I Can't Believe It's That Time Already For:

The Annual State of the Company, Board of Directors Meeting of

 The Dan D. Sparks Plywood Development and Transportation Co.

A Pulled Out of The Posterior Corporation (the “Company”)

Held on 22nd September 2014, 8:00 AM Specific Daylight Time

at the Offices of the Company, San Dollar, California.

San Diego Electric Railway Class 1 1915 Exposition Car. Inkscape Illustration By David Lyman

 Board Members Present: 

President:                         Dan D. Sparks

Chairman:                         Lettuceleaf M. Malone

Traffic Manager:               Robin DeRail

Finance Manager:              Count DeMonet

Director of Development:  Arnie Clever

General Manager:             David Lyman

Quorum present?              Minimally so.

Others Present:

Man of Mystery:                Fred Gurzeler

Technology Genius:          Volkmar Meier

Company Orchestra leader:     Bill Bolton & Orchestra

Absent:                    Consciousness.

 Proceedings:

· Chair, Lettuceleaf M. Malone called the Meeting to order at 8:01 a.m.

- Secretary Mrs, Roundbottom recorded the minutes.

 · Secretary Roundbottom presented to the Board the minutes of the Sept. 2013 meeting of the Board for approval, whereupon motion duly made, seconded and recounted as the good-ol'-days.

You down with PCC? Yeah, you know me!

Opening Message from the Chairman:

Wow what a year! This blogs "fiscal" year (Sept 2013 to Sept 2014) saw the successful completion of the complicated overhead and the railroad is now running and functioning as designed! AND this fiscal year saw the successful construction of the first few fancy Streetlamps designed to not only illuminate, but also support the overhead wires! These two mini-masterpieces mark a long sought after success. Now all the major projects that remains are the converting the layout to Digital Command Control, The completion of the Streetlamps so that the temporary poles in the building lots can be removed so that the construction of the city buildings can commence. And of course, the populating the layout with more streetcars. Here's looking to another successful year ahead.

· Traffic Managers Report  Provided by Chair, Robin DeRail:

Ach! Viewership of this blog has flattened out! BUT! We saw a real humdinger of a post that smashed all previous viewership records! "A Grand Union Intersection In Action" saw just shy of 1000 views (963) in its first week! That obliterates the previous record of 283 views of "Jumping on the 3D Bandwagon" last year! Alas, now with the construction of these intricate, complicated streetlamps, layout construction is progressing at the speed of molasses on a winters day, viewership has slowed a bit.   Prepare yeselves for the numbers breakdown!:

Unique weekly blog hits (visitors, not page hits) from 9/21/2013 to 9/21/2014:

•  Viewership has increased nicely! This blog hosted 4,930 visitors this last year (Sept. 2013 to Sept. 2014). That's up from 3,355 last year, and 3,064 the year before that. They visited 8,960 times, up from 6,621 times last year and 5,484 times the year before that. That makes for an all time grand total of 34,396 visitors. Not bad eh? We'll see if we can hold on those number next year, heh! 
•  This blog is now averaging 29 visitors per day. And they find our content slightly more interesting!  Their attention has increased to almost 2 minutes (1:58 minutes)! That's up from 20 average daily viewers watching for an average of a 1:39 last year! I'm sure the 3 minute Grand Union video really helped those numbers! We'll see if we can hold on to those number too!
• The top 3 posts last year were (ofcourse):

1. A Grand Union Intersection In Action!  1,953 views (11.55%)
2. The Grand Plan (Layout track plan)          478 views (2.83%)
3. Birney #301                                               408 views (2.41%)

I always say that the videos are the popular item on this blog, so I propose we build a theater on this site for easy access to the video archives.

· Finance Committee report provided by Chair:     Count DeMonet

Despite the surge in viewership, revenue from ads (the only source of revenue) on this blog has slipped. Further emphasizing the need of not having all the ads "below the fold". The Grand Union in Action video was "above the fold", so all those viewers didn't need to scroll down and thus no ads were loaded.

• The Count reported that revenue earned slipped to an average of $0.05 per day, down from $0.06 last year but still up from $0.04 per day the previous year.
•  DeMonet continued with that the annual earnings for this last fiscal year came in at $19.43. Down from $22.78 last year but still up from $16.07 the previous year. This now brings the grand total to $81.69. Google won't pay out until that total reaches $100, expected sometime this next "fiscal year" (Sept. to Sept.). The Board has agreed that the money will be put towards a DCC system for the layout. 
• The Finance Chair went on to try, once again, to persuade the Board that placing a banner ad above or below the blog title, as is typical with almost all websites, would increase revenue appreciatively. As it is now, all ads are "below the fold", and no revenue is gained unless the viewer scrolls down and the ads load. With the prospect of the eminent Google $100 payout, the board is warming up to the idea to help speed things along.

· Board Development Committee's report provided by Chair,      Arnie Clever:

• Mr. Clever has been very, very busy lately drawing up all kinds of plans. With the company finances strapped, planning is in abundance, since planning doesn't cost anything.
• Plans usually aren't posted until the project has been approved and is moving forward. But this has resulted in some plans being buried and their prospect of ever seeing the light of day rather dubious. Arnie expressed concern that the Board is being too cautious (especially with structural drawings, and stalled projects) and encouraged the Board to publish these plans anyway to help generate interest or at least solicit comments. The Board agrees, so expect a lot of Clever posts this next year.
• The Clever One has also conjured up a rather spectacular, innovative project that has to be kept a secret for now, but hopefully soon, it too can be published to the public.

Mr. Sparks' closing speech summed up his confidence that things should be picking up with the blog soon and some interesting/entertaining posts are expected to be coming out soon. This coming year should be another good one for the layout. And he reminded us to "don't forget to scroll down, yes sir! Don't forget to scroll down"! We are all excited by the prospect of DCC around here!

· Meeting adjourned at 8:02 a.m.

· Minutes submitted by Secretary, Mrs. Roundbottom.