By now I am sure that most of you know about the membership promotion program that we are undertaking. This program has two objectives. First, to encourage current members of the SMD to become more active in the Division.
Second, to recruit new members by promoting the benefits of membership in the NMRA.
A December promotional event at Hobbytown – Frederick was our first effort to reach out to non-members. I want to again thank Hobbytown – Frederick’s owner, and SMD member Richard Benjamin, for his support in this endeavor. I also want to thank the Division members who participated. The results of the event were not spectacular but we did get one new member and possibly two others. We will have to wait for the January membership report to come out to determine if the two possibles actually follow through.
Being our first effort, we obviously could have done a few things better but overall, I was satisfied. Probably the biggest thing we need to improve on in the future is getting better advance publicity. For unknown reasons, one of the internet publicity efforts did not appear until the actual day of the event.
During a post event critique we have decided that we should do three promotional events each year, including the Mini-Con.
Holiday Mailing:
Following up on a suggestion from a couple of our members we sent a “Happy Holidays” card to every member of the Division, as listed in the most recent NMRA membership report, encouraging all of you to become more active.
The data in this report is not always 100% accurate and two of the cards were returned to me for incorrect addresses. If you did not get your card please let me know so that we can correct our database.
Again, thanks to the informal committee that wrote the card and got it printed.
January Meeting:
After a short break to accommodate the HobbyTown event in December we will resume our regular meeting schedule on Sunday, 12 January with the meeting starting at 2:00 PM. Our host for this meeting is Steve King who resides in Fayetteville (Pond Bank), PA.
Please email southmountaindiv@gmail.com to obtain the street address.
Elections:
We will need to vote on our officers for the 2025 – 2026 program year at the March meeting. As of now we have one candidate for the position of Superintendent and one for Paymaster. We have a possible volunteer for the position of Clerk but it is not definite at this time. If you would like to be considered for any of these positions please let me know and/or attend the upcoming January meeting and volunteer there.
In addition, we need a number of volunteers to serve in appointed positions. A listing of the primary positions, along with a description of the associated duties, was published in the last Wheel Report and on our web site.
Thanks go out to Alex Polimeni for developing this information.
Meeting Schedule:
As previously noted, a number of volunteers have stepped up to host Division meetings. As of this writing, with the exception of May, all of the 2024/2025 meeting dates have been spoken for. The schedule is as follows.
- 9 February, Richard Benjamin, Frederick, MD
- 9 March, Pete and Jane Clarke, Damascus, MD
- 5 April (first Saturday), Annual Mini-Con, Blue Ridge Summit, PA
- 18 May (3rd Sunday to avoid Mother’s Day conflict) TBD; Volunteer needed
2025 Mini Con:
Grant Berry has agreed to take the lead on the Division Mini-Con again this coming spring (April) and Mainline Hobby Supply has again offered to support the event. It will be held on Saturday, 5 April. As always, Grant will need help with registration, event set-up, and of course clinicians. Start thinking now as to what sort of table clinic you could present at the event.
The Susquehanna Division has expressed interest in participating in the event with us this coming spring but details have not been finalized. More to come on this development.
2027 MER Convention:
We are still looking for two or three volunteers to form an exploratory committee to get things started for the 2027 MER convention which we are scheduled to host. Since the MER handles most of the convention arrangements the committee’s responsibilities at this time will primarily be centered around locating a suitable host hotel, developing a list of potential layout tour hosts, and to identify some sort of rail related prototype tour. Again, if you are interested please let me know. Email southmountaindiv@gmail.com.
