Canadian Association of Railway Modellers - Toronto Chapter
2004/09/20 Meeting
at Etobicoke Central Railway, 284 Mill Road #f10, Etobicoke
Notes taken by Ian McIntosh, CARM-TC Secretary
Dave came to this condo 30 years. A unique attraction was that it had lots of activity rooms instead of lockers. Examples were a golf practice room, a photo room including a darkroom, a ceramic room with a kiln, a woodworking room with a table, chop saws, etc, and this room, which was a ping pong room. Dave's brother-in-law saw the ping pong table on the carpet and noticed there was no wear on the carpet, so suggested to the Board of Directors that the ping pong table be moved to the condo clubhouse to be more accessible.
Dave started a business repairing heating and cooling, and through that he met a woman in the building whose teen son had a train set. So he suggested converting this now empty room to a hobby room. The condo spent $3000 to convert it, adding 3 tables, a sink, 9 small cupboards and 3 large ones.
Dave monopolized the storage cupboards. Security is important for tools and equipment and for model railroad stuff. To use the other rooms, anybody can get a key from the clubhouse, but here keys are assigned to those with legitimate hobbies. Somebody stole a Timex computer once (Dave has a suspect). Security was the pin that held the room together.
What per cent of the world have hobbies? 5%? How many need a separate room? Some example uses were winemaking, stained glass, picture framing and model railroading. There wasn't much call for a hobby room, but he kept plugging at it so now they have it. Dave asked for half of the room and got it. The manager wanted an area for other hobbies.
The layout construction started about a year ago. John and Cloy came every Wednesday (sometimes Thursday). Doug Voll worked on it too.
They are trying to encourage families with boys.
Discussion:
IMc: It will likely be easier to attract people after more of the tracks and
scenery are done.
JH: The rear yard ("Kamloops Industrial District Switching" or KIDS) is only
30" off the floor so kids can reach and see it.
Dave showed us how the KIDS area track can be easily changed and rewired so kids can reconfigure it when they want. Because it's lower than the front of the layout, it fits under the mountains and track. To make more room its backdrop (painted by Cloy Hinbest) is sloped (top closer, bottom further away) to let more fit under the front part of the layout.
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