Annual September Club Meeting - minutes

["Steve Wise" <swise@aoot.com>]

Hello Tinplaters!

For those of you who could not attend, here are the minutes I managed to
capture:

Board Elections:

Welcome Mike Pauwels and Ed Weltens to the TTAT Board of Directors.  They
are succeeding Ira and Scott.  Many thanks to the new comers for
volunteering, and the old timers for all their help in making TTAT a
succesful and fun club!

Creation of an Advisory Board:

The club voted to create an advisory board.  Outgoing board members will sit
on the advisory board for 1 year.  They will participate in the board
meetings and advise as needed, but will not vote (like we ever have formal
votes! :-).  Anyway, Scott and Ira are now our Advisory Board of Directors.

Treasury Update - Joe Maverick:

As of 9/30/2004, the club has $675 cash on hand.  After pending expenses due
to members, we expect to have around $500.  We need to be careful as we move
forward to watch our bank account since we are doing less revenue generating
shows now.  There were discussions about the possibility of raising dues to
help compensate for this.  Everyone there seems to think it was ok to raise
dues if we are staying setup more at the Railyard, for instance.  IE:
everyone likes the permanent layout in austin, and if we need to up dues for
this, then it is probably a good thing.  IF YOU DON"T AGREE with this,
please email the club with your views asap.

Upcoming Events:

- temple show ready to go.

- Czhilispiel - looks like we have someone to tow the trailer down thursday
evening and leave it ready for unloading friday.  See the event coordination
doc for more info on this.  PLEASE update the event coordination doc to
indicate whether you plan to attend or not.  Even if you have to change
plans later, its better to indicate your intended participation as early as
possible.

- Austin Jamboree - The board decided to attempt to participate in this
event in 2 ways:  1) setup the 4x8 at the event, 2) particpate in the layout
tours.  Two event coordination documents have been created.  Please update
them with your intended participation for these events.

- Railyard update - Craig is working hard with the land lord to get us space
again.  Currently, all places are rented.  However, the Republican Party has
a space there, and after the elections, we can probably move in there.  It's
a smaller space though.  Another possibility is to use some of the
unfinished areas that have power but no AC.  Weather permitting, we might
could do that.  The landlord is being very accomdating and Craig says we've
had a positive impact on the Railyard by bringing in more customers.
Another proposal was made to perhaps setup a bulletin board if we get space
again and post ads for all the local stores in our space, so that folks
coming to see us will perhaps peruse the board and go visit other shops.
Anyway, it was agreed that we definitely want to try and get back in the
Railyard asap.

- Future Events - Adrian will create as 2005 calendar as he gets confirm
event dates.  If you know of specific shows we normaly attend, then email
adrian and he'll update the calendar.

- Layout Tours - Steve will have a small tour of his Halloween D56/On30
layout sometime in early November.  Since the layout doesn't have much
operating, we'll also watch some Train shows, like Trains Unlimited and
Trackside episodes.  Stay tuned.

Operational and/or Layout Problems:

- DCS is still only setup on one track (main 2).  Ira suggests we leave this
way for Temple to make sure its running 100% on just one track, then we'll
try and add one other main and see how that goes.

- Voltage problem.  We think there's some wiring problem causing a
resistance on a few sections.  These seem to include the oil field modules.
Anyway, we need to do further debugging on this.  Problaby a bad solder
joint or jones plug somewhere.

- bad cab1 - one of the cab1 remotes is a little flakey.  It's marked
somehow to identify it (I don't remember how).  If you end up using it and
its not working, please put it somewhere out of reach so nobody else will
get stuck with it.  We have a new one, so we should have enough cab1s for
operating.

New Projects:

New members are encouraged to volunteer to help out on a module in some
fashion.  Here are some simple projects that we need done.  If you are
interested, please email the club and we'll work with you on how to proceed.

- transition modules need to be modified to lessen the curves needed for the
d->e transition.  This will make these modules much more friendly to large
engines and cars.  Currently the transition is a pair of O72 curves
back-to-back in an "S".  These need to be replaced with larger radius curves
and cut down with as long a straight as possible in between the curves.

- 10" track replacement.  Many club modules still have 10" sectional track.
The club has decided to use 40" K-Line Shadow rail and replace these
sectional pieces.  So you cut the 40" down to 38", and install it in
existing modules, wiring everything up as needed.

Not For Profit Status:

Mike Pauwels volunteered to consult with a CPA and get info on how we might
become a non-profit org.  We will report back to the board with estimated
cost, and whats needed to maintain this status on a yearly basis.

Craig also discussed a possible scenario where we along with all the other
austin clubs form a non-profit corporation. This could allow all the clubs
to pool money for shared interests, like a permanent space for layouts.
This also makes it easier for office space owners/leasers to "write off" our
using their space.   No conclusions were made on this.


That's it!

Please add your input if I missed something.


Stevo.