03-07-2011, 10:45 PM
Wow! There are a couple real horror stories there!
I guess I'm a whole lot luckier than I realized!
The Scale Rails of Southwest Florida Model Railroad Club is 100% NMRA and when there are model railroad conferences, like ""Prototype Rails 2010," an NMRA-Sanctioned event or the recent NMRA Sunshine Region Western Division Winter Meet, along with presenters like Tony Koester and Andy Sperandeo of Model Railroader Magazine, several of our club members, including two having earned the NMRA's "Master Model Railroader" designation were also presenters.
I have not seen any "poor modeling" represented on the layout and so far, have not witnessed anyone independently make decisions regarding taking on "personal" projects on the layout either. Everyone "plays well together" and no one steps on anyone else. Those involved in layout maintenance or upgrade projects go about their tasks, and when a new member shows up (that would be me, in this instance) someone will approach and ask the "newbie" if they'd be interested in "helping out with 'X' project on the layout." Any decisions regarding the layout, the building or planned programs for the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts or the general public are discussed at monthly meetings.
We do have members who show up for the monthly meeting, say little and don't do much else and one or two who just show up to "hang around and talk railroad talk."
It sounds like when I discovered this club (at a point where I desperately needed a couple friends) and began visiting a couple afternoons a week, enjoying the "getting to know you" period, when members encourage the new person to discuss model railroading, where else in the country they have lived (almost no one is really from Florida) and then talk about what's going on with the club, I was truly blessed when they voted unanimously to accept me as a member!
Yessir! A real good group of guys ... they even start each monthly meeting with the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, which hangs prominently at one end of the layout room. Yes, I suppose I am blessed to have found those gentlemen, much as I was blessed to find this forum and all of you fellows ... a finer assemblage of diverse approaches to the hobby is found nowhere else on the Web!
I guess I'm a whole lot luckier than I realized!
The Scale Rails of Southwest Florida Model Railroad Club is 100% NMRA and when there are model railroad conferences, like ""Prototype Rails 2010," an NMRA-Sanctioned event or the recent NMRA Sunshine Region Western Division Winter Meet, along with presenters like Tony Koester and Andy Sperandeo of Model Railroader Magazine, several of our club members, including two having earned the NMRA's "Master Model Railroader" designation were also presenters.
I have not seen any "poor modeling" represented on the layout and so far, have not witnessed anyone independently make decisions regarding taking on "personal" projects on the layout either. Everyone "plays well together" and no one steps on anyone else. Those involved in layout maintenance or upgrade projects go about their tasks, and when a new member shows up (that would be me, in this instance) someone will approach and ask the "newbie" if they'd be interested in "helping out with 'X' project on the layout." Any decisions regarding the layout, the building or planned programs for the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts or the general public are discussed at monthly meetings.
We do have members who show up for the monthly meeting, say little and don't do much else and one or two who just show up to "hang around and talk railroad talk."
It sounds like when I discovered this club (at a point where I desperately needed a couple friends) and began visiting a couple afternoons a week, enjoying the "getting to know you" period, when members encourage the new person to discuss model railroading, where else in the country they have lived (almost no one is really from Florida) and then talk about what's going on with the club, I was truly blessed when they voted unanimously to accept me as a member!
Yessir! A real good group of guys ... they even start each monthly meeting with the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, which hangs prominently at one end of the layout room. Yes, I suppose I am blessed to have found those gentlemen, much as I was blessed to find this forum and all of you fellows ... a finer assemblage of diverse approaches to the hobby is found nowhere else on the Web!
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln