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From: Eugene Deimling [mailto:endeimling@...]

I am curious as to what the financial crisis was at the "National"

At each convention the local guys are responsible for some things and the
national people for others. W/o going into the particulars there was a
recent national convention when the local guys did their part just fine and
the national people screwed the pooch with dire financial consequences. A
**major** FU. Judging by further details in what the NMRA President has
written in explanation of the problems there were other poorly handled
activities/programs which, on examination, were also were financial loosers.
And from what I understand the several issues could be jointly attributed to
incompetence/negligent oversight. As the org itself is not, shall we say,
the Ford Foundation, the failures became very serious issues threatening the
financial stability of the organization. To put it back into the black they
made some changes, cut some stuff, raised dues substantially, and in the
backlash lost about 20% of the membership. IMO the current leadership did
the right thing under the circumstances. How they move forward from here is
another story.

Dave Nelson