Guys,
Last week end was the Assoc of Railway Museums Annual Convention in and around Salt Lake City, Utah. Didn't anyone get out there?

I would have thought some readers of this site would have been there!
How about some comments. We can talk on just about everything here.

Ted Miles

I attend whenever I can, and I always enjoy it and profit from it. But I have to use leave from work and pay my own freight to go, so I don't make it more than one year out of three.

I was there.... good conference on the whole. The seminars covered the spectrum of museum practice very well. They ranged from Don Curry's rattan seat repair to Charlotte Reynolds "Oh my gawd, this is the worst painting caption everrr!" as she held up an actual description of a painting hung in a gallery and told us everything that was wrong with it and how to make captions better. Daniel Kuhn held us in rapt attention as he showed his slides. (Was he the same guy on the bus giving information along the route to Heber City? What a fountain of information....)

My only complaints were not relating to the seminars themselves: no break times, no chance to see the Ogden Union Station museums (unless you skipped seminars, which I didn't do, so I didn't see the museums!)

The site visits to Trax, the Utah State Archives, Heber Valley and Golden Spike were good.

I wasn't on the pre-trip to Ely, but several people told me it was good.

[quote="Evan"]I was there.... good conference on the whole.[/quote]

Anything covering fundraising issues/topics?

Only one talk related to this on doing Day out With Thomas and similar special events and their pitfalls.

Actually, it was a bit more. Tom from OERM suggested thinking as a business - rent your place for money. Get a coordinator for weddings, birthday parties, whatever - and take their money. They are used to paying for services - give them services (outside of the Museum experience) and charge them.

The conference was good - minor things could have made it great. But, it is always good to meet people and discuss ideas.

Jim

The ARM Charter train for Heber Valley passed me on the ground at the Haul Road crossing, just before making the charge up the hill at the dam on it's return to Heber. I had to pull some props from the back of our HiRail truck to set up for our Haunted Canyon Special that evening.

Sorry that I missed meeting many of you.

sc 'doc' lewis

So that was you in the hi-rail truck tagging along behind us on the way back!

The photo run-bys were quite a treat. Speeds of 37 and 40 mph!

The highlight of the trip for me was Mike letting me run from the run-by back to the station and NOT having to take slack on the 2% grade.

I was also great to make new friends and see old friends again.

I will also be at TRAIN next week.