Click here to print and mail the Annual Fund Drive form.

Fifth Annual Appeal
Continues to Develop Our Programs!

Dear TCA Members, 

In 2011-2012, TCA is excited to launch our Fifth Annual Appeal. You are challenged this year with raising $30,000 for TCA.

The efforts of the Annual Appeal are used to improve member benefits and fund the many needs of our National Toy Train Museum and Toy Train Reference Library, which are not covered under the general budget. To each of you who made a contribution toward our 2010-2011 Annual Appeal, we sincerely thank you. You truly make it a pleasure to serve TCA.

TCA raised over $38,000 for the 2010-2011 Annual Appeal from your generosity. If you are one of those charitable folks, we thank you, again. As we looked at the figures, however, we did not make our goal of $50,000 and therefore did not get the $5,000 match from our anonymous donor.

We've accomplished so much this past year. We have started updating the illumination in the Museum to LED lighting, which is much more effective and economical. The reduced heat emissions from the lights help to better preserve the displays. The library now has two more voice recorders so that more of the rich oral history of TCA can be captured on tape through interviews with our Charter and other early members. We have repeated our "Night at the Museum" program with Lionel. We also added an advanced learning session called "Lionel Intermediate Workshop," which was held for the first time this year. We had 12 children ranging in age from 8 to 14 who spent the day at the Museum learning more developed wiring techniques and actually building their own animation module to put on their layouts at home. We've made great strides this year and all of these endeavors directly enhance TCA's ability to better serve you, our membership.

Today, as the TCA continues to deal with a tough economy, our needs are even greater and our budget is even tighter. We still need to get the rest of our wonderful Library on-line, but we've got a long way to go. We'd love to add much more of the LED lighting to the Museum so that all of our displays could be enhanced and better preserved. We'd love to add a Garden Railway outside which would not only give us another showcase for our G-Gauge Collection, but would give visitors another reason to visit. And we definitely want to expand our efforts to reach the youth and the future of our hobby. As you can see, we still have much work ahead of us.

That being said, our 2012 Annual Appeal is off and running. We ask you to think about why you joined the TCA and what you have personally received from that membership. We are totally committed to preserving this pastime and sharing this special hobby with future generations, but we need your support. Every donation will help us meet the $30,000 challenge. With your help, we CAN do it!

Sincerely,

Click here to print and mail the Annual Fund Drive form.