Interesting point, I never would've thought of it as a Costco for museums. I don't know though, I'd have to visit a lot of stuff to recoup $50.

I found myself needing to kill some time this afternoon waiting on someone and decided to dig out a back issue of the NRHS Bulletin I hadn't read, Winter 2013. I found the issue, dedicated to railroad signal systems by Howard Ande to be well done and informative, even for someone who has operated under signal systems as an active duty railroader. So, I don't think the Bulletin is a total waste of dues and paper. If the organization can't produce time-sensitive articles, then in-depth explanations of various aspects of railroading is something they can do well.

I want to echo those who also thought the chapter annual was worthwhile. I usually spent some time perusing that issue to see what various chapters were doing. Probably could be done on a webpage now, but would require the consistency of one or two people inputting the information in a consistent format.

Recently, top officers of the National NRHS have made several presentations directly to several NRHS Chapters, at regular or special meetings, to present the National's case for continued support and membership. I attended one of these. The information in the slides of the PowerPoint presentation had been amended after prior such meetings and feedback, to reflect additional issues/questions raised.

Members of the Chapter, and some from other Chapters in attendance as well, took sharp issue with allegedly conflicting financial information between the presentation and figures from the NRHS website and financial reports. Another quite contentious issue was the way mail-in proxy ballots were worded, allegedly so as not to offer a negative vote to proposed changes.

Personally, one observation of mine was my personal clincher.

The show consisted of 55 slides.

Fifty or fifty-one (discount a title slide) covered where the NRHS currently stood and how it go there.

Only four covered the intended future of the NRHS. And inadequately, in my personal estimation.

The corrected Notice of Annual Meeting and Member Proxy arrived in my mail today. (Reportedly, the error in the original mailing was done by the contracted service provider, and they supposedly bore the expense of remailing the correction.)

List of membership benefits, 4th Heading on the Page:

http://www.nrhs.com/membership

Posting this just for reference in this discussion.

PC

Any compentent business manager knows that problems are best solved by first determining what happened and why it happened and then looking at / discussing proposed solutions.

This is also the process they're using to investigate the recent 777 crash at SFO and also (and to keep this thread rail oriented) the oil train fire that occured the same day in Quebec.

Bob H

Proposed solutions were not discussed, or were discussed woefully inadequately.

The consensus among those I spoke with after the meeting in question was that this was nothing more than crisis management. Or, to abuse another analogy, this is the banks or airlines or auto makers crying for a bailout without presenting the changes that will be imposed to prevent the crisis from ever happening again.

Speaking strictly personally, I need to hear more. Maintaining the status quo will turn the organization into a "Last Men's Club." The National NRHS needs to upgrade to the 21st century reality of railroading and railfandom, or perish. Even the R&LHS, which for years was called the "stodgy, clannish, and boring" step-sibling of the NRHS, offers me more for $32 than the NRHS does for $50. (Now, granted, I network among rail historians more than track the whereabouts of the RBBX Circus Train or the NS Heritage Units. But even then....)

Seems like it has been a pretty slow month on RYPN, so lets bring this one back up to the front page and see if there is any news. How are they doing? Has anyone seen the NRHS 2012 financial results yet?

PC

Yeah, I was wondering that myself. I was also wondering if Hitler's found out :)

...and when were done whipping this horse we can hit 1361, Pemberton, or go to the Southern Yahoo Group and discuss steam engine cab roof colors. On the other hand, if we can get another good Hitler parody......

ETA

You could also revive this thread: The Macdowell Prophecy (also know as, "2000 cars must die"). Since that discussion, I've been mentally taking note of cars once considered preserved that are now close to being junk.

Actually, if some just-received back-channel communications pans out, something quite interesting may have just happened in this regard.

I have to head off to work, but once responses to a couple inquiries have been received, I'll comment further.

Our chapter has been very supportive of NRHS and not likely to go anywhere like many other groups have.

Unfortunately, at our last meeting, we gave the 45-slide presentation to the membership (we have about 50 members, with 20 or so that are "regulars"). The response of our members, a crowd friendly to the National, was overwhelmingly negative. It was felt that the tone taken by whomever put it together was adversarial and patronizing to chapters and members. It was also admitted by several others in our group that the same problems facing the NRHS were being felt by other groups, be it cars, scouts, planes, boats, etc.

We walked away, after much discussion, still realizing that the name and organization of the "National Railway Historical Society" meant a great deal to our group, particularly in the solicitation of rolling stock we want for our museum, but that 45-slide presentation did no favors for anyone, much less national/chapter relationships.

Matt Bumgarner
Alexander Chapter-NRHS

That wasn't my criterion. Consider a Swift refrigerator car that's tip top, versus the Lion Gardiner. A well kept GE 44-ton engine vs the GMDH-3. Yet another Lackawanna coach vs. an unrestored OA&E coach in WRM's storage barn. On the other hand, simply being inside a barn doesn't make them worthy. In other words, I don't see condition as a ruling factor.

Kicking this back up to the top:

A couple chapters are now debating the merits, or lack thereof, of creating what would amount to a "chapter-only" or "friends of" membership class. "Contributors" at that level would receive little more than the newsletter and whatever rights may be conferred by said Chapter--newsletter/magazine, meeting attendance, banquet/picnic attendance, etc.--but would not be afforded voting rights or other privileges (library access, free admission to museum, whatever). The price, as proposed, would be higher than chapter dues to an NRHS member.

There are a pool of folks out there (and I've heard from them) that have "had it" with the National NRHS and want to quit, but don't want to sever ties to the local scene or newsletter. There are others that effectively want to put the National NRHS on "notice" or "probation," if you will--they don't wish to withdraw support in the middle of what could be the necessary management or policy change, but still aren't one bit content with the status quo.

The renewal forms from National went out and have been trickling in over the past two weeks. Now we get to see what renewal numbers look like.

Stay tuned.

As far as I can tell, the National's recent Road Show presentations to the local Chapters have bombed every single time - members always walk away more fed up and frustrated than they were before. It is no exception at our Chicago Chapter.

Chris.