Just to provide a follow-up to the NRHS discussion a month ago, I recently took a look back again at the Buckeye Rails 2006 convention website and they have updated the summary of the daily activities. At the time that I looked, all the days had been completed except Friday.

Dear lord.

I've heard firsthand stories of the webmasters of British rail preservation groups updating their websites with news, photos, etc. while the day's excursion train was still rolling home, via laptop and cell phone.

Most conventions of the modern generations (mine and the one after mine) manage to update their convention websites (number of available memberships remaining, activity summaries, etc.) on a daily basis even during the typically-18-hour-days of the convention. Of course, the convention I worked for earlier this month had perhaps as many all-volunteer staffers as the entire attendance of the national NRHS Convention--and if one added paid support staff such as registration clerks and convention center security/staff, definitely more so. (And we stayed amongst multiple hotels with business center computers and wi-fi, and one webmaster wearily staggered in to do nightly updates before crashing in his room down the hall.)

One other interesting note: As I recall, Friday (the date yet to be covered by the Buckeye Rails site's update) is typically the "non-excursion" day of seminars, workshops, etc. What am I to conclude if the NRHS deems the excursion photos/accounts more significant than these activities? That, indeed, the NRHS exists ONLY for excursions and photo ops?

Sigh......... where's that R&LHS application again?

The Friday of the convention week was a meetings and seminars day and banquet day.

Bob H

<< -- snip --- Of course, the convention I worked for earlier this month had perhaps as many all-volunteer staffers as the entire attendance of the national NRHS Convention--and if one added paid support staff such as registration clerks and convention center security/staff, definitely more so ->>

and which convention was that --- ?

Sounds like some kinda professional event with thousands of attendees.... non of which have been on a train in their lives ! <lol>

Bob H

I'm afraid I'd have to agree with the thrust of Mr.Mitchells remarks. It's a sad statement about the current state of affairs there that it takes weeks to do a simple update(and an incomplete one at that) so people who might be considering supporting the organization can get a meaningful idea of what it produces.
Let's hope the new leadership there is able to get it headed in the right direction?
Ross Rowland

I was reading the NORTHSTAR NEWS issue covering the convention and noticed that after each of the excursion days received a long and extremely detailed summary, the activities on Friday were described as "the usual assortment of seminars and meetings".

http://www.northstar-nrhs.org/news/2006 ... sV37N8.pdf

I wonder how the people who presented the seminars feel about having their effort receive that kind of coverage?

Otakon, the Convention of Otaku Generation (Japanese anime), non-profit, ALL volunteer save for an attorney on retainer:

http://www.otakon.com

Attendance this year approximately 22,000--the second largest convention in Baltimore this year save for a Baptist convention that spreads more of its activities out over many more locations. Average age of the attendees: probably low 20's.

Never been on a train? Au contraire! We had one attendee from Australia, in the midst of a round-the-world trip, who took Amtrak down from NYC. And he wasn't the only Amtraker--we had reports of folks riding in on Amtrak's Capitol Limited and Florida trains. We had multitudes riding Light Rail to and from the Convention Center from outlying hotels and motels. Many rode MARC in on Thursday and got picked up or hitched a ride home Sunday. A couple staffers even rode home on MARC Monday.

One of my many hats at Otakon is "Transportation Consultant"; as such, here was one of my contributions, which I heard was heavily used by attendees in planning:

http://www.otakon.com/allroads.asp

Ham radio conventions/meets have long had a feature called "Talk-in" where a ham can get on a specified channel and call for directions if they're lost, which are provided by a staffer surrounded by maps and working a radio in a side office. It's effectively what I do for this non-radio convention.

Let's get one last thing straight. I'm not even a hard-core anime fan. I do this because I have a LOT of experience in running festivals, shows, concerts, and conventions. I got called in by a friend to help him out in a trusted capacity (we end up with over $150,000 worth of communications gear in our custody and hotel room). If anime were railroads, I would know enough to tell steam from diesel and one railroad from another, and that's about it. Otakon's then-chief-of-staff not only took the trouble to interview a total stranger, they had a procedure in place to make an outsider a staffer with all the provisions and benefits thereof (paid hotel room, food, etc.) WITHOUT my having to pay the annual $60 membership fee. Not only that, they quickly bypassed the normal protocol for staff promotion to get me at a high enough level for security, etc. Several other festivals/conventions/groups I work with/for have similar provisions in place--all I ever have to do is show up to work my butt off, and I have an all-access pass awaiting me, an invite to the staff party later, etc. They all gave me a chance, and I proved myself worthy.

By contrast, a certain NRHS chapter rebuffed my offers of similar volunteerism for their national NRHS convention because I wasn't a dues-paying member. To this day, they're the only such group that has "blown me noff" in this fashion. (One other sci-fi convention fumbled my "rank privileges" after a tumultuous change in administration.) Yes, there's the excuse of insurance coverage--like I need that to type at a computer and make phone calls?

You are not alone in having your offer to help turned down, a lot of other people are in that club with you.

There is an even bigger club of folks who have helped and gotten no thanks for it. For example, the folks who engineered and executed the setup and lighting of the Richmond Triple Crossing Night Shot were never even mentioned in the NRHS writeup of the event. The event was a very unique and memorable moment in railroad history, and they didn't even make an effort to document the people who made that very difficult photograph possible. Several of the volunteers who set up that shoot in sweltering 95 degree heat were not attendees at the convention and had contributed their time and traveled long distances at their own expense to help. They got no thanks at all, while the local chapter made great efforts to list every one of their own members who served on committees. If you want to see the list of people who actually executed that photo, you will have to go to one of the issues of Railfan & Railroad where it was printed, you won't find it in any NRHS coverage of the event.

This is consistent with this year's convention coverage. There is no mention of who set up and executed their night photo session, no mention of the four speakers who did presentations for the convention, and no mention of the banquet speaker.

PC

Clarification: I'm a dues-paying member of the National NRHS and two other Chapters; I just wasn't a member of THAT chapter.

I contacted a friend who is close to all the folks involved in the convention coverage, and he advised that the lack of attention given the railroad history seminars and banquet presentation reflected the personal interests of the person who did the coverage. That is understandable, but by providing a link to the description from the national's website, the NRHS national organization surely appears to endorse the convention coverage as written.

During the first revenue run of the 2100, we sat in the Tacoma Rail yard for a half hour or so waiting for other trains. Since the other fireman was watching the boiler at the moment, I snapped a few photos and then logged on to RailroadForums.com for a quick check on the site.

When I got there, I found a trip report and photos had already been posted. The engine still wasn't back at the storage location yet, and the report was already online.

It is certainly a shame that the seminars were skipped in the NRHS summary. They were actually fascinating to those who attended. I really enjoyed Jim Porterfield's description of dining on the rails. Among the topics he mentioned were that the Northern Pacific's famous "Great Big Potato" meal was a special size of potato that isn't grown anymore. This really hits home with how something as universal as eating really does change over time.

I also was impressed by the turnout at the Operation Lifesaver program run by Wes Ross. I slept in late, because I figured that all real rail fans were up on the latest, only to find that there was some heated discussion on all aspects of railroad safety after the rather tame, but informative video program.

While I won't say that the NRHS does a disservice by not including all aspects of its convention in web coverage, one would think that if the main writer(s) weren't attending an event or two that they would find someone who did attend to write on that particular subject.

Omitting mention of the seminars in the summary of the convention is incredibly disrespectful of the presenters and will only make it more difficult for the NRHS to get good speakers on historic topics in the future. But I doubt the future holds much for the NRHS, judging by the attendance at the local chapters. The clinics held by a local hobby shop are getting as many attendees as the NRHS chapters in my area draw at their meetings, and the railroad speakers program being hosted by one area library often gets 2 to 3 times the attendance of the NRHS chapters.

The local region of the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) comes up with better and more professional programs for their meetings than the NRHS generally attracts. This is in part due to the efforts of several of their members who work for the railroads, and they have totally taken the lead in the diesel locomotive related topics. Of course their members average twenty to thirty years younger than the NRHS regulars. When you take a look at how much "ground" the NRHS has surrendered to other groups totally by default just due to their lack of interest in those areas, you wonder what they have left to offer? The study and teaching of railroad history certainly does not seem to get very much respect in their organization, as we have seen in the writeups of this convention.