Division members met in-person at the home of Andrew Dodge near Olney, MD. 14 or so were present. After admiring Andy’s new layout and socializing, the Superintendant welcomed everyone and called the business meeting to order at 2:40 p.m.
23-3.1Paymaster’s Report: Paymaster Ray Price reported the SMD bank balance was $3,332.91. That reflects his purchase of the gift certificate from Mainline to be raffled off at the April mini-con.
23-3.2Clerk’s Report (Meeting Minutes): The attendees dispensed with the reading/summary of the minutes (previously distributed by e-mail). As there were no comments or corrections, per Roberts Rules of Order, the draft minutes, as submitted, were approved by acclamation.
23-3.3 Superintendent Bob Johnson thanked Andrew Dodge for hosting.
Old Business:
22-10.5Mini-Con 2023 – the second Saturday in April – April 8, 2023: Mini-Con Chair Grant Berry apologized for delays in getting event news to members. He has been battling “long Covid” (not contagious). He reported the following:
- The building will open at 7:00 am. He encouraged members to arrive at 7:30 or 8:00 to assist with set up. He’ll bring coffee and donuts for early helpers.
- Speakers and modular layouts can come as early as 7:30 to begin their set up.
- The event opens for the public at 9:00 am.
- The “informal clinics” should start promptly at 9:00 am.
- He expects to have 17 vendors and 17 informal clinics. Per past Mini-Cons, the informal clinics will be in 2 groups and will cycle on and off (alternate).
- An N-scale modular layout should be there.
- The food vendor plans to open for business at 10:30 am and stay the rest of the day.
- There will be a very short break to allow folks to grab lunch (but not be a “lunch break”). While attendees eat, there will be a panel of subject experts who will take questions from the audience. Bring your questions!
- Once the panel is done, there will be one more cycle of informal clinics.
- The Mini is expected to end around 2:00 pm.
22-11.4 SMD Summer Trip in 2023: Jane Clarke agreed to provide Wheel Report Editor Polimeni with more details of the proposed SMD visit to the East Broad Top Railroad this summer. This led to some general questions about current happenings on the EBT:
- Steam locomotive #16 is up and running. #16 pulled all the trains in the “Winter Spectacular” event 3 weeks ago.
- All 4 new passenger cars were in use at that same event.
New Business:
23-3.4The Superintendant apologized for the confusion that led to the cancellation of last month’s meeting.
23-3.5Wheel Report Editor Alex Polimeni apologized for not getting a newsletter sent out in March. He got busy with other concerns. He reports that the April issue will have double the content. His intent is to produce the newsletter 10 times a year. Since the division shuts down for June, July, and August there’s no reason to produce one in June or July unless there’s some time sensitive event that members need to know about. The August issue will contain news of the new year about to start.
23-3.6Meeting Schedule: The Mini-Con will be the April meeting. The May meeting will be adjusted to May 21 (the third Sunday) due to Mothers day. That will be the last meeting of the SMD “year.” The division does not meet in June, July, or August
Adjournment: The Superintendant accepted a motion to adjourn at 3:20 pm.
The next meeting will be on May 21st at Rich Randell’s home near Gettysburg, PA. Rich models the Milwaukee Road in “O” scale and has chosen to focus on the town of Avery, Idaho – a somewhat unusual approach to modeling. He will present a program detailing the problems and rewards of focusing on such a limited area. Members will be reminded by e-mail.
Following the meeting, host Andrew Dodge spoke on his general modeling thoughts (always have more than one thing going on so when the paint is drying, you can work on something else, among other things) and converting his layout from its former Colorado theme to the current New England theme. What an interesting layout concept – essentially two separate railroads that don’t connect except by car float.
