Dear Members and Friends,

Again, Happy New Year to all and a welcome to new members and renewal members! It is good to see old friends, and make new ones.

It is a wonderful feeling to know that our organization has come together once again to create another season for us and the community to enjoy. The weekend of Fire snd Ice was the end of the season for the train display, but despite unseasonable weather, we had around 1700 visitors over a three day period. Butch suggested to Stephanie Williams that next year the festival should be called the fire and train festival. I really doubt that it would be considered!

The ice melted too fast, but it gave the train club yet another chance to prove to uptown merchants that we really should b appreciated as a draw to the area. We have been on the proving end for a very long time.

Alot of merchandise was sold for the club. All of the monies will go for our rent of the basement this year. Georgia will have the finances from the season broken down for the Monday night meeting on January, 29th @ 7p.m.

There was a gentleman that I invited to come to the meeting and bring a list of HO trains that he wants to sell. I am not sure if he will be there, but apparently he has quite an extensive collection. If you are interested in looking, please come to meeting night.

There was several applications given out for new corporate train sponsers. I do not believe that we have had any returned yet.

Butch had back surgery on January 17th at Sewickley,Hospital, and came thru with flying colors. The surgery lasted about three hours and we were home by noon on the 18th. He has about four weeks of recuperation time to look foward to and then he will be ready to work on the PW&S room again. Butch, Eric, and Alex have about half the tables built, so there wil plenty of work to go around.

The next meeting will be January 29th at 7p.m. Hope to see everyone there!

Sincerely, Kathi Hambley, sec.