Convention is Thursday, October 4 through Sunday noon, October 7. MER crew will arrive and start setting up tables, registration desk, etc. on Thursday afternoon. Convention starts with clinics and open houses on Thursday evening. People coming in will be registering at hotel and then registering at the convention desk, so Thursday night and Friday will be the busiest.

Prefer not to sell raffle tickets on Thursday night. Registration crew will be busy, and the rest will not be set up.

At least one of Marshall, Brian, and Tom will be onsite at all times to resolve problems. A cheat sheet should be prepared with the entire Committee's cell phone numbers.

There are safes in the room.

Parking is free -- not sure how that is going to be worked out. The O Scale convention is at the same place in August, so Tom should be able to find out how it is handled. People who are going to the convention but not staying at the hotel will also need free parking.

Meal is ready, all straight with that. There is a vegetarian option, but not a gluten-free option.

Registration desk is in the side lobby, right in the aisle, a big open area that is the entranceway into the hallway where the clinic rooms and banquet room are.

Committee volunteers get early rate whenever they register, but must pay full fare for the convention.

Marshall asked for a large-scale map to put on the website. He has already received questions about the outside -- directions to parking, etc.

The "theater" setup can still accommodate a flat table for clinicians at the front. Tom has not received specific information about what is needed in each room from Marty. A/V committee is supposed to make sure clinicians have everything they need. Need to query all clinicians and ask what they need. Table? 2 table? Electrical needs? Tom will get the list from Marshall and contact the clinicians for their setup preferences. Two clinic rooms will be set up theater style, one classroom for hands-on clinics.

What provisions for signage does the hotel have outside the doors? Bill is going to stop by the hotel and look. May have electric signs, but they may just say NMRA convention and not change.

Gary has not communicated about schedules yet. Has been asked for a tutorial.

Two things: On setup, tendency for people to just plop stuff down and take up more room than they're allowed. Have to say "Woah, we'll tell you where to put your stuff." Have to decide on a process, go out in advance for list. Marshall is going to make a form, give them option to fill it out at home. Can't make everybody register in advance, some don't show. Aspirin is recommended. Make them log in, get the forms, make envelopes for each seller. Etc.

The other thing: No discussion in convention booklet, no discussion of when and where people settle up with the WE committee. Can't wait until Sunday morning. WE room closes down at 4PM on Saturday. Should be able to check against list with unsold items. Have to take 10% of what is sold. Must have cash to make change, or what? Then, how long to do the accounting, and when should people come in and settle up?

Must be figured out, e.g. 10-11 after speaker for people to come in, 9-10 on Sunday morning, etc.

Some people will leave Saturday evening, must check out that evening, or have an emergency and have to leave early. Can't cater to everybody, but must have a plan.

Dinner starts at 7, should be over at 8. 8:15 to 9 for award presentations, announcements, Philly Division pitch for their convention. At 9PM speaker Lou Sassi starts. 40-45 min to talk, 10-15 for questions. Should be done at 10.

John is newest MMR. Congratulations! Try to have certificate and plan to award.

Marshall has portable file boxes that might be ideal for envelopes. Set up alphabetically.

What is dress code for dinner? Casual. Nothing fancy.

Gary is asked to work with everybody on the subcommittee to come up with schedules; people are doing other things.

Have made many calls, received some donations. Have process in place.

Are going to do another round of calls over the next 6 weeks.

Division will buy the tickets. May need 3000-4000 tickets. Don't open packs until needed, so unused packs can be returned.

Raffle ends at 4 on Saturday, should be able to post the winners by 4:30. What if winner does not claim the prize? Encourage people to put a name and a phone number on the ticket. Won't work if people are buying yards of tickets -- put the onus on the winner. Your responsibility -- we will post the winning tickets on the website after the convention. You contact us and make arrangements.

Consider special tickets for more valuable prizes?

Will need big screen for banquet.

Need extra volunteers; White Elephant volunteers may be able to help out.

Bill wants to try to get some Chesapeake Division layouts for on the way home; Marshall sent him the list from the 2013 convention that included some.

Some communication challenges with layout owners not responding to e-mails or phone calls.

Glenn Paulson is near Dale Latham in Waldorf. Has not been contacted. Along with Bob Reed is Max Munger, four doors down. Max is open for Sunday.

Web page is more up-to-date than the printed document.

September 15 is probably go-to-print deadline for convention booklet, but tell people September 1. Marshall is working with Bill to fill slots.

Carolina ready to bring two, but we only have room for one. Is there anything we need to provide? Rolling stock? Locomotives? Power Supply? Directions? Starting setup, ending setup?

Will bring backup stuff.

Contest? Award? Raffle tickets? Kalmbach gift certificate?

The measure is # of moves, not speed. On the honor system -- have a box with slot and slips of paper with name and number of moves. Perhaps an award certificate at the banquet.

Lee is ordering so that attendees know who can answer questions.

Not filled up. 60 registrations, 10 significant others, openings can be seen on update spreadsheet.

Probably won't add any until the others fill up.

4 for Walkersville excursion.

6 for mold making clinic.

Long distance down to Bob Reed's house -- should the operating session be 7-9 instead of 7-10? 2 hour journey to Rockville from there. Or option for someone to leave early without messing up the session.

Lou Sassi - free registration, free room, $200 to give two clinics. Had to rent van.

Is there a limit to # of people for banquet? Not a problem. Banquet is not that great a draw.

Update yesterday. Still 10 slots open, but most of those are in the 10PM slot. Could easily do without those; only 5 openings otherwise.

One integrated layout with PMC and Prince William and other club. No special discount for club members, but room rate is available.

Setup Thursday night, run all day Friday and until 4PM on Saturday.

They get a special badge if they don't register for the convention but cannot attend clinics, white elephant, etc.

Who is going to make special badges? Tom will take care of it. Will have a list of who is coming, are they just coming to set up, man the room, exhibit module, etc.

Outside door is right there, but only parking for one or two at the same time. Should post someone there to make sure people don't park all over the place.

Brian visited the other day. Will give a walking tour of yard, enginehouse. He picked up the ticket package, brochures, all will be slipped into the registration package for anyone who signs up.

Will sell tickets up until Friday at convention; at that point Jerry will call Brooke and tell her how many tickets were sold. Will have to figure out how to get the money to her. Brian will e-mail Bill Gross to find out if we can write a check in real time.

People will gather in the lobby and Jerry will lead the caravan up there.

Other potential tour was Silver Spring trolley museum. Barry Thompson did some checking; they have several options; one is just to tell people where it is with an address and people can go if they feel like it. Can get a guided tour for a group of up to 20 people. If it is more than 20 people, they want something special.

Tom suggests we just have a blurb in convention booklet and let people go on their own. Open Friday with limited hours; not open during the week. Would have to be Saturday afternoon if it was an organized tour. Walkersville in the morning, trolley in the afternoon. Layout tours keep moving, are not in that area on Saturday afternoon. Friday afternoon, central part of Montgomery County is where layout tours are. Marshall will put something on the Layout tour page because museum is open Friday 10-2 at that time of year.

Ernie has taken over for Ed Rosado who is moving.

The Division placed a 1/8 page add which appears on page 22 of the current NMRA magazine. Ernie is working on last article for the Local. Deadline is mid-August.

Also working on one-page e-mail to distribute to neighboring regions, asking them to bring it up on their newsletters.

And clinic signs, including full track for each room, full track for three days.

Marshall will be out on Rockville Pike in the nude with a spinner sign. Well, that's what was stated.

Can put flyers out at O scale convention and put them in the packages. Ernie has 100 left. Can go to Kinko's if we need more and submit the receipt for reimbursement.

Are we in MR events calendar of events? Probably too late.

Website is up. There is a matrix of time and distance.

Marshall's plan is to duplicate tour pages and create a URL with addresses and directions that will be shared only with attendees. It will be put up the day before the convention and taken down right after.

PWMRC will be open Sunday afternoon, also.

Marshall and John Glaab had been nominated, but John is not going to be available.

Have four people, hoping for two from Philly Division. Bill Gross was given contact info to schedule.

On Thursday probably need the most help putting the registration packets together. Banquet ticket? Walkersville Southern? Probably labor intensive as much help as possible.

Assuming Bill will take care of the registration desk.

Tom asks that Bill be contacted about the setup he needs. Probably need 3 tables across the front, another 3 across the back for stuff. Brian will ask.

Discussed

Want to set hard deadline; most printers can deal with 6 business days, but we tell people Sept 1 then we can make the hard deadline the 15^th.

Checked with internet and local firms for printing; MXG company in San Diego had auto-quote lowball $400. Hard price after correspondence was $677, including color cover plus saddle stitching and shipping. Appear reputable in online reviews.

Locally, Staples in Rockville: Large booklet - bound by two staples, $1000.

Advance registration is closed at a certain point; we could ask Bill for his % for walk-ins. What happened in 2013 was not enough layout books for everybody. Had a lot of walk-ins.

Do we need emergency clinic information? Hotel should have that.

In 2013 we had many walk-ins we did not anticipate, to more than 300 attendees.

Certificates -- information can be taken from the website for clinicians, open houses, committees, etc.

Lanyards being donated by Main Line Hobbies. Brian will obtain.

Dave Collinson (?) has layout tour signs not picked up last October. Trying to find a weekend that he is at Walkersville, Brian will retrieve. Bill Demas needs to figure out how they get to layout tour hosts.

General supplies: Masking tape, post-its, etc. Do we need it? Put it on Bill Gross list.

For timesavers and modules, need power.

What do we have for posting notices? Easels? Does hotel have soft message board?

Next update September 22, 2018 at Marshall Abrams' house.