now, many of us have a lot more free time than we planned. So, I’m asking everyone who now has time to share with the rest of us some of your current model railroading projects. It can be a model, a wiring project, decoder install or some part of your layout.
Larry Sloan has answered my call to member to share your current projects with this, a new control panel for one of his HO modules. Larry is a member of our HO modular group, the Seattle Pacific & Eastern, headed by Mike Slease. Larry is also one of the leaders of the new HO Free-Mo modular group now joining the 4th Division. This is a group that was formerly located in the Tacoma Freight House, now the Amtrak station. They lost their permanent layout, so they went mobile.
Here is another shot of a demonstration Larry built to show at clinics which shows the various capabilities of DCC. He unveiled it at our recent Pacific Science Center Show.
Well done Larry. Let’s hope others will pitch in and share some of their work with the rest of us.
Russ
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a little shut in by the news. My wife, Susan, and I have plenty of supplies and are not venturing out for awhile. So, what to do? Susan has her knitting and we are both brushing up on our cooking skills.
I have decided to really get serious about finishing my MMR. So, time to build those four scratch built cars. It is also time to finish some detail work on structures and scenes that I hurried through when building my layout. Speaking of the layout, I really miss the time we had planned to share with the recent Sound Rails visit by model railroaders from out of our area. I also will miss our local layout tour in Tacoma.
The one other thing I am doing is preparation of a video presentation describing my layout and how it operates. This will let me share with those visitors who had planned to be here for Sound Rails and who will not get to see my layout. I am suggesting that many of you who have layouts also prepare presentations of your layouts to share by means of our 4D website.
This is an opportunity to share with all in the 4D what you are doing on your projects as well. How about a three to five minute video or a short article with photos? Just send the link to your youtube video and a summary description to gi_editor@4dpnr.com.
I have posted some short segments on YouTube which will be a part of the larger presentation. Search for Coal Creek Lumber Company.
Russ