So this is a 5 day event?

July 6-10

Yep, July 6-10, 2021. The daily schedule will be 9 am to 9 pm, Pacific time. We’re sticking to Pacific time because you’d be on it if you were there in person, and to preserve the sanity of the volunteer organizers, almost all of whom are in the western US. We will indeed publish a daily schedule. It’s single threaded. Video will be available to registrants for at least two weeks afterwards, so you don’t have to devote a twelve hour day to live feeds. Some days may end earlier than 9 pm. Breaks will be built in approximately every two hours, including longer meal breaks, just like an in-person convention. There are almost 80 clinic slots ... so a lot of content.

Could the events be made

Could the events be made available via dvd or on a thumb drive? I know I will not have enough time to do any kind of event with my work schedule and if I commit to something like that it is more than likely the internet will go out for upgrades then. It only acts up when there is something important to me going on that is time sensitive, go figure.

That’s a lot of content

Twelve hours a day for five days. Wow, that will be impressive. 

While still impressive I

While still impressive I expected you will get about 10 hours Max if the put a 15 min break every 2 hours and an hour in the middle if the go with two lunch breaks it will be 8-9 hours

Still impressive.

-Doug

Welcome to the 21st Century

Sad it took a pandemic to propel the NMRA into the 21st century and hate to see a live event cancelled but this 2nd virtual convention beats outright cancellation. 

Hopefully, a virtual option will continue once live events resume.  Even if the live event was still happening, time and travel expense would not be worth me attending.  However, fifty bucks to attend virtually from the comfort of my train room is a great deal.

Joe

Will the recordings of

Will the recordings of clinics eventually be available on the NMRA web site for members?  This has been the traditional route for many of the clinics recorded at national conventions?

Thanks, gs

@Rob in Texas, @gsinos

Rob in Texas - Thumb drive delivery is unlikely because of the size of the video files. I'll pass the suggestion to the team.

gs - Likely some, but not all. We're working on this and your interest is noted and appreciated.

Chris

Buyer Beware

Just a heads up!

Right now the only way to register is by printing a paper-form and snail mailing.  When checking about on-line registration, I was told because of time constraints and losing the original web-master that’s not an option but the current web-master has been asked to create a fillable .pdf form.

If you use either “Don’t use a credit card” as with either option your credit card information is out there for the world to see.  Paper Check is an option and would be the safer route.

I did reply back with a couple of options to include adding event registration as an item on their existing on-line store although I can’t vouch for the online security of their store ordering process.

The other is going with a service that handles on-line payments such as PayPal business.

So, I will now change my earlier post title to “welcome to the early 20th century”.  Obviously everyday subjects of the modern world like protecting credit card information have not reached the NMRA.

Joe

For 2014 and 2016...

..when I registered for the National Conventions, I had to pay through the NMRA.org website, not sure why this wouldn't be done this time.

Ken L. 

@Joe

We're happy to work with anyone who isn't comfortable using our fillable online form, including taking card numbers over the phone. Anyone concerned should email me using MRH email and we'll get it sorted. The commercial form filling software we use has strong embedded security.

Chris

That’s good

Okay, that’s great, giving a card over the phone to a human certainly makes it easier. Where do we find the phone number to call?

Right here

You'll need to send an email to publicity (at) nmra2021.com to obtain the phone number. Calls are accepted between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm, Monday to Friday, Pacific time (UTC -8 hours). Callers outside California should note that the state enters US Daylight Savings Time starting early on March 14, 2021.

Outside the foregoing hours, this line is set to Do Not Disturb. However, if the foregoing times are impossible for some reason, send an email to publicity (at) nmra2021.com, state your name, phone number, and requested day and time, and we'll seek to accommodate you.

Chris

Do the best you can with what you got

There's been a lot of expenses up to now, so $49 covers some of this, but this is a lot of content over 5 days.  Having it available for "members only" makes it possible for clinicians to publish stuff that they can't broadcast on Youtube.

Webhosting these monster video files would be expensive for more than a few weeks.  

1 and 2 Terabyte thumbdrives are available for 50 bucks or so, and smaller ones for less (perhaps one for each day of the week).  I don't know if this work would be done on the west coast, or Soddy Daisy, but if local, I can come down and do the mind-numbing task of burning a few dozen, or so, of these.  

cheers,

Mike O'Dorney

I was thinking about each

I was thinking about each clinic on a thumb drive, that way one would be able to purchase just the portions of value to each individual. For example my focus in the hobby deals with heavy industries, and freight trains. Some related things would be freight cars dcc and scratch building. I could easily do with out logging, passenger cars, trolleys, and narrow gauge.

Now for those of you that embrace those things you might decide that you have no interest in building a steel mill or large articulated locomotives to name a few.

 One of the best things about this hobby is the variety available and the ability to pick the things you like the most.

...the west coast, or Soddy

I actually have relatives there....

Curious, “can’t publish on YouTube”?

What can’t be published on YouTube?  I know there are limits on music and copyrighted materials, but now I’m curious what content you might be talking about.

GS

Schedule?

Did I miss where the clinic schedule is posted?  

thanks, 

Randy

Can't publish on Youtube? what?

I absolutely do not understand what the issue with publishing on Youtube could possibly be.  You want to hide the content behind a paywall?  Easy - make it available only to those who "join" the channel, and set the price to subscribe to whatever you want it to be.

This method has been working flawlessly for literally hundreds of content creators in all sorts of fields for over a year at this point.  You can even set some up to be free to view and set others to only be available behind the paywall.

And bluntly, you're kind of foolish to rely on USB flash drives through the mail, because I've seen my share of people who've purchased products that include software on a thumb drive and their subsequent complaints about corrupted files are significant if not widespread in number.  The guy that's talking about burning a few dozen or so of these - that's a public relations nightmare waiting to happen if several hundred people decide to order them and he doesn't want to drive back down to copy another few dozen, or another few dozen, or another few dozen - and what happens a year from now when a new person tries to order them?  Plus replacing the ones that got corrupted when passing through some shipping machine that suddenly spews a huge electro-magnetic spike and scrambles a few bits is going to require copying even more thumb drives and mailing them out again.

Janet N.

YouTube

The issue with YouTube is copyright clearance. We will not address the legal details here due to confidentiality requirements, but the abbreviated story is that national NMRA policy requires clinicians to assure us that they own, have licensed, or otherwise have cleared rights to third-party images that they present; clinicians vary in their degree of compliance with this policy; and the risk profile of the sponsoring organizations is different when a clinic is stored in recorded form and available for replay, as opposed to being streamed live. "Fair use" does not always apply, as other MRH threads have explored. Other content creators are free to accept a different level of risk that national corporations cannot. The planning committee will review the issues here in the coming months and we appreciate the input.

We are not planning to mail USB drives around at this time but the suggestion has been forwarded to the planning committee for further consideration.

Chris

Expenses

I’d be curious to see a budget for this event. While I support the effort it is hard to believe that the costs will be that great. I hope my membership with this region doesn’t include taking on debt!

Not cheap

Break-even

The virtual event is budgeted as break-even and, as Joe notes, expenses are higher than one might think. Online services are not free. "Debt" will not occur but a small loss is possible. PCR, your region, is not in debt. The PCR region budget will be reported on in PCR's next annual membership meeting on April 22, 2021, at 2:00 pm Pacific; members will receive details in one of PCR's regular email bulletins to members in the near future.

So who is in charge of this event?

Just wondering what percentage the National NMRA has with involvement in this virtual convention?

Is this all being produced by the Region? The convention committee?