MMR Update

This week I continued plodding along building strings of pallets.  I have completed 8 strings for a total of 215 pallets.  I also had PK pick up some more styrene for me from a local hobby shop.  He dropped that over to my place on Saturday on our way to the NMRA meeting.  I now have enough styrene to complete another approximately 185 pallets.   However, I’m pretty much all 'palletted' out and I do not want to build another one for well over a month or more.  I do have to start cutting these up and then getting the paints out to do about 30 pallets each of about 7 different colours.  That is potentially next Thursday, Friday and Saturday’s job.

Yesterday PK and Kyle came to my place and I then drove them to the NMRA meeting down at Pimpama, at the local model railway Club’s clubrooms.  It was a well attended meeting (about 45 there) and a few more line, as we stream our meetings and presentations to the rest of the region around the state.  The home Club also put on a sausage sizzle, had cold drinks on hand, and had the urn on for tea and coffee.  What more could you ask for?  Well they even had airconditioning in the meeting area.  Put on the day before.  Talk about well organised!

At the meeting, we had Bob talk about his home made servo controllers.  Then we had Paul talk about the 'Paul and Bob epic tour (part 1)' to Amherst in the US in January.  This is the world’s biggest model railway exhibition held over 2 days.   A number of the Queensland contingent went to the show and also Rob from NSW (current Pacific Director) went as well.  We saw plenty of photos of them.  After lunch we had Paul and Duncan catch up with Divisional and Regional NMRA business.  Then Arthur took the floor and spoke about the Achievement Program.  He covered how many AP Certificates were achieved in our Region this last year and how many were achieved worldwide.  We had 9 AP Certificates.  That was a pretty low number.  Arthur then presented me with my Master Builder of Cars Certificate.  This AP made me qualify for MMR.  Arthur then presented me the AP certificate for MMR.  Paul then presented me with the Australian Plaque for MMR.  Duncan then presented me with the National (worldwide) plaque for MMR.  I needed a few extra hands.

My aim is to now try and get a few of my mates to journey down the road to completing some more AP certificates.

During our Show and Tell part of the meeting, I also showed off about 5 seconds of video that showed my level crossing lights working in my pergola.  I was trying to drum up interest in other members getting their lights flashing and I offered assistance.

When we got back to my place from the NMRA meeting, PK and Kyle came down to the shed and PK started crawling around under all the decks, taking photos to give him some research on how my layout was built.  He is going in very deep with his planning of his various decks in his shed.  Soon, we he will have his builder resource available, to install his clothesline outside the shed, complete the insulation installation and sheet the internal walls in the shed.  Who knows he might even start building benchwork by mid year.  It has taken him about 7 years (maybe more) of sitting on his backside so far and do nothing much.  Something lit the fire under his tail.

Today I hung all my paraphernalia up inside the shed.  I am also following through on an enhancement for the North Coast Control during an Ops session.