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 INCORPORATED 2002 |
LINDSAY & DISTRICT MODEL RAILROADERS |
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P.O. Box 452, Lindsay, Ontario K9V 4S5 http://www.trainweb.org/ldmr/ |
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BUSINESS PLAN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Community Trends
Future of the Hobby
Appendixes
To carry out its Mission, the Club requires new permanent premises, and must increase its exposure to the public.
The Club is in a two-fold changing environment.
The community from which it draws its support relies increasingly on light industry, small
businesses, tourism and the economic benefits of summer and retirement residence for
economic survival.
At the same time, the model railway hobby finds itself with the major challenge of renewing itself as those who remember the role of railways in the community age, and a new generation grows up with predominant images of fast-moving inter-city freight and intercity and commuter passenger trains. Traditional model railway clubs are endangered as their memberships age, and are less able to put on the model railway shows that has been their traditional outreach to the public to sustain interest in railways and the hobby - and thus attract new members.
To meet these challenges, the Club has determined that it should aim to capitalize on the uniqueness of what it has to offer, and to transform itself with its niche opportunity into a community asset.
This business plan identifies the Club's resources, assets, strengths and weaknesses, and presents strategies for carrying out its Mission.
The Appendixes provide a summary of Club and railway history brochures, and additional options for the fulfillment of its Mission and a more visible railway history presence in the community.
Since the departure of the railway and the consequent restructuring of the community's economic base, Lindsay and the City of Kawartha Lakes have been reinventing themselves as a tourist attraction and as a desirable summer home and retirement location.
In its contribution to local history and its representation of a traditionally popular form of transportation, the model railway hobby is an expression of both miniature engineering and an art form.
The hobby can thus contribute significantly to this community trend by providing advice to local institutions such as museums in the creation of static and working dioramas or displays, and by showcasing its abilities.
Such a promotion would not only be another attraction for tourist exploration, but also a catalyst for new and existing residents alike. The aim is to attract them to or renew their interest in the hobby, thus providing another recreational choice, and therefore another opportunity for strengthening community spirit.
Hobby Outlook
Coincident with community trends, the hobby is in a state of required renewal. In the days of local railroading, imitation of this fascinating form of transport was a natural by-product for young and old alike. As the hobby transformed itself from miniature engineering by the original need to build much "from scratch", the hobby is now well served by a manufacturing and retail base.
The challenge, now that the railway in North America is no longer on most people's front door step (or back yard), is to perpetuate an interest in a fascinating hobby and our railway history to new generations who are, in North America at least, hardly aware of railways in their daily lives, and have the opportunity of focus on many other pursuits, of which those related to the computer and cyberspace loom particularly large.
To capture this potential audience and participation, there are two basic strategies:
The Mission of the Club is
To promote the appreciation of our local industrial and transportation heritage through the
quality modeling of, and the public presentation of, realistic reproductions; coupled with
the provision of accurate historical information.
Modelling concept and policies
To achieve its Mission, the Club needs to integrate its heritage modules, and then to define the scope of its operations to include additional layouts suitable for outside display, or as training exercises for Club members and for clinics to the public.
Location
The Club's location is crucial to its Mission of interpretation of railway history to the public. The Club's ideal of a Railway Heritage Centre has these preferred main criteria:
Resources
The Club's current major sources of income are membership fees and the net profit from its annual show. At present, both are required to pay the rent/utilities on its premises, defray significant costs such as advertising and liability insurance; with any balance going towards model improvements and supplies.
Ideally, the cost of operating premises should be self-sustaining from membership fees, and this currently represents a significant deficit.
The club's revenue profile requires serious review. It is clear that there are three major revenue streams:
Marketing and the Public
Marketing the Club and the Railway Heritage Centre
The "public" consists of three main streams, which frequently overlap:
Competition
Competition does not exist in the normal commercial sense unless another entity with a similar mission is formed in the same catchment area as that of the Club's.
However, competition exists in a very real way in the attractiveness and prototypical accuracy, and hence believability, of the Club's displays. There is no room for inadequately applied scenery; poorly running, and if prototypical, inaccurately represented, displays (other than within the normal limits of tolerance as between the prototype and its model).
The Club's reputation is linked to the maintenance and encouragement of the highest standards of modeling, whether prototypical or free-lance.
Members and Skills
A Club's members are its strength, but also its potential weakness. To survive, the Club has to address its Mission, but also the needs of its members.
For the Club to thrive and prosper, there has to be a fair and agreed-to allocation of talent and participation in the Club's activities, a spirit of teamwork, consultation and agreement "on the greater good".
To achieve this, while the elected executive has the responsibility for the direction of the Club's affairs, this must be with the willing agreement of its members to subscribe and support the Club's aims.
To maintain such a spirit, communication with the membership should take place at reasonable intervals, and new members are asked if they are willing to subscribe to the Club's Mission. Most importantly, their area of contribution to the Club should be identified, recognized, and applied in their specialty.
Equipment/Assets
The Club's main tangible assets are its models.
The reality is that any model railway layout or diorama is in a constant state of renewal, depending on its age, exposure (to the public), raising of standards and change in technology.
Risk Evaluation
Strengths
Weaknesses
Threats
Assuming 20 active members and an annual membership fee of $75, the maximum income from that source is $1,500 annually.
Current premises costs are around $3,000 annually.
The Club's premises costs are therefore currently being subsidized by the net profit from the annual Lindsay model railway show sponsored by the Club.
Net annual income from the annual show for the years 2003 through 2008 averaged $3,685, which coincidentally, based on current membership fee levels, results in a slightly better than financial break-even position averaged over that period.
Revenue Strategies:
Also planned are "how-to" modeling clinics for the public, including demonstrations on an "exercise" layout.
(Note: This open house strategy patterns itself on a display such as "Aberfoyle Junction" at the place of that name near Guelph, Ontario. That display, of a very high standard, is also operated by a group of dedicated enthusiasts.)
To make available regular open houses during the tourist season (ideally Victoria Day to Thanksgiving) in step as far as possible with the opening times of similar CoKL attractions, with support, wherever possible, of students at local high schools and Sir Sandford Fleming College.
Other Marketing Strategies:
Marketing the Club and the Railway Heritage Centre
APPENDIX I
1. An Idea Too Good To Pass Up -
This leaflet provides information about the Club and its Objectives, and promotes its
historically-accurate models that it hopes to put on permanent display to the public. These
models are:
B. In support of the Club's Mission to promote an awareness and understanding of local railway history, the following railway history leaflets are available:
APPENDIX II
Prototype survival
Some communities are fortunate to have been able to retain an actual relic of their local
railway past. For the most part these are stations and related buildings. Typically,
stations have found other civic uses as community centres (Harriston, Barry's Bay,
Kingsville, Goderich CP), information centres (Fenelon Falls, Kinmount, Gravenhurst,
Peterborough CP, Unionville, Milton, Orillia, Caledonia, Essex, Kingston CP, Parry Sound CN),
libraries (Petrolia), art galleries (Whitby, Haliburton, Amherstburg, Parry Sound CP),
theatres (Smiths Falls CP) and museums (Smiths Falls CN, Brighton, Komoka).
Another popular form of memento are steam locomotives on display, such as in Haliburton, Kingston, Palmerston, London, Barrie, Windsor, Guelph, Sarnia and other locations.
The City of Kawartha Lakes has within its boundaries the remaining stations at Kinmount, Fenelon Falls, Coboconk, Lorneville and Omemee (as well as three others converted to private residences), and the grain elevator at Pontypool. There are also the railway bridges across the Fenelon, Pigeon and Scugog Rivers and between Sturgeon Lake and the Little Bob Channel, and the bridges over Logie Street and at Doubes, some abandoned and overgrown rights-of-way, a few telegraph poles and culverts, a few rails peeking out in Lindsay's East Ward, and two large railway abutments on the Victoria Rail Trail. While Lindsay itself was unfortunate in losing both its stations, its best-known and most visible prototype heritage today is its rail trails.
As for publicly owned or leased equipment, there is the diesel switcher and train in Memorial Park, and the steam switcher in Old Mill Park. Ironically, neither locomotive happens to be connected to the community, nor has any effort been made to capitalize on their general significance, except for a plaque at Memorial Park. Both displays are unprotected, and have been ravaged by the elements and by vandalism. Both displays are capable of cosmetic restoration; but without security and a defined reason for their display, the cycle of corrosion and deterioration will simply continue until the scrap yard becomes the inevitable end.
With the proposal for the redevelopment of Old Mill Park, combined with the proposal for a railway heritage centre there, the Lindsay & District Model Railroaders would at least have the opportunity of incorporating the steam locomotive within the precinct of the centre, which would at least provide for increased vigilance and an environment in which constructive cosmetic restoration could take place.
As for the train at Memorial Park, we all know that the caboose (van) has recently suffered a severe trauma, and its future presently hangs in the balance. It is a wooden caboose dating from the early 20th century, and very few of these are left. We understand that its future, and that of the train, is now the subject of a separate report to come to Council.
Replicas
A number of southern Ontario communities, in a similar situation to that of Lindsay, have
reenacted their vanished railway past by sponsoring replica station buildings. Five come to
mind (in ascending order of stature), but there are surely others:
The L&DMR has a proposal for a replica building of the former Lindsay Union station (1879 to 1890) that stood on the east side of Victoria Avenue between Glenelg and Melbourne Sts. This station is a simple elegant style of which the essence would be reasonably economical to reproduce.
Murals
More and more communities, especially those with existing or potential tourist traffic, are
commissioning murals of railway and marine themes. Examples that come to mind are Midland,
Port Carling, Port Elgin, Gravenhurst, Sutton, Ferguson Avenue (Hamilton), Parry Sound and
Brockville.
Perhaps the most spectacular of these are the giant murals at Midland, and the huge mural at Port Carling, in a novel approach made up of a collage of hundreds of local historical views.
A mural is a piece of art, a visible and evocative memento of history, and a large-as-life advertisement of local pride and history. A well-done mural stays in the memory of the visitor; and for local residents, is a daily reminder of a fascinating past. It doesn't have to have a railway theme, but with Lindsay's substantial railway history, that would certainly be a natural focus.
Models
Models, especially historically-correct ones, are not common in local historical
re-enactments. The reason for this is that such prototypically-correct representations
require a level of aptitude and capacity for research for which the vast majority of
modellers do not have the skills, interest and patience. Moreover, even with the necessary
device of "selective compression", the vast majority of modellers simply do not have the
luxury of the required space. The majority of model layouts at shows and in private homes
are freelance - that is to say, imaginary, but admittedly many include scenes that onlookers
would identify as being representative of somewhere in southern Ontario.
Locally, the layout at the Kinmount station, in representing the Kinmount - Haliburton line, comes very close to the concept, and indeed its development is now in progress with the support of the City of Kawartha Lakes. With some fine-tuning, the Bobcaygeon display at Settlers' Village could also place in this category.
The offer by the Lindsay & District Model Railroaders to showcase its unique models of Lindsay, Fenelon Falls, Bobcaygeon and Port Perry is therefore a special opportunity to complement the nucleus of something special to the Kawartha Lakes. The closest known prototypical model displays periodically open to the public are the referenced Kinmount Model Railway display, and the longstanding Aberfoyle Junction layout at Aberfoyle, near Guelph, Ontario. (Even so, professional as the Aberfoyle display is, that model is imaginary, although with a distinctly recognizable southern Ontario scenic backdrop set in the 1950s.)
Summary
At minimum, the Lindsay & District Model Railroaders are offering to put on permanent public
display their inventory of heritage modules in an environment that will be conducive to
public access, and with facilities that will permit interpretation to the public. In a
proper setting, this display could become a dynamic interpretation of a mode of
transportation that shaped the future of what is now the City of Kawartha Lakes.
Not to be ignored is the opportunity for the further on-site interpretation of the rail trails and the former railway arteries in and around Lindsay that once enjoyed railway service. It is noted that starts have been made in that direction in conjunction with the Kawartha Lakes Green Trail Alliance (Legacy Trail Information Centre) and the Rotary Club of Lindsay (former CPR King - Logie Streets section of the Victoria Trail system.
Indeed, to celebrate Lindsay's and the City of Kawartha Lakes' rich railway history is too good an idea to pass up.
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