February 23, 2008 - Meeting Summary
The monthly meeting of San Diego S Gaugers was hosted by Alex Sibbald, and included a tour of his layout featuring vintage American Flyer locomotives, rolling stock, and accessories and Alex's very finely crafted model buildings, from a number of kit builders. One attendee was heard to remark that the layout looked like a display layout from the heyday of AC Gilbert.
During the general discussion, the group agreed to call itself San Diego S Gaugers. The principal reason this name was selected seemed to be that " s gauge" has traditionally been understood to include all the various flavors of S model railroading.
The topic getting the most focus was how to develop a public outreach program. It was suggested that the group should attempt to build a simple traveling layout for this purpose. Some possible venues were considered, with some of the pros and cons of each being discussed. Several people provided examples of things that had marred past activities that they participated in, which helped to frame the issues. Stressed as being among the more important factors to consider was the need to keep the display layout itself simple, to ensure that the group and the venue operator had a common set of expectations in advance of the event, and the need to ensure that staffing requirements could be met realistically SDSG..
More concrete proposals along those lines included an offer from Bob Patterson to use an exisiting 4 x 8 foot track layout that he owns as the nucleus of our first traveling display. To keep the public's attention, operating accessories and buildings owned by SDSG members could be added for the event. To inform interested persons on whats available in S gauge, supplier contact info and brochures mignt be provided. A tentative target for our first outreach event was an anticipated GATT-like show at Del Mar Fairgrounds in December 2008.
There was a short discussion of organizational issues. The consensus was that our meetings should be kept open and informal without going to the extreme of being comletely unstructured.
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