All --
The way the NASG accomplished its projects while I was on the BOT was to commit
to, and pre-purchase, an initial quantity of items from the manufacturer and
then recover the investment via direct sales.
For the Pullman project, we prepaid AM's Ron Bashista in three installments for
the 650 cars produced. The NASG made money on the project (despite the extra
costs of the CNR remediation effort) because we paid Ron wholesale and sold
retail. Ron chose to rerun matching cafe cars on his own.
For the Fruit Shed, we prepaid Joe Warren on the same basis, making a net
profit on our sales of the kit. After the first run of 50 sold out, Joe
produces another 50 kits as part of his own line of structures.
For the passenger-car interior parts, we contracted with Palace Car Co. to
create the coach seats as well as Pullman interior kits that are making their
debut in the December NASG Dispatch. The arrangement with Palace for the coach
seats was that the NASG pre-purchased a particular quantity at wholesale and
resold these to NASG members at the same (introductory) price. The contract
also stipulated that Palace would subsequently carry these in their standard
product line, and they have. We struck a similar deal with the Pullman
interiors, escept that there is a small net profit to the NASG for the initial
run of interior kits. Palace will continue to carry these in their standard
inventory once the NASG sells out. Please note that Palace did not ask us to
pay for any tooling (and there are several injection molds involved -- not
inexpensive!).
Doug Peck runs the yearly Lionel American Flyer car project. With the
exception of the O-27 cabooses on AF trucks of several years ago, these always
make money for the NASG. A certain quantity of cars is contracted for which
prepayment is made to Lionel. Selling at retail enables the NASG to recovers
its costs and then some. Having learned from the caboose fiasco, we have
offered relatively unique GE-themed AF cars over the past few years for a work
train. These have sold very well.
None of these projects cost the NASG anything on a net basis, and several have
provided the NASG with capital for additional projects.
The "Brick Building" was supposed to be a similar set-up, with kits being
offered after the NASG sells out, but the vendor defaulted after using up the
NASG's funds for tooling, parts, and who knows what else. The NASG offered to
refund monies to purchasers (note this, Bill Rigsby) if they requested it.
Reservations for only seven kits had been received when the offer was made.
Bill Banta (Banta Model Works) now has the project; Gerry Evans can give you an
update, as he is now the project manager.
During my BOT tenure, the NASG's overall trend in contracting with vendors has
been toward never-before-manufactured products that would be continued in the
vendor's routine inventory. I don't know about the rest of you (Brother Lane
excepted), but I think this is nothing but goodness for S scale. It's the best
implementation (in my opinion) of the NASG prime mandate to promote S scale.
The fruit shed, passenger-car interior stuff, and brick building fall into this
category.
As for the assertion that all the NASG officers are Flyer guys, here's the real
scoop: Prior to last summer's elections, six of the seven officers were scale
modelers. The seventh was a hirailer. The current make-up is five scale, two
hirail.
My own opinion is that the officers should reflect the demographics of the
entire organization, which is about 80 percent hirail. That would mean only
one or two scalers on the BOT. But the organization can only vote for (or
against) those who step forward to run for office.
Dick Karnes
NASG Exex. VP, 2003-2007.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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