We just returned home after attending the last day of the National Convention hosted by METCA. The trading pits, the layouts, the friends, the schwag, the banquet, the auction ....where to begin?
I arrived early Sat morning and had a huge smile on my face as I saw the banner proclaiming TCA National Convention hoisted across the entrance. I parked the car and was greeted in the lobby with a wonderful modular layout. I don't know who put it together for all to enjoy but it was great. I then headed for the trading area. Large hall, lots of vendors and unfortunately prices that imho were quite aggressive. I ran into CSXJoe and Steve Serenska. Joe was scouring for real train items and steve was just plain scouring for deals.
I was thrilled to see old friends from the days when I was a METCA member. I joined METCA right as new leadership was taking over and seeing Scott Kienzlen, Kevin Quinn, Bob Amling, Stu Rankin and some others was terrific. But I digress.
After cruising around I went to the membership meeting followed by the Lionel presentation. The membership meeting was interesting. The three points that stuck in my mind were:
Membership continues to go down at (at least to me) an alarming rate.
One woman was very vocal complaining about time spent on the bus to get to different tours. Others had much different opinions but it was noted to make ride times clearer at future events.
One member raised his concern about the smaller divisions needing to be incorporated into larger divisions to save money for the TCA as a whole. He referenced the $ needed to send a representative from each division to the conventions. (Aside - I have no idea how that topic works).
To address the shrinking membership, tne strategy presented by the Board was for each member to either convince another person to join or to pay for their spouse to be a member.
Lionel put on a nice presentation highlighting LionChief products. There will, based on demand, be a universal remote that will handle the different engines as opposed to a 1:1 ration. There was a cool neon 115th anniversary clock and highlights of the Made in US products.
I left the hall to pick up MJ at Metropark (Amtrak) and we headed back and went to the reception and banquet. I snoozed and forgot to verify my table seating ...more on that later.
As always at these events, we made new friends, shared stories, and as Stu stated at the beginning of the banquet (per Lou Redman) we gather because of these little toy trains that bring us so much joy.
The auctions after dinner were lively highlighted by a Custom Bi-Polar on a GG1 Chassis. Several other cool items that I have to dig out my notes to share.
Each table at the banquet was piled high with train goodies. Metca made sure no one went home empty handed and some, well remember how I screwed up my table? We ended up sitting at a table with only five of us so this was our
BAG OF SCHWAG
MJ won a great Dept 56 Church, a patch, a Lionel miniature station perpetual calendar and an American Flyer Crane and Tender. I was lucky and won two mint cars.
Once again I would like to congratulate Stu Rankin and the entire METCA Team for pulling of a great convention that was only a pipe dream a few short years ago. Bravo gentlemen, Bravo.
Paul
Lionel Seminar
Stu Rankin sharing the hours of sleep he had in the last three days
