Dick Karnes wrote...
"I had the good fortune to attend the 2010 NASG Convention in Duluth, at
which Tony Koester (of RMC) was the featured banquet speaker. One of his
main points is that we (model railroaders in general) should stop dwelling
on youth as a primary potential source of new hobbyists. Instead, we should
concentrate on empty-nesters, who are much more likely to have discretionary
income as well as hobby time. Kids have no money!"
Tony is talking about today's realities and not considering the long range,
the future.
Dick and Tony,
Kids do have money. It's how they choose to spend their money that keeps
them out of hobby shops and model railroading. Most of my high school
students had jobs to fund their lifestyle necessities. What are these
necessities? iPods, the latest cell phones, MP3 players, video games,
computers, cars, name brand clothes, clubs, etc. For some, booze, drugs
and/or cigarettes also come into play. This is their culture. These things
are what they deem essential to their very being, especially cell phones and
their cell plans cost big time, every month. All these things are
disposable and quickly replaceable/upgradeable. But kids do not see that
these things are money wasters.
The last time we had a large group of kids (21 to 25 year olds) over, all
the guys wanted to see and run the trains. They did and were most
impressed. One or two were interested in getting into the hobby. But after
fielding a few questions with honest answers, they concluded that none of
them could afford it financially or time-wise. When I challenged them about
it. They admitted that none would give up the necessities listed above to
get into the hobby, especially S. Why did I say especially S? S requires
more time to ferret out what you need. S scale also requires a lot of
building and here's the one concept that is most foreign to the youth of
today, PATIENCE. These guys even admitted that they would not have the
patience to build anything.
Our North American education system has taken the business model of results
oriented with a lot accountability. Things have to be done very quickly and
successfully to compete in global standings. Pride, patience and
craftsmanship are introduced in Technical Studies but most students do not
want to adopt these concepts. As I said, results oriented and as quickly as
possible. It's no wonder kids are not as patient as earlier generations.
An awareness of pride, patience and craftsmanship is key to become a model
railroader even if you model RTR with your chequebook.
Do we give up on kids? Is there life after Thomas? I think that there are
ways of bringing kids and young adults into the hobby or hobbies in
general. What is needed is a creative response to the present youth culture
to direct them towards what we hold important. Make model trains as
attractive as blowing up or torturing your enemy in the latest version of
the video game "Call of Duty - Black Ops". Perhaps political pressure is
required.
cheers,
Andy Malette
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