​From the President:

The March open meet was well attended and it appeared a lot of sales were being made.  There were some great trains including some standard gauge sets and some post war sets as well.  The tables were full and we put on a good show for our guests.  The Ladies of the Lakes and Pines did a wonderful job serving our hungry members and guests.  Many thanks to Kathy Meyer, Kathy Helde and Susan Ellingson for their hard work.  I also want to thank Peter Southard, Al Osterud and Michael Hayes for manning the train repair station.  Mike Helde also brought some of his amazing modern trains to entertain us all.

 On a sad note Jerry Roeder passed away on Tuesday March 28th.  Jerry was a founding member of the Lakes and Pines.  Jerry lived near New London Minnesota which is a town west of the cities and an area I spent a lot of time in earlier in my life.  I always enjoyed finding out what was new in New London each month as Jerry made the journey to Murzyn hall.  He will be missed by many of our members.  If you didn’t get an email notification of Jerry’s passing please send Susan an email at tcalp.susan@yahoo.com so we can update our email address list.

Dale Ferguson, our Division Curator/Historian has graciously contributed an article on the first year of the Lakes and Pines Division – enjoy.

Thanks, and hope to see you on April 9th.

 Mike Speltz, President

 
The First Year History of Lakes and Pines
 
On March 22, 1969 19 people met at the home of Willard O'Denius in Minneapolis.  All voted to join TCA.  The new division would be named Thousand Islands.  At this meeting, Alden Miller was elected president. Vice Pres. was Willard O'Denius.  Sec-Treasure was Ron W. Johnson.  And the directors were Horace Peterson and Marv Nauman.  Dues for one year were set at one dollar per member. Seventeen dollars was collected at this meeting.  The idea of each member bringing an item to be auctioned off to the next meeting was brought up. Proceeds would go to the division.  There is nothing in the meeting min. from the following months about anything being auctioned off. Meetings were scheduled for the 3rd sat. evening of each month.  The meetings would be held at members’ homes.

There is no mention in the meeting min. about sending in a letter to the national about activating the division.  On April 28, 1969, Ron Johnson receives a letter from Eric Buckley National Secretary. In the letter, Eric states that he had talked to Alden Miller on the phone and he is sending in a formal request to activate the division.  It took over a month from the first meeting until a request for activation was sent in.  At that time, you needed 25 members in order to be become a division.  As of April 25, we had 27 members.  In talking with 3 of the original members who are still in Lakes and Pines, no one could remember who the 19 were who attended the first meeting.

On May 26, 1969, a letter is received by President Alden Miller informing him the activation of the Thousand Island division had been approved by the Board of Directors.  A couple of days later Alden receives another letter from Eric Buckley with the agenda for the Director's meeting at the National Convention in June.  At the meeting renaming our division from Thousand Islands to a more appropriate name would be discussed.  At that time, no new name had been proposed.  Alden Miller wants to have a meeting on June 4th to come up with a new name.  No record of this meeting was in the sec-treasure notes.  However, on June 21, 1969 there is a meeting in which a list of new names was presented by Alden Miller.  Marv Nauman made a motion the Lakes and Pines be the new name. Motion was seconded and was unanimously passed by voice vote.  There is no mention in the notes as to what or how many other names were on the list.  At this meeting, Jerry Roeder gave a report on his trip to Promontory Summit Utah.  In the director's newsletter dated July 31, 1969 our new name of Lakes and Pines is approved.  The new name is used starting with the Aug meeting notice.  There was no regular meeting in Oct.  Instead the club met at member Jerry Mattson's Folks home to view Jerry's layout which was going to be taken apart as Jerry was moving.  In Nov., a dues increase from one dollar to three dollars was voted down.  These are the highlights from the first year.  I have the meeting min.  if anyone would like to see them. Dale Ferguson