Well I had a great time this last 2 days. I attended the NMRA Div 1 Clinic’s weekend in Brisbane. About 36 paying customers (I think they were all NMRA members) attended the event. Then there was the 16 or so presenters and organisers on top of that. We even had our Div 1 member Luke Towan (of YouTube modelling fame) in attendance and giving a clinic.
Well to those that think they know everything and don’t need to go to these entry level clinics, they would be very wrong. You need to keep an open mind. You missed a great weekend. I think I learnt at least one new fact in every clinic. Actually I learnt quite a lot in some sessions. So I walked away with a Decal Positioning kit – container, sponge and paintbrush). I also received an AR Kit NPRY wagon (no bogies or couplers – but I have plenty of those in the shed – what I don’t have is any screws to attach the bogies – Bugger!) to practice applying decals to – thanks very much Al Cutmore! I also received a piece of wood with some wire holder-uppers in it. This has many positions predrilled and is to allow us to hold our wagon or loco and apply some weathering to it. I also got a small farm type shed which I assembled in the styrene clinic. I also learnt some more about JMRI especially operations, some spray painting tips, soldering tips and some more layout reliability tips and an understanding on 3D printing and an overview about how CAD programs work to help with designing my own model projects.
I steered clear of the hands on build a diorama stream, but what they produced was very nice indeed. At the end of the day there was a raffle, and guess what? My ticket number was called out second. So I picked up another NSW Ready-to-Run Cement hopper as my prize. Then another of my tickets was called out again. So I asked them to redraw that prize.
We had tea and coffee, as well as cold drinks available all weekend. A light lunch was served on both days and we had cake and biscuits for morning and afternoon tea. Well done to the organisers, and the presenters. They did a magical job. I’d go again, just for the discussions with a number of those members in attendance. It wasn’t an expensive weekend, but the presenters I think did provide a lot out of their own pockets. Thanks very much!