| Volume 39 Issue 9 | May 2000 |
| Volume 39 Issue 9 | May 2000 |
Well, you’ve done it now - you’re stuck with me for the next two years!
I’d like to take this chance to thank all of you who took the time to vote in the Division elections, and to thank all those who ran. Whether or not they were elected, they were willing to put their time and effort into running the Division and deserve our appreciation for doing so.
I’d also like to thank the outgoing Board of Governors: Superintendent Brian Petroziello, Assistant Superintendent J Hedge, and Chief Clerk Frank Bauer. Brian’s puns aside, these people have given a tremendous amount of their time and energy to make certain we have a strong Division. The Division is very grateful for your service.
I’d also like to thank Marty Vaughn for his clinic in April on making scale figures. This hands-on clinic allowed a lot of us a chance to learn a technique which has been around for years, but which few of us have tried. I remember reading articles on the legendary Gorre and Daphetid and marvelling at how John Allen was able to make all those figures. Now we know how “the last generation” did things before Preiser and similar companies came on the scene. For those of us in love with the newest modeling techniques and materials and goodies on the store shelves – look at what’s been done in the past and you’ll be amazed at what can be accomplished using common materials (and without breaking the bank!)
If you’re interested in learning more modeling techniques, as well as having a great time just hanging out with other modelers from the Mid-Central Region, make sure to get yourself to the MCR Regional convention in Medina, OH, on May 19-21. It’s a great place to meet other model railroaders from the Ohio-Pennsylvania-West Virginia-Kentucky region, see terrific models and photos in the contest room, and visit some great layouts on your way home on Sunday. If you go, be sure to bring at least one model for the contest room. Even if you don’t want to fill out the AP paperwork (we’ll help you with this if you want), bring one or more models along to share what you’ve been working on for the last year.
There have been some comments made about my becoming Superintendent representing “the new generation.” One of my primary goals as Superintendent for the next two years is to make certain that “the new generation” of model railroaders isn’t “the final generation” (kind of sounds like a Star Trek sequel, doesn’t it?) Membership in the NMRA is stagnant at best, and we are not attracting younger, less experienced modelers into our fold. At 37, I am one of the youngest members of the Division. Unless that trend is reversed, the NMRA cannot remain viable. By my estimation, there are between one and two thousand model railroaders in the Division 3 area. Our membership rolls only have about 200 on them.
How do we attract new members? I’ve been dealing with this problem as a Cub Scout leader for many years now. A necessary first step in attracting new members is that you must be visible in the community. For Division 3, being visible has traditionally meant taking our membership booth to Train Shows and manning it with enthusiastic, outgoing members. It has meant holding our two train shows and making certain that people realize who is sponsoring the show - namely, the NMRA.
These activities are essential first steps, but not enough to attract “the new generation.” There are a lot of drains on the available time for younger modelers, especially those with families. I think I have four free days between now and the end of June between three kids in scouts and two in baseball.
We are missing the boat on one of our easiest targets: we don’t have a sustained presence in our best recruiting ground – the hobby shops! At best, we have some copies of the Call Board. As good as the Call Board is, by itself it doesn’t tell people about the total scope of the NMRA and what it can do for the railroad modeler. We have four primarily model railroad shops in the Dayton area that I can think of off-hand, and we only have a minimal presence in two of them. The sales clerks at the now-defunct GATS store in the Fairfield Commons Mall didn’t even know about our spring show. They were the busiest store in terms of traffic volume in our area. How many more people would we have gotten in March if there had been a poster up in there?
The NMRA has a publicity package that we can use to help us with this new thrust. Obviously, we need to have the cooperation of the hobby shops to do this, but I don’t see this as a problem – it’s in their interests to have a strong model railroading community, too!
Another relatively easy thing to do would be to send a flyer on our monthly program to the community activities sections of the local papers, to local libraries, and to the local hobby shops. We have programs of interest to the modeler - but the modeling public, let alone the general public, typically has no idea that we’re meeting and doing a railroading program and model contest every month. For the cost of some stamps and a few dollars at the photocopy store, we can let tens of thousands of people know what we have to offer them. To do this, the program chair will have to be more together than I have typically been, and have the clinic write-ups ready in time to make the papers’ deadlines – say about a month in advance.
Both of these initiatives basically come down to marketing. I will help get the ball rolling, but we need somebody to step forward and run with this. This could take the form of a standing publicity committee (which would count towards your Volunteer AP certificate). William Niebes has been doing publicity for our train shows for some time now, and can also lend a lot of assistance in getting started. This should be an easy thing to do and could really help the Division.
If you think of anything that you think that the Division should be doing, or not doing, please feel free to call me. Better yet, if you’re wired, email me! My email address is trpersing@aol.com – lead it off with ‘NMRA’, so I don’t think that it’s spam from an unknown person. I have been known to indiscriminately delete spam, and occasionally kill something I shouldn’t have.
A final note – the May meeting has been moved to Tuesday, May 23, at 7 pm in the Wright Library. This is to accommodate the aforementioned Regional Convention. Thanks for your vote of confidence! I hope to see all of you on the 23rd!
Happy Modeling!
Ray Persing
© 1999, 2000 Division 3, MCR, NMRA