RailRoadFan.com

The next meeting of The Michigan Railroad Club will be Wednesday, July 06, 2022.
Program on cement plant railroads in Eastern Pennsylvania by Jim Roland from Maryland.
Meeting held at the Maplewood Center in the Maple Room. This is at 31735 Maplewood, Garden City, Mich. Meeting starts at 1900 and ends at 2050 (Must be out of building by 2100).
Now Jim is coming from Maryland, would be nice if we had a good turnout of people who are much closer. ALL are most welcome!

Tonight, Michigan Railroad Club meeting featuring Jim Rowland from Maryland.

Last meeting of The Michigan Railroad Club was great. Real nice program on the cement region of Eastern Pennsylvania. Only down side was lack of attendance. Had four Club offices, the presenter and his guest but only eight other people. What a slap in the face to the presenter who came from Maryland.

Any ideas why very few people attend? We moved to a better place because of complaints about the space in the Dearborn Civic Center and attendance is much lower in this nice new place compaired to the cramped space we had. Any ideas on programs? I get what I can get but do try to have at least one traction program and try to bring in out of towners. So any ideas?

KenB wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 08, 2022 10:24 am

Any ideas why very few people attend? We moved to a better place because of complaints about the space in the Dearborn Civic Center and attendance is much lower in this nice new place compaired to the cramped space we had. Any ideas on programs? I get what I can get but do try to have at least one traction program and try to bring in out of towners. So any ideas?

Weekday evening attendance can be hard for people who still work for a living.

Many historic photos and information can be viewed and shared virtually. Less reason for in person gatherings. Perhaps consider hosting the meeting on Zoom or Google Meet.

Perhaps meeting on weekends, and near popular foamer locations may bring more attendance. Foamer patrons may have more incentive to visit the area when there are multiple foamer related reasons to do so.

KenB, thank you for hosting the Michigan Railroad Club event.

At Ann Arbor Technical & Historical Association we are running into the same issue. There is so much information on the internet that people are not joining like they used to. The guys at AAT&HA are top-notch too. The last publication was about the history of how AA's track around the Toledo area became aligned what it is today. That's over a hundred years that Don Maddox researched and documented. Did you know, for example, that AA has the notoriety of having to Milepost 0's in its history? One at the original Cherry Street Station and then when that track was removed a new one at Galena Street. Despite the excellent information and annual meeting held usually at Durand overall attendance continues to drop. We're trying to change that trend.

In response to Conrail Detroit, Zoom meetings don't put people or members in the seats at club meetings. There are no really "Hot Spots" in the metro Detroit area with nearby meeting locations that I am aware of. Saturday meetings, a lot of people who are off on the weekends I feel would have family activities or chores that they wouild need to take care of, rather then be interested in attending a Saturday meeting. I belong to a group that has meetings on a Satruday at 10:00 A.M., and we don't get that many more members attending.

I thank you for your comments, but as has been noted, not to many young folks are joining any type of club or organizations for the most part.

Anthony J. Rzucidlo, President/CEO
Michigan Railroad CLub, Inc.

Before Covid we generally had 25-30 people show up to a Wednesday meeting. Some meetings have been in the 40's and even had one that was 60.

Very hard to find a place to have a meeting at a reasonable cost. When we were at the Dearborn library, Amtrak ran out side the door but no one ever went and took photographs before the meeting. Meeting on the weekend is a no go. People are out railfanning or getting their home projects done.

Yes, a lot of content on the internet however a lot of it is not. The program we had last Wednesday was on a Zoom meeting for their Society but unless yo were a member you would not have known about it.

In response to members we moved to a better facility than we had at the Dearborn Civic Center and we have less attendance.

Thank you for your input Conraildetroit. Come to a meeting.

I see your meeting topics when posted and they all seem very interesting. I would much rather attend an in person meeting than a meeting on zoom. I love live meetings with interactions with presenters. I would happily attend an occasional weekday meeting. It usually works well for my situation. My location would require 5 hours of driving round trip to attend and just isn't justified. Surely there are more than a dozen folks on the east side who would find your meetings interesting and attend. Not sure what the secret sauce is to get the word out and attendance up. But I encourage you to not give up.