Thornleigh and our shrinking planet

This probably should have been two separate posts as they are completely unrelated.

Spent Saturday and Sunday at Thornleigh (Epping) exhibition, did some buying, some selling and some browsing. Saturday was a fairly short visit as travel plans were thwarted by the total absence of trains on the north, you would think I would have checked first...der! but Sunday was a little more relaxed leaving more time for chatting and buying!

Lending a hand on the Eureka stand, that was the selling part, it was interesting to note the similarities between exhibitions and the differences between the days.

Saturday - Arrive about 11, no parking left, long queue at the front door waiting for the starters gun, credit cards warping from the heat generated from being swiped so many times per hour (a certain retailer is reported to having two cc machines going at once while another's failed in the first hour !) and my personal favorite, watching the expression on wives/partners faces when they hear the total of the other halves purchases...priceless, the almost tidal stampede to the 'pre-loved' area, next year the club may have to consider providing shopping trollies, it's wonderful to watch and so much a part of the hobby.

Saturday is modellers day. So many familiar faces, the core of the NSW modelling fraternity and the reason that most of the exhibitions exist, IMHO of course !

Sunday - Arrived about 5 past 10, park six steps from the front door, no queue? (but BBQ smells good), must be inside already. Move inside, six or eight people waiting to buy tickets and half of them are pushing strollers or hanging onto little'uns, this must be family day ?! Move inside, look around, was there a bomb threat or something ?? It is a bit cold (this years understatement !) Traders looking way too relaxed...or is that a bit anxious?!, cc machines starting to accumulate dust, it's a tragic sight!

This is the day when, hopefully, exhibitors and traders alike will introduce someone new to the hobby, the day that first spark ignites and a life long passion, no matter how long or short, begins.

No matter the location of the exhibition I have seen this pattern on many occasions. The only variable is the numbers through the door. Whether Liverpool or Healsville (lovely place) the pattern remains the same.

I came away somewhat poorer, with a layout now on the horizon I have a great reason (excuse) to start acquiring layout type stuff, like structure kits ! I have a feeling Anton and John may start sending me Christmas cards.

As for Monday........that's a special day reserved for those "gee I wish I had of bought......" or " what do you mean I was allowed to buy......." situations.

I always enjoy the smaller exhibitions in the 'burbs. They're a nice balance between the sometimes mayhem of the big exhibitions and the occasional "is anyone coming" feeling of some country town exhibitions. This is of course from a retailers and exhibitors perspective, nothing I like better that spending time in a country town but when an entire day can pass and you answer 3 questions it can have you wondering if the long drive was worth it, but it's rare.

Now the shrinking planet part. A feature that I recently discovered on 'Blog spot' is the 'stats' section that the blog owner can access. It's really quite amazing the info that can be gleaned from this section. I have 52 public followers and approaching 5000 hits. The bulk are from Oz, no surprise there, but it's the other places that I find fascinating. US/Canada comes in second but third was a surprise - France !?, followed by England, Germany and several other European countries. What I also found was quite a large number of hits from Russia, Ukraine and Thailand.

Fairly quickly the penny dropped, as they say, I realised these folk probably aren't interested in my prowess as a modeller but are probably what is referred to as 'fishers' or 'phishers'. Prowling the internet for information to use in scams and the like. I hope I am wrong but I doubt it, it's a sad aspect of the world we live in that someone on the other side of it can sit at a computer with no other intent other than to work out a way to relieve me of some hard earned funds. Be careful of how much personal info is on your blog for, quite literally, the whole world to see.

Forms for Convention 28 - 2011

I have just posted all the forms and information for Convention 28 on the blog site .

My apologies for it being a little late but a certain 'Telco' let me down and internet access has only just been restored with home phone intermittent at best !

By the number of hits the blog had today I would say a fair few people have been looking for the forms as there availability was being released on other model railway related sites.

My apologies once again.