Some time back, I posted a message about National Model
Railroad Month and some ideas about what could be done for
it. This is my follow up on what we (Central Indiana
Division, MWR, NMRA) have been able to do so far.
As a division, we held our `Free' National Model RR Month
meet in conjunction with a Lion's Club Pancake Breakfast. We
didn't count heads, but quite a number of folks looked over
the layouts that we brought in from Z, N, HO and O (no G,
sorry). We held three clinics. One was our new CID KIT (Kids
In Trains) clinic where we matched one of our members with a
young modeler and assisted them in building a car kit. We
had thirteen kids that took part in this over a period of
three hours. We purchased the cars and tools used in this
clinic at cost or less from one manufacturer and from
local dealers.
The second clinic was aimed at raw beginners explaining
scale and gauge and giving background on the hobby. The
third was a scenery clinic that was also well attended.
We also gave away a number of back issues of magazines
(MR, RMC, MRg, etc.) that a local dealer donated in addition
to NMRA Bulletins and NMRA materials.
The radio station at Butler University in Indianapolis gave
us a lot of free air-time helping us to promote this meet.
Alas, most of the other print and air media did not respond
to our PR requests.
One of the local newspapers in Anderson Indiana did respond
to the month promotion with a nice spread with photos on two
local model railroads in the Sunday `Hometown' section. They
also ran a sidebar promoting the hobby with a nice mention
of the NMRA and a local club in the library.
Promotion of the hobby still CAN be done, but it does take
an effort on the part of a number of people to get it done.
I began working on the local paper nearly three months
before the articles were run.
For those who may be interested, photos have been uploaded
to the CID web site at: http://cid.railfan.net/
Simply take the Photo Album link for 2001-2002.
Roger Hensley
http://madisonrails.railfan.net/
Railroad Month and some ideas about what could be done for
it. This is my follow up on what we (Central Indiana
Division, MWR, NMRA) have been able to do so far.
As a division, we held our `Free' National Model RR Month
meet in conjunction with a Lion's Club Pancake Breakfast. We
didn't count heads, but quite a number of folks looked over
the layouts that we brought in from Z, N, HO and O (no G,
sorry). We held three clinics. One was our new CID KIT (Kids
In Trains) clinic where we matched one of our members with a
young modeler and assisted them in building a car kit. We
had thirteen kids that took part in this over a period of
three hours. We purchased the cars and tools used in this
clinic at cost or less from one manufacturer and from
local dealers.
The second clinic was aimed at raw beginners explaining
scale and gauge and giving background on the hobby. The
third was a scenery clinic that was also well attended.
We also gave away a number of back issues of magazines
(MR, RMC, MRg, etc.) that a local dealer donated in addition
to NMRA Bulletins and NMRA materials.
The radio station at Butler University in Indianapolis gave
us a lot of free air-time helping us to promote this meet.
Alas, most of the other print and air media did not respond
to our PR requests.
One of the local newspapers in Anderson Indiana did respond
to the month promotion with a nice spread with photos on two
local model railroads in the Sunday `Hometown' section. They
also ran a sidebar promoting the hobby with a nice mention
of the NMRA and a local club in the library.
Promotion of the hobby still CAN be done, but it does take
an effort on the part of a number of people to get it done.
I began working on the local paper nearly three months
before the articles were run.
For those who may be interested, photos have been uploaded
to the CID web site at: http://cid.railfan.net/
Simply take the Photo Album link for 2001-2002.
Roger Hensley
http://madisonrails.railfan.net/
