07-04-2011, 08:57 AM
I think that people get hung up on the NMRA MMR program for three basic reasons:
1. They think its elitist.
2. They don't like the bureaucracy and documentation required.
3. The don't think the skills required are relevant.
Any formal program that you set up will still offend the people who object to #1. So pretty much forget trying to satisfy them , they will never be convinced.
Any program you set up will have to have some criteria of acheivement or it will be irrelevant. Like those "everybody gets a trophy for being on the team" things they do for kids. The critera have to be fairly specific so that the people determining qualifications would have something to judge things by.
The basis for the "master" is rooted in the guild system of masters, journeyman and apprentices. Since we have pretty much lost those titles outside of a few union positions, the concept of what a "master" is has been lost as well. There are those that say all the documentation isn't needed and that you should be able to just look at a layout and tell if a modeler is a "master" or not. I strongly disagree. I beieve that "master" is as much about what's under the hood and how you got there than the WOW factor of the layout.
With so much RTR equipment out there and so many painting, desing, and layout building services available, I think documentation is absolutely critical to establish exactly what the modeler did and how he did it.
As far as the bureaucracy goes, the NMRA has been bad about that in the past. With any volunteer organization (ans whatever new you set up probably will also be a volunteer orgainization) there are wide variations in the capability of the volunteers. That is also why clear criteria have to be established. Many people complain that the judging (maybe should be changed to "review" or "evaluation") is inconsistent. That points to poor training of the judges, poor understanding of the criteria by the modeler or poor communication of feedback to the modeler.
Lastly the requirements to be a master model railroader. The key to establishing the criteria is to define what a "master" model railroader should be able to do. It shuld be skill based. That is what a master is, one who is skilled. So if somebody plops down a beautifull detailed locomotive in front of me, that great, but I won't consider the modeler a "master" until he or she can explain what he or she did to get it that way (back to the documentation). The trick is to define the requirements to adapt to the modern world.
1. They think its elitist.
2. They don't like the bureaucracy and documentation required.
3. The don't think the skills required are relevant.
Any formal program that you set up will still offend the people who object to #1. So pretty much forget trying to satisfy them , they will never be convinced.
Any program you set up will have to have some criteria of acheivement or it will be irrelevant. Like those "everybody gets a trophy for being on the team" things they do for kids. The critera have to be fairly specific so that the people determining qualifications would have something to judge things by.
The basis for the "master" is rooted in the guild system of masters, journeyman and apprentices. Since we have pretty much lost those titles outside of a few union positions, the concept of what a "master" is has been lost as well. There are those that say all the documentation isn't needed and that you should be able to just look at a layout and tell if a modeler is a "master" or not. I strongly disagree. I beieve that "master" is as much about what's under the hood and how you got there than the WOW factor of the layout.
With so much RTR equipment out there and so many painting, desing, and layout building services available, I think documentation is absolutely critical to establish exactly what the modeler did and how he did it.
As far as the bureaucracy goes, the NMRA has been bad about that in the past. With any volunteer organization (ans whatever new you set up probably will also be a volunteer orgainization) there are wide variations in the capability of the volunteers. That is also why clear criteria have to be established. Many people complain that the judging (maybe should be changed to "review" or "evaluation") is inconsistent. That points to poor training of the judges, poor understanding of the criteria by the modeler or poor communication of feedback to the modeler.
Lastly the requirements to be a master model railroader. The key to establishing the criteria is to define what a "master" model railroader should be able to do. It shuld be skill based. That is what a master is, one who is skilled. So if somebody plops down a beautifull detailed locomotive in front of me, that great, but I won't consider the modeler a "master" until he or she can explain what he or she did to get it that way (back to the documentation). The trick is to define the requirements to adapt to the modern world.