From the Vice-President's Report for January 2016 Board of Directors meeting --

The main activity at the Museum in the last month was the Santa Trains.  As I reported last month, the first weekend went well, with high hopes for the remaining two events.  The results we saw exceeded all expectations, with unprecedented car counts, visitors, and income.  Here are some of the numbers I have tabulated:

We collected a total of 1074 cans and 109 packages of non-perishable food items over the three events, all of which has already been delivered to EPCAN, thanks to Bil Jackson, who delivered each load to EPCAN after each event.  Over 300 cans were collected on each night.  Car counts were also at new highs, with a record 217 cars on the third night.  I made three bank deposits totaling $7453.79 from the three nights, and that does not include credit card sales (the WP Store did good business, too); gross income for the Santa Trains was just over $9300, which makes these three nights a bigger income producer than Railroad Days, whose three-day total gross was around $8000.  Before we go out and spend this money, we'll need to pay some bills associated with Santa Trains.  The biggest expenses were for the electric bill ($1300, about half can be attributed to the Santa Trains), and the rental of the light plant for the parking lot ($1100); we also had advertising expenses of about $700, fuel expenses of $300, and various purchases at the hardware store of $87.  I bought pizza (out of my own pocket) after the event on all three nights for the fantastic group of volunteers that, as usual, went above and beyond what was expected to ensure the success of the events.  Mike and Patty Clawson, of Big Fish Creations, provided marketing expertise that also contributed greatly to our success.  Now the focus is on taking everything down and putting everything away for next year, so we can open up shop space for the Mechanical Department; a project that is already in progress.