Central Arizona Chapter
January Minutes


The meeting was held at the Marie Calendar restaurant at the Chandler Avenue exit off I-10. After a delicious meal and good, friendly fellowship, Sam Taylor suggested we start the business portion of the meeting and elect our first officers. Nominations from the floor for president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer were offered. The slate moved and seconded was CJ for president, Steve Young for vice-president, Bob Rebsamen for treasurer, and Tim Johnson for secretary. The vote to elect the slate was unanimous. The term for each office is to be for one year, with elections held on the January meeting of each year.

From this point (in the absence of CJ), vice-president Steve took control of the meeting.

There was discussion regarding the chapter's by-laws. It was recommended we look over the proposed national ETE by-laws, and determine at a later date if we wish to adopt by-laws more specific to our chapter needs. The proposed by-laws can be found at www.ete.org/newbylaws. (Aside: the current and proposed by-laws recognize members' spouses as "associate members" (non-voting).)

There was a discussion regarding a need to establish our chapter as an Arizona non-profit entity. It was mentioned the cost for this is currently $40. Treasurer Bob was asked to work with Debi Young, who is knowledgeable in this area, to submit the application to the state. This brought up the need for chapter dues. Further discussion, considering the chapter may participate in several area train shows, and the need to pay for the Arizona non-profit submission, resulted in motion with second to set annual dues at $25 per chapter member. This is in addition to the national chapter dues. The motion was carried. Bob will apply for a tax id for the chapter, and when we have it, will collect the local dues. The national dues should be sent directly by each member to the national organization.

The discussion now turned to the proposal we heard presented last month by Bob Sorensen. With the untimely death of Bob Sorensen, our position is quite uncertain. Concerns were voiced that many of the questions we had after the presentation last month are still unanswered. Until we can reestablish contact with either the VanBuskirks or the Stillman Foundation, to whom the VanBuskirk collection is to be donated, we cannot make an educated decision. Steve asked that Sam Taylor work with CJ to reestablish contact with the VanBuskirks and/or the Stillman Foundation so we can determine what role, if any, we might be able to participate in. Once we have answers to our many questions, this issue will be formally addressed.

Fred Rayher made a suggestion that we consider planning a chapter layout in addition to the one we currently have. The point was made that such a layout, as we have seen with the current one, is a great attraction at the train shows, and is very likely to bring interest and new members to our chapter. It was further mentioned that the national ETE has a standard for modular layout components, and such a layout would be easy to transport, flexible in that different modules could be displayed at different times, and expandable as time and funds permitted. The chapter could purchase motive power and rolling stock, and members could also run their own equipment. Further discussion of this subject will be considered at later meetings.

The next meeting will be on 17 February at 10 AM at Sam Taylor's home (and hobby shop).

With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

Members present were Andy O'Brien, Steve (and Debi) Young, Fred (and Virginia) Rayher, Bob Rebsamen, Delon Freije, Sam Taylor, Tim (and Karen) Johnson.

Respectfully submitted,
Tim Johnson