Last week we announced that the Railway Modellers’ Meet will take a different format this year. Encouraged to keep our distance and “be kind, be calm and be safe” by that delightful fascist, Dr Bonnie Henry, we won’t be meeting in person at SFU this year. Instead, we’ll be hosting a reduced program via Zoom.
We felt that with the rules in place, and little time to pivot, we wouldn’t be able to pull off virtual layout tours to the Railway Modellers’ Meet level of quality. Our experience with other events’ layout tours supports this: a phone video is too jerky and the transmission too slow to provide more than periodic out of focus glimpses of a layout. Some people get a little nauseous from watching them.
Frankly, I reacted to the initial layout tour cancellation like I would the phone call announcing that a critical aunt wouldn’t be able to come to dinner after all: no need to vacuum, the bathrooms can wait another day, no need to put on clothes, let alone clean ones; we get to eat the nice meal that was half-prepared yesterday, and have dessert first if we want! In short, the pressure to finish the big list was off.
In actual fact, I’ve been pecking away at the big list, and have crossed off most of the easy items, but the first item on the list – finishing #622 – was definitely at risk. It was is if that aunt had announced she would rather take us out for barbeque with poly “let’s get sauced” pig-logo bibs and unlimited wet wipes. But then, not so fast! While the tour is off, we’ve included a virtual display room and meet the modeller evening in the schedule. That evening is Thursday, June 4th, and I intend to share my only output for the year: #622.
I’d better get back to work!
Pembroke:87 