December 14, 2013 - Meeting Summary
The San Diego S Gaugers held the December club meeting in our clubhouse in Liberty Station. Attendees were: Mike Forys, Bob Graves, Ken Sadlock, Dale Minard, Alex Sibbald, Raulf Polichar, Les Smith and Jim Patterson.
Show and Tell:
Several members met Jim Patterson for the first time. Jim has been busy since he pulled a trailer full of club modules to the X2011 Convention in Sacramento. Raulf Polichar brought in a modified AF truck with brass bushings, which allowed easier rolling than several unmodified AF trucks. Les Smith brought in a book, which depicted historical rail routes and maps and dental tools for use by club members. Ken Sadlock brought in several bags of bungees for our new modules. Dale Minard brought in some S scale shop tools created using 3-D printing.
Treasurer’s Report:
Bob Graves reported that we took in $68.00 in clubhouse donations during November.
Standard’s report:
Raulf is gathering parts to create LED lit switch direction indicators. He is also working on a quick disconnect method for building wiring. Raulf is also checking out the used Fulgurex switch motors purchased at the show.
Publicity Report:
No report this month.
Old Business:
PY2.0:
Dale has completed the interior and exterior lighting of the Ice House. The track 7 turnout switch motor is ready for mounting.
PY2.5
This module still needs switch control motor and clouds. (on-hold)
Lift bridge module:
The lift bridge module will have some stabilizing supports added on both towers to help stabilize the module during transport.
Window Layout:
Our activity counter has recorded a total of 972 hits in the last month. Now into the 19th month of counter operation, the counter has recorded 19,671 hits.
SDSG Website:
No report this month.
Clubhouse Improvements:
Dale Minard previously enhanced the clubhouse with a wall cabinet display that contains boxcars in the five most popular model train scales. His latest addition under the cabinet displays the track for each of the scales.
Donated Trains:
Bob Graves reported that the sale of donated items have brought in $58.50 this month.
New Business:
GTE 2013:
The GTE show in Del Mar went quite well and again we were well received. We used our two test modules to increase the width of our modular layout by 4 feet. The roundtable/turntable addition that Mike Forys constructed was completed enough to allow DCC operation on the outer loop. Dale Minard decorated one test module as an aircraft museum and it attracted a lot of visitors. Although we setup the layout in an untested configuration, the alignment system introduced by Raulf Polichar eliminated alignment problems. Problem areas included poorly marked end cleats and bridge rail variations.
Possible Club trailer purchase:
In case the club were to purchase a trailer for transport modules to and from shows, Mike found out from Roland that the city would not allow us to store the trailer on his property. A lot of our members are retired military and it was suggested that the trailer could be stored on military bases for a small fee.
Clubhouse Additions:
Bob Graves has been authorized to purchase several small engines to operate on the Liberty Loop Window Layout.
2014 PSR Convention:
The convention will be at Courtyard by Marriott in Mission Valley from 9/3/2014 to 9/07/2014. We will be holding an open house for the attendees at the clubhouse. There is a schedule conflict with a potential SDMRR Museum visit next Labor Day Weekend which may cause us to forego attending or going at a different time. Mike Forys will find out when the layout visits are scheduled at the PSR Convention. At this time the dates have not been selected.
Future events:
The first monthly meeting of 2014 will be held on Saturday, Jan 18, 2014, At 2:00pm. We will be electing officers and collecting annual dues ($24.00).
Meeting was adjourned at 3:35PM.
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