NWI CHAPTER
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
April 2026 from
Jerry Pyfer

NWI March Meeting
The NWI March meeting was well received. I shared my experience with scanning and cleaning slides and photographs with the many challenges they present. Several folks added to the conversation.

We hosted 19 in-person and 14 Zoom guests for the afternoon.

Annual Rock River Valley Division NMRA Train Show
This Chapter is grateful to the RRVD for providing two tables free of charge to us for promoting our chapter. We talked to many people over the two day event.

Saturday was the busier of the two. I also thank my wife Cindy for her assistance in selling my new book. We nearly sold out the hard cover editions. I will be ordering more. Meanwhile, I also have soft covers available.

I thank Norm Hoisington, Brandon Otterstrom, Todd Aspling and Clarence Welty for their assistance.

The Symposium
I once again, attended the Lake States Railway Historical Association Symposium. The Saturday, April 11th event was held at the Al Ringling Theater in beautiful downtown Baraboo, Wisconsin. The doors opened at 9am and we were out by 5pm. This included a box lunch break and a personal afternoon break as well.

Andrew Nelson was my engineer up as I played the part of the conductor on the way up. Andrew also did a fine job of hosting the program. Looking around the theater during the daylong event. It was a pleasure to see many NWI associates were in attendance as well.

The line-up of presenters for the most part gave live narrations about their chosen topic. A few had a short multi-media show mixed in as well. It was a nice break from the usual slide shows of pretty pictures with pretty music. A lot of personal and background information was shared with each presentation.

The last presentation was hosted by Bill and Marshall Beecher. Their annual Beecherfest in the Milwaukee area each fall is quite a rambunctious event. The atmosphere is not my cup of tea, but if they have fun, God Bless them and have a good time.

I found this part quite interesting with my background in producing slide shows. I would agree with over 95% of what they shared in producing quality presentations.

If you made my “Photoshop of the Mind” the lead unit and MU-ed their presentation as the trailing unit, you would have all it takes to build a top notch multi-media program.

The next Symposium is scheduled for April 10, 2027, same place, same time. The cost is $50 for Association members and well worth the price. The proceeds go toward funding the LSRHA.

I will be attending next year.

Zoom meetings and Cell Phones
We understand some of you attend the Zoom meeting via cell phone. That is fine. Where the problem comes in is when you break our connection and attempt to reconnect.

When you attempt to reconnect, it produces an icon in the middle of the program on the screen. The disruption can be annoying to the viewers and rude to the presenter.

If you use a cell phone and break connection prior to the commencement of the program, we can handle it. If however you attempt to reconnect once the program as started, please refrain from such an effort.

I feel bad you might miss the rest of the meeting but please consider the rest of the audience.

For more information about the Chapter, see Meetings and Join.