It was the early part of November 1975 and I was making my weekly trip to Mary Carmichael's Hobby shop at the SW corner of Water St and Main St in Galt. My wife and I had recently purchased our first house in Preston and I was presently duking it out with a Coal Furnace turned Gas Furnace with 20 inch diameter Cold Air returns for space to build my first ever layout. The furnace and I came to a settlement and I was able to link four 2' X 6' tables to make a square-doughnut layout 8' X 8'. I was about to leave Mary's store when she handed me a flyer saying that there was a man who wanted to start a model railroad club for Galt, Cambridge and Hespeler model railroaders and was inviting anyone interested to come to a meeting at his house.
On November 24th, 1975 I found myself on the front steps of 68 Highland Ave Galt, the residence of one George Marossi. In the presence of my usual anxiety, I rang the door to have it opened by a tall, European man with an unlit cigar clamped in his teeth. Was I in the wrong place? He stuck out his beefy hand, shook hands then drew me with ease into the house.
As my glasses unsteamed, I saw there were nine fellows sitting around discussing model trains. I recognized Dennis Bell, who was a neighbour to me. George wasted no time in getting down to business and gave us an outline of his concept of what our club should be. As the evening progressed the enthusiasm of the members grew and ideas were presented and reviewed by all. Then it was time and George made a motion that the nine members present would form The Cambridge Model Railroad Club, effective November 24th, 1975. The motion was accepted unanimously.
The first item of business for the new club was to appoint an executive, who were as follows:
Dennis Bell, President (HO and N)
George Marossi, Treasurer (HO)
Bill Sterkenburg, Secretary (HO)
The remaining 6 members were:
Frank Lawrence (HO)
Bob Lund (HO)
Carl Malthouse (N)
Dave Rorke (N)
Art Merrifield (HO)
The executive and members came up with the following mission statement:
"The purpose of the Club is to share and disseminate the knowledge of model railroading among the members"
This was followed by the signing of the Declaration of Club Formation by the executive.
Rather than re-invent the wheel, the new club members decided to follow a constitution of another club which George presented to the members. Some tweaking and changing took place and it was then handed over to the new Secretary to put in order.
Following are some significant "firsts" for the new club:
- First Club meeting held Dec 15, 1975
- First excursion July, 1976 to the Delaware and Rutland Model Railroad in Toronto
- First year New Members were Charles Begg (HO), Gary Mathieson (N), Victor Watson (HO) and Bill Milne (HO)
- First year Junior Member added, Ray Sterkenburg (HO)
Newsletter - 20 copies were made of each issue. Secretary wrote the copy for 6 issues per year. Past President typed the copy and returned it to the Secretary. Secretary bought stamps and mailed NL to members.
Raffles - Past President chose and bought prizes for the raffle and was compensated by the Treasurer
Structures and Rolling Stock - Show 'n Tell did not exist back then, but a contest was held for each of the categories and the non-competitors voted for the winner. The winner had to host a clinic about the creation of his entry at the next meeting.
As the sole original 40 year member, there is much more that I could add about the early days and you could write a book about the many idiosyncrasies of the late George Marossi, like hotdogs on the barbecue when he hosted, all the copper pipe in his basement polished until it shone and a classroom clinic where each person built a pulse battery power pack with all of the materials supplied by Geroge and at no cost to us.
Keep on Railroading and keep the Hobby alive!
Dave Rorke
"N"gineer
