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.