Scott, I started the South Jersey S Scalers (now the South Jersey S Gaugers) with Roy Hoffman in 1989. It was a slow start, but picked up after a few years. I am still very close with some of the people I met there even though I am not active in that club now.
Here is some advice I have for you. Ban all elections from day 1 and remain the dictator until they threaten your life. It worked for me for about 4 years. Stomp on and destroy an American Flyer caboose TWICE per meeting. It is a great attention getter and greatly relieves the stress from the death threats of your club members very well. And lastly, this is the most important part; force all the Good Ole Boys down there to model the Mighty Pennsy! They WILL love you for it! Now here is some more worldly advice from "been there done that" Bill. Even though you are working towards a permanent layout, I highly suggest that you at least start out with something that is more portable, built to S-Mod standards and could possibly be incorporated into the permanent layout later. You can also take this to shows to get the attention of possible new members until the 3 of you get tired of humping this thing around! You may have the luxury of a low cost lease on a building now; but that all can (and usually does) change once the owner walks in and sees your work. The lease will increase by how much he figures you will pay to avoid tearing down and moving again. This happened here locally from a small town that owned the falling down building. They wanted the club to move out after the club spent 7 years and thousands of dollars renovating the building that was supposedly "given" to them for the $1.00 per year lease. You have to decide if you are going to be a dues collecting club or a group of friends involved in a non-club. If you go for the dues, do NOT make the whole thing about the "business meetings". Trust me in that you will have more "discussions" about what to do with your money (especially if you host a convention and have some money left over) and the trains will be all but forgotten about. Did I mention that I run trains with a group of friends in a non-club now? I may take some heat for this part, but here goes. You have to decide what your flavor of S will be early on and stick with it. I know that there are large well established S clubs that welcome all. Consider yourself very lucky that you can all get along, or maybe you don't and we just don't hear about it. IMHO, the rivet counters and pure AF guys have NOTHNIG in common. Since you are in an area that is less populated with S Scaler prospects you may have to and probably will ignore this part. You do NOT have to use rail bigger then code 125 even if you welcome the AF guys and Hi Railers. Brooks Stover did an unbelievable job with code 148, but only a small amount of AF needs the larger rail to run on as I have been told by our resident AF expert. So when are you hosting a convention? We have never had one down yonder. I will make my reservations today! Thank You, Bill Lane Modeling the Mighty Pennsy in S Scale in 1957 since 1988 See my finished models at: http://www.lanestrains.com Over 100 new photos recently added Importing a Brass S Scale PRR X29 & G26 http://www.pennsysmodels.com PRR Builders Photos Bought, Sold & Traded (Trading is MUCH preferred) http://mywebpages.comcast.net/billlane/PRRphotos.xls ***Join the PRR T&HS*** The other members are not ALL like me! http://www.prrths.com http://mywebpages.comcast.net/billlane/PRRTHS_Application.pdf See my Altoona train videos here http://www.myspace.com/billlane Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
