Epilogue:
In September 2007 at the dinner of the Convention in Durban Westville, I opened my big mouth and volunteered to take on the organisation of the next Convention to be held in Gauteng sometime in 2009. The event has come and gone and all that remains for me to do is to give you a report on the various aspects from the chair of the OC.
Since Sunday 27 September I had many positive emails, a sprinkling of constructive criticism but none condemning any part or action by the OC outright. I take this as a strong compliment to my team of Gauteng club representatives, and through them to the many club members that lent a helping hand somewhere at some time during the 5 day event. Together we have been able to offer the 128 registered delegates a program including a number of highlights.
Based on my research at this and many of the past conventions I have grouped the different program items into an order of priority to the delegates, and I would like to review these in that order to raise some points which may help future convenors in their efforts:

Guided Layout Tours:
While I recall some delegate stating that he never gets enough of seeing other modeller's layouts, I also recall statements that we saw maybe one too many per tour? Which ever camp you belong to by all accounts the tours played out smoothly and timeously and the blame for that rests squarely with the tour organisers - Mike Rowse and Herman Steyn, a job well done. I also believe that most would agree that our choice to deploy busses and purchased lunches did make for a more uniformly organised tour as well as aid the social aspect, with as many teams as there were busses having been formed. So if you did take a team photo, why not forward it to Herman for publication here.

Self Drive Tours:
Unfortunately logistics driven by distance and traffic obstacles did not allow us to include all the excellent layouts available in Gauteng in the guided bus tours and hence the idea of self drive visits in the afternoon/evening was spawned. However, due to circumstance beyond our control such as hosts withdrawing at the last minute and others not providing correct address and contact details, time became our enemy and prevented us from completing detailed route maps and instructions, such as for the bus tours. Hence some visitors without access to a GPS did get lost at times and some could not contact the host for directions to recover. However, by all accounts everyone did get a fair viewing of the wealth of good modelling practiced in Gauteng in all scales and prototypes. If you think you missed something please click here to see more photographs of all the layouts that were on show.
You may recall that on Sunday you were handed a voting form where you were asked to indicate, which of the 24 layouts on view, was your favourite. To see the results click here.

Clinics:
Possibly the most difficult program item to do justice to since the interests and level of expertise amongst delegates is so wide. At the one end we find beginners who want to have demonstrations of every aspect from bottom up and hence they don't want to miss any of the clinics. At the other end you find the delegate who has seen it all and got the T-shirt to prove it. However I was pleasantly surprised by the many statements, I heard even from those experienced modellers, to the effect of "I never knew that…" or "that is I want to try". Unfortunately time again was our worst enemy and clinic presenters felt that more time for questions should have been allowed. However you all got the CD containing the 4 power point presentation which you can use as an ad memoir and if you still have unanswered questions why not drop an email to the respective presenter who I'm sure will only be to willing to answer you by return, for their email address please click here.

Competitions
Modelling: Our aim here was to get as many entrants and entries as possible, and a rule was adopted at the outset that no category shall be competed unless there are at least 4 or more entries. As a result you may have gotten tired of Herman's email campaign to remind you to enter a competition. We also appealed to all the clubs through their representatives on the OC and I believe by the eleventh hour we did almost get the response I hoped for - ending up with 32 participants submitting 68 entries in 5 categories. One judge remarked to me that he was astonished at the quality as well as the quantity of entries seen here in Gauteng, vindicating our decision to open the competition to the MR fraternity at large in order that entrants may evaluate their efforts against the best available.

Photographic: This competition was equally well supported with 71 entries from 20 participants in 3 categories. To me the standard was very high and even impressed the professional judges that Johan Leeflang managed to engage to evaluate the works on display.

Dinner Prize Giving:
Can anyone, having attended any of the past SA Conventions, imagine the dinner without the light hearted banter dished out by Frank Graham, one of the original "Men of the Ministry". I for one forgot altogether that we were sitting in a plain school hall consuming excellent food and interact with old friends. Johan's idea to present the competition winners on a back projection screen by means of a power point presentation, compiled so ably by his wife Ami Leeflang, gave the dinner guests an opportunity to admire the competition winner's entries even if they did not get an opportunity to see the display at NTS. However if you think you missed any please click here to see more pictures of these excellent models and photographs. For those of you in Gauteng I understand that some competition models will presently be on display at the shop of one of our major sponsors - Rinke's Hobby World for a limited period of time. At the end the other major sponsor - Monkor Model Railway surprised delegates by handing out a calendar presenting a collage of pictures of all convention layouts.

National Trains Show:
Although this item seems way down on the list of importance for delegates, it was however very important to the success of the convention as a whole. It had to, and certainly did (just), produce the cash for our extravagancies, such as the busses amongst other. As it had to be part of the convention whole we had no choice but to limit it to the time we did allocate to it. Yes if/when we do another TS ever we certainly will consider a longer opening period, possibly over 2 days, not least to generate even more funds for The Association (hint), but also to grant those who cannot read dates another chance to see the excellent models that were on display. However we all agree that in the short period available Mervyn Mark and his SAG Team made an outstanding effort to provide the platform for all Clubs in Gauteng as well as traders from near and far alike to give the public a good viewing of what our hobby is all about. To show just what effort went into this event you may want to click here to see some pertinent pictures of the "Making of the NTS".

Prototype Visit:
I am thankful to Transnet Freight Rail and especially William Mkhondo for jumping into the breach by opening their training facilities as our prototype visit at such short notice, and that on a Saturday morning. Although much of what was on offer at Esselenpark was "old hat" to many of the old SAR guard amongst our delegates, surely the Driver Simulators must have been the highlight for all.

Socials:
A convention is the place where new acquaintances are made and old ones renewed. I think between welcome Braai, the bus rides and the Dinner/Prize Giving there was ample opportunity well used by all to achieve this. However in the pack there was a list of all delegates with contact details, and if you cannot put a face to a name or vice versa, I believe that the Colonel did take a "Mug shot" of each delegate which he threatened to publish on his website. If you have taken some revealing photographs please forward them to Herman for publishing here.

Sponsors:
Here I would like to add a word for our sponsors - please support them as they supported us for your, the delegates, benefit. Without their generous help we would have had to forego many of the niceties/luxuries we were able to offer the delegates. I would urge you to at least contact them for a quote should you have a need in their particular area of expertise. For contact details and direct links to their respective web sites please click here.

Publicity:
Not only did we get a nice plug on E-Tv's sunrise with a 7min slot of Richard Pelczarski's layout, but we also featured in the local press. Some of the details can be viewed here.

Farewell & Totsiens:
For my OC and me it was a good experience and we sincerely hope we gave you good value at this 14th SA National Model Railway Convention. I hope that you all returned safely to your homes on Sunday with many a good memory which will make you not want to miss the 15th to be held at Easter time in Cape Town.

To ALL my OC members my personal thank you for the support you given me in this venture, without that we would not have pulled it off as we did!

John Burkhardt
Convenor
6 October 2009