News: NASG

The NASG's Secretary has provided the summary notes for the August 2023 NASG BOT meeting. You will need to log in to the "Members Only" portal to be able to view the reports.

• view the page

The NASG's Secretary has provided the summary notes of the NASG Annual BOT meeting, and the NASG Annual Membership General Meeting, which took place at the 2023 NASG Convention in Harrisburg, PA in July. You will need to log in to the "Members Only" portal to be able to view the reports.

• view the page

We are currently looking to fill these positions:

Assistant Dispatch Editor
With Dick Karnes' announcement of retiring as the "scale" assistant editor for the Dispatch, we are looking for someone to take over that position. If you enjoy writing and/or helping other members tweak their submitted articles, please consider applying for this position.

Service Committee Chair
We are looking for a person who will be establishing and coordinating projects that serve the NASG's membership. While those projects change over time, they currently involve the following: the Company Store, the Annual Member Car, the AF Commemorative Car, the Library, the Membership committee. Unlike other committee chairs, this person is responsible not only for directly supervising or organizing a specific project, but also coordinating the various subcommittees listed above and working with the BOT to have a consistent and coordinated range of services to serve the membership. We are looking for a "people" person with good communication skills, who will be able to work effectively with a range of volunteers in the NASG organization.

Please contact the NASG president, Jim Whipple, and he will be able to guide you to the correct person.
Start an e-mail message.

The NASG Librarian, Dale Minard, has been very busy and is happy to announce the availability of measured drawings of prototype rolling stock. These drawings are available to active NASG members, and are already properly scaled to 3/16"-to-the-foot scale (i.e. 1:64, i.e. S-scale). Follow the link, below, to the page to go to the Measured Drawings section of the NASG Library, and you will find a spreadsheet file listing the available drawings (over 400 of them!).

• view page

The 2023 NASG Convention site is now the 2024 NASG Convention site. Nothing new to report, other than that the dates of the Convention were moved up one week ahead of the dates announced at the 2023 Convention two weeks ago.

• view page

During the NASG's Annual General Membership Meeting at this year's NASG Convention, the NASG Board of Trustees issued a press release. The press release was read to the NASG members in attendance at the time and the floor was opened for discussion. This press release will be published in an upcoming NASG Dispatch issue. We have also added this press release to the "Members Only" portal of this web site.

• view the page

After several days of working on this 2023 NASG Convention page, which included widdling down 809 photos sent in, down to 117 of the most interesting ones, the page is finally available for all to enjoy. Thanks to the six people who sent in photos, we were able to create a complete summary of all that happened at last week's Convention. Be sure to click the photos of interest to see the larger version (then click anywhere to dismiss that larger version). If you find any factual errors, be sure to let me know.

Next week, the 2023 NASG Convention web site will be replaced with the 2024 one.

• view the page

The 2023 NASG Award winners, announced after the banquet at the NASG Convention in Harrisburg this past Saturday, are now listed on this web site.

A couple of things to note are that the "Perles Publication Award" has been officially renamed to the "Perles/Heimburger Publication Award" in honor of Don Heimburger's vast contributions to S-scale's published literary works.

The NASG BOT has now officially recognized the "NASG Hall of Fame", which is not an award, per-se, but rather a community recognition of the valuable work an individual has done over the years to help our favorite scale.

• view the page

As part of the 2023 NASG Convention, the official changing-of-the-guard took place for the Western regional Vice-President position for the NASG Board of Trustees. After 4 years of service on the Board, Peter Gehret has handed over the reigns to Clay Buckage. Thank you, Peter, for your service and your valuable input and feedback. Clay is no stranger to us, as he is the owner of "Dave's Twacks & Twains". Clay took over the S-Helper Service replacement and repair parts when S-Helper closed up shop. The company has been around since the late 1980s. Founded by Clay and his Dad, the company is named after Clay's brother, Dave. The company also provides repair services for A.C. Gilbert products. Clay is also the person who manages our A.F. Commemorative Car program.

The NASG's Secretary has provided the summary notes of the NASG BOT meetings that took place in April, May, and June 2023. You will need to log in to the "Members Only" portal to be able to view the reports.

• view the page

American Models has sent us a pre-production photo of the 2023 NASG Annual Member car. This is the final version, and AM is in the painting phase of the full production run. There are also some supply-chain issues affecting this run. No word on when they will be shipped. To order yours, please click on the photo.

view page

Attendees at this week's NASG Convention are reporting that ScaleTrains is showing their pre-production models of the caboose, which is the next planned car they will offer in S. The first photo shows the planned road names of the cabooses. The second photo shows their entire S-scale line-up in one shot. Photos courtesy of Bill Lane. Right-click on the photos to be able to see a larger version. Matt Gaudynski, of ScaleTrains, states that an official ScaleTrains announcement will be forthcoming in a week or two.

Separately, the other big news is that Tomalco Track is holding a going-out-of-business sale at the NASG Convention, with sharp discounts of in-stock track and turnouts. Larry Morton announced that, yes, he is closing up shop, but he is currently entertaining 5 offers from individuals or companies wanting to continue his product line. The latest news is that he hasn't decided on to whom he will sell the company. The good news is that it appears that one of our favorite track supplies will continue into the future, so no need to panic.

The NASG BOT has released a revised version of the NASG's new-membership/renewal form in the PDF format. If your club has copies of the older versions, those should be discarded as they are obsolete.

• view/download the PDF file

From the President, R. James Whipple:

I was disappointed at the low number of nominations and self-nominations in this winter's call for candidates for Vice President and other officer elections for the Board of Trustees for the NASG. In fact, the only nomination we received was for Western Vice President, where Pete Gehret is stepping down after four years of faithful service to the organization. Two other incumbents agreed to stay on for another term because no nominations came in at all.

Because not a single position was competitive, the Elections Committee unanimously recommended electing the slate by acclamation, thereby saving the organization the expense of mailing out ballots.

The officers (President, Executive Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer) are elected for four-year terms; the Regional Vice Presidents are elected for two year terms.

Serving the NASG from 2023-2025 will be:

R. James Whipple, President (term expires 2025)
* Lou Templeton, Executive Vice President (term expires 2027)
* Andy Malette, Secretary (term expires 2027)
Michael Ferraro, Treasurer (term expires 2025)

* Darby Marriott, Eastern/Northeastern Vice President (term expires 2025)
* Brian Jackson, Central/Southeastern Vice President (term expires 2025)
+ Clay Buckage, Western Vice President (term expires 2025)

* = continuing
+ = newly elected

The President and Treasurer are in the middle of their four-year terms

Normas Bos has been appointed to be the new chairman of the NASG's Annual Member Car Program committee. We wish to thank Chuck Kemper for initiating this program back in 2020, and, along with the committee members, being able to bring three unique cars to the NASG membership, all of which sold out quickly.

• view the page

The NASG's Secretary has provided the summary notes of the NASG BOT meeting that took place in February 2023. You will need to log in to the "Members Only" portal to be able to view the report.

• view the page

The NASG's Secretary has provided the summary notes of the NASG BOT meeting that took place in March, 2023. You will need to log in to the "Members Only" portal to be able to view the report. The February report will be added soon.

• view the page

John Ciarleglio has accepted the chairmanship of the NASG's Convention committee. John has been a member of the committee for a while, so it was a natural fit. Contact John if you are interested in hosting a future NASG Convention.

The NASG's Promotions Committee has completed the design work on two more promotional materials we are making available to NASG members, clubs, and S modelers. These are the NASG business card, and the "Explore S" one-page flyer. Follow the link below, and look for the "NASG Promotions" sub-header.

• view the page

The NASG's Secretary has provided the summary notes of the NASG BOT meeting that took place in January, 2023. You will need to log in to the "Members Only" portal to be able to view the report.

The NASG's Secretary has provided the summary notes of the NASG BOT meetings that took place in November and in December, 2022. You will need to log in to the "Members Only" portal to be able to view these reports.

The NASG welcomes Lou Templeton as the new Executive Vice President of the NASG. This position was left vacant when Jim Whipple stepped up to be the President earlier in 2022.

Due to space constraints in the Dispatch, the full listing of the winners and runners-up of the contests held at the 2022 NASG Convention could not be listed. The official listing has been added to the 2022 NASG Convention web page (scroll down to near the bottom of the page linked-to below). Photos of some of the models can be found in the January/February 2023 issue of the NASG Dispatch.

• view the page

Chris Crnich, the NASG Company Store manager, has added a 6-inch pocket ruler to our inventory, ready to be ordered today.

view the page

As a very early heads-up notice to NASG members. We heard from the printer that, since they had their paper shortage last month, which caused a significant delay in us receiving the November/December 2022 Dispatch in our mailboxes, they are still very much back-logged trying to get caught up with all of their other clients, and so the January/February 2023 Dispatch will be late again, but probably not as late as the November issue was (maybe about two weeks late). The January/February PDF will be made available around the first of January on our web site.