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Summary notes from the latest club meeting are below. For the notes on earlier meetings, click on the year link in the list below and then select the month you're interested in.
September 22, 2026 - Meeting Summary
The San Diego S-Gaugers held the September club meeting at our new club house in Parkway Plaza, at 9:30 am PDT. Attendees were: Mike Forys, Dale Minard, Robert Graves, Don Briggs, Scott Lewis, Les Smith, Craig Carlson, Ken Sadlock, and Raulf Polichar.
Note: The San Diego S-Gaugers Parkway Plaza clubhouse opened to the public on Saturday, 12 September.
Introduction of new faces / Show and Tell:
Mike received a new Scale Trains trailer on flat car. These are the first of this type of cars to be shipped by Scale Trains. Scott pass around flyers from the All Gauge club for events in October and December.
Treasurer's Report:
Allowing visitors to wander around while we were setting up, we received $59.52 in visitor donations, $165.48 less than last month, and $268.83 less than the average for August. $19.52 of these donations came from our Venmo account.
We received $1,330 in other cash donations, $1,180 of which was designated to help with our moving expenses. Donations are being tracked carefully to show where funds were spent that were designated for a certain use.
We receive $19.18 in savings account interest.
We received $7.87 from recycling.
We continue to clean, repair, and evaluate previously donated trains, resulting in an increase of $178.45 in the value of assets for sale.
No donated items were sold this month.
We paid $400 rent for out new Parkway Plaza clubhouse.
We paid $300 to the Savage brothers for helping us move big heavy things out of our Grossmont Center clubhouse.
We paid $778.73 for the two truck rentals, moving out of Grossmont into storage, and out of storage into Parkway Plaza. 60% of move was covered by donations.
We paid $843.98 for two storage units.
We paid no electric bill for Parkway Plaza because it wasn’t mailed until September 1. Unfortunately, it was for $829. the same as we spent in five and a half months at Grossmont Center, because the Parkway maintenance supervisor told us not to touch the thermostat until they completed necessary repairs. A week later, SDG&E notified us that we had used $455 worth of electricity in that one week; that's what we used at Grossmont in two months. At that point, we decided no longer to comply with that directive and started trying to figure out the thermostat on our own. It took a while, but we are now using less than 10% of what we were initially using. Bob believes we should ask Parkway to waive two months' rent to compensate us for the unnecessary expense we incurred by complying with that directive. By the way, we still have not been notified that the repairs have been completed. The circuit breaker for the central pillar lights needs to be left on to power the window layouts.
The result for the month is a net loss of $782.46.
An anonymous donor has agreed to pay matching funds for any club member donations up to $250 per month.
*A discussion on raising dues was tabled until December.
A suggestion on giving out t-shirts for a donation was discussed without resolution.
A donation of trains, track, and accessories, is coming in today from the National Model Railroad Association.
Standards Report:
N/A
Publicity Report:
N/A
Library Report:
N/A
Window Button Status:
September 8, 2026 to September 19, 2026: 603 over 12 days equals 50.25 per day.
Window 1 = 327, Window 2 = 276
Parkway Plaza pushbutton count total (beginning September 2026) – 603
Visitor Attendance:
Estimated Parkway Plaza visitor total = 660
Grossmont total (beginning February, 2016 Ending June, 2026) – 375,556
Visitor total since 2/1/2016 = 116,784. This is the final total for Grossmont Center.
Day One (beginning May, 2011) total – 415,114
Old Business:
Upgrade SDSG Website, Google My Business, and Facebook page:
Need to update old information on SDSG websites. There is more old information on websites other than that on our current active websites.
Great train show October 3rd and 4th at the Del Mar fairgrounds.
Right window, Liberty Loop layout status:
No change.
Right window (Peter’s) layout status:
Complete except for corner and provenance.
Sn3 layout status:
The Sn3 layout skyboard has been repaired and attached to back of layout.
Front wall display status:
No change.
Lego Days status:
Mall management does not want the Lego build days in the mall walking area for now.. The Lego build day, June 27th has been canceled, as well as August, October, and December.
New Business:
Next meetings, Tuesday’s October 20th 2026, and November 17th, 2026.
Location will be the new clubhouse in Parkway Plaza.
Opening days at Parkway Plaza
Great so far!
Interim storage location:
The storage is in Extra Space Storage units #318 and #320 in Parkway Plaza and Dave Posladek’s garage/shed. Unit #318 has been given up. Unit #320 still has equipment in it.
Signage approval from the mall?
Signage for the buttons to operate the window displays has been approved. Buttons are installed. Other signs for hours and Venmo not yet approved.
Mount the visitor counter.
We will work on today.
Lighting conversion from Metal Halide to LED.
This conversion is not easily done. Requires light fixture modification as well as new bulb. This should be done by Mall technicians or professional electrician.
Museum Lighting.
Discussion curtailed due to lack of time.
Grant investigation.
Dan Touchstone and wife are working on grant application paperwork.
Craig’s San Diego S Gaugers Flyer.
Many emails were sent over the last few weeks with suggestions on the flyer. Craig made many changes to the flyer and published for comment. Craig is still accepting suggestions. The flyer contains a wealth of information on the club with many railroad related multi color illustrations. A special meeting will be held to finalize the flyer design. A discussion occurred on changing the club logo. No decision was made for now.
Spook fest Friday October 30th 4 to 6 pm.
Mike has not gotten no explanation what this is from Mall management.
Entrance sign.
Mall management would like us to put up a lighted sign over our doorway similar to other such signs in the Mall. Many designs have been suggested with no consensus.
Other Items:
Craig Carlson’s American Flyer layout has been moved to the clubhouse and is operated for visitors.
Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 a.m. This month’s weekly meeting was started late. We had a new start time of 9:30am to accommodate the new opening time of 11:00 a.m. This gave us only 1.5 hours for the meeting. With the earlier start time, starting late, and a half hour less time for the meeting, many of the agenda items had their discussions cut short.
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