With Pieter's indulgence let me add a few words to Monte email. When I
attended the past Lowell NASG convention, I took the tour of Lexington
and Concord battlefields. If you combine some of those happens with the
movie Independence Day from a few years ago, it doesn't take long to
find par ells to our efforts. The war for independence was really just
a strong idea with little support for a long time. Where are the French
when you need them?
Promoting S, as many of said in the past, has been a weak link in the
association's charter. Some worthwhile projects have kept us going over
the years. However they have been scattered and disjointed. Good ideas
and dreams are necessary to get this going, but a military leader needs
to have his men behind him in a charge. The problem is we all have
other lives to live and most of us lack those kinds of skills anyhow.
So for the most part we've done some guerrilla actions.
When it comes to local promotions at train shows via display layouts and
home tours. Many individuals and clubs are doing their job in that
department, but I would debate how many folks attending a show are
really in the 'market' to change scales. Therefore immediate results
can't be expected or measured easily. Many guys spend half their life
thinking (dreaming) about a future layout so we never know the results.
I think our Houston S Gaugers have more than doubled our membership, but
it's taken 25 years for that to happen. This isn't exactly a marketing
coup, but for part-time soldiers we've held our own while having fun
running trains (the main deal here).
Monte talks about only a few of the local clubs members that belong to
any of the national groups. This is absolutely true of both local clubs
that I belong to. In one case you must be a NMRA member to belong to
the club, however we do invite 'guests' who are not NMRA members. This
brings up the situation of true members supporting the guests, who just
tag along semi-permanently. Of course the other side of this is: if
you belong to the NASG, NMRA, perhaps a local dues paying club, a couple
of historical groups, a couple of magazines and attend a couple of
conventions--whow!... that's lot of dollars even if you're making a good
salary during better economic times. I hate family discussions
involving the check book cause' you know the results already!
So now you've heard the voices of reason and reality from Monte, Pieter
and perhaps myself. Now where are those darn French, we've got a war to
fight! Please contribute what you can to any of the efforts with a few
dollars, francs or man hours!
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
These are all great ideas for promoting S. The main obstacle is
financing. There have been a number of recent really great promotions
projects such as the S sig, the new NASG website and last years S
supplement to RMC.
NMRA recently reran an old editorial on the importance of local
organizations in promotions. While overall efforts to create an
awareness of S are necessary, it is the local personal approach that
is needed to seal the deal. There is nothing like seeing S in action
at a train show or community event to get someone into S. I applaud
the many clubs and individuals that make the effort to display S at
these gatherings. A number of promotional materials are available free
from NASG for handout at shows.
I know that in some clubs, there is a very low percentage of their
members that are members of NASG and/or NMRA. I would suggest
encouraging club members to join national organizations as this gives
them a larger base for promoting our hobby, especially in NMRA there
are significant benefits to becoming a 100% club.
