BPMS Bulletin
by Bobby B2 Blue Pokorny
Welcome
to 2023! We
hope you had a happy, healthy and a safe Holiday Season. 2022 ended
brilliantly! We had 31 models on the tables, most were for the theme contest.
Plenty of tasty treats and cheer to go ‘round!
December
Meeting
AURORA
THEME CONTEST: The theme contest to mark the 70th Anniversary of Aurora
Models (celebrated on the 72nd, Thanks COVID) finally happened
and we had some gorgeous work on the tables.
1st Jake
Moon Maserati 3500 GT
2nd Bob Pokorny Joseph Stalin IS-3
3rd Kevin
App Phantom of the Opera
HM Russ
Holcomb Black Falcon
Kosta
Lukyanov UH-25
Frank
Coluccia Moon Bus
The winners of first, second, and third
places got awards emblazoned with an early Aurora poster that our master award
maker Ed Dietrich digitized for the
anniversary! We’d also like to thank the sponsors – Joe Bergman and Kevin
Kilkenny for sponsoring another theme fun for the members to build for.
AWARDS
CEREMONY: The group voted
and I tallied the numbers all year. Here are the results:
Air
1st Frank Colucci
2nd Charlie Nelson, StevenNelson
3rd Ray Whitton, Rommel Xu
HM Russ
Holcomb
Armor
1st Guy Ferrara
2nd Howell Serkin
3rd Tom Knoll
HM Mark
Mullen
Figures
1st Joe Bergman
2nd Howell Serkin
3rd Don Illjes, Mark Mullen
Sea
1st Kevin App
2nd Joe Bergman
3rd Charlie Nelson
HM Kosta Lukyanov
Science Fiction
1st Mark Mullen
2nd Joe Bergman
3rd Gordon Cheung
HM Julio
Guadalupe
Miscellaneous
1st Kevin App
2nd Kosta Lukyanov
3rd Bobby Pokorny
Most Popular
1st Qtr Frank
Colucci
2nd Qtr Rommel Xu
3rd Qtr Charlie
Nelson
4th Qtr Julio
Guadalupe
Frank Tripoli
Memorial
TOP GUN AWARD
JOE BERGMAN
Great work! Now the slates are clean and
time to start a new year!
HOLIDAY DESSERTS: Thanks to everyone who brought in some
goodies, and there was plenty!
raffle: We didn’t have a raffle during the
meeting. It will return next month.
WEEKLY
ZOOM: Even though we are back to having regular meetings,
the weekly ZOOM will continue! New day and time: Tuesdays at 7:30 PM. Every
week EXCEPT for weeks with an in-person meeting.
2023 Model
Pledge:
Looks like we got this working nicely now! Bring in an unbuilt model between
January and APRIL 2023 to declare as your pledge model. Please have it finished
for OCTOBER
2023, for a display. After October you may bring back your pledge for
the November meeting for the last contest of the year. For your efforts you get
an additional FIVE Super Raffle tickets for completing your pledge! Sweet! Easy
enough!
KIT
SALE: Bring kits to sell
and cash to buy with. There’s no tab at this bar!
JUNE
THEME:
JUNE 16TH 2023
REMEMBER
THE MEMBERS
THEME
CONTEST
During the quarantine the BPMS shaken
with losses of multiple members To remember them, the club will have a
remembrance contest to honor those members and what they built in the hobby. It
will be a simple contest, since the BPMS is all-inclusive and we love all branches
of the hobby, so you can display what you like. We will be preparing special
awards for the four specific members we are focusing on:
·
Tim
Greeman: he primarily built 1/72 armor, loved Shermans, and built occasional
figures.
·
Ray
Keegan: he built everything but was known best as a sci-fi guy, esp Star Wars
and Gundam.
·
Joe
Barrett: known for his 1/35 WW2 German armor and cars, he also enjoyed sci-fi.
·
Andy
Yanchus: his name is well known in our hobby, especially for his role in Aurora
in the early days. Mostly he built sci-fi. Figures, and loved toy conversion.
He, also, sponsored one of your earliest theme contest: Humor in Modeling.
There you have it. It will be easy to
build for, and we hope to see plenty of work on the tables for this one. Feel free
to contact the sponsors with and questions or comments!
SPOTLIGHT
MODELER:
FRANK
“GRAIL” GIALLAMBARDO
In NOVEMBER we voted Frank in to join our
ranks. He found out about the BPMS on Facebook and came to the February 2020
meeting. Then COVID came around and the quarantine. If you come on the ZOOM
meetings, you are probably already familiar with Frank. He’s been a resident of
Staten Island since 1962, where he went to school, and he, currently, teaches
ESL. He doesn’t only like models; he plays the bass and 12-string guitar,
classic rock, original music, chess, baseball, reading and comic book
collecting.
Like many of us, Frank’s first exposure
to the hobby was during his childhood, when his father brought him to a hobby
shop. He thinks his first model may have been an Aurora Dracula, and having
just celebrated 72 Years of Aurora at the BPMS, she shares the same start as
MANY of us in the hobby!
That first figure help set him along his
path in the hobby. Frank enjoys figures and science fiction, but we have also
seen him working on a historical ship on the Zooms, so his tastes vary greatly.
He likes to work on his models, like many of us, on the kitchen table. He
suggests that following instructions is a good way to avoid problems during a
build and that the internet is a valuable resource for references and learning
skills. He also hopes to find models of Indiana Jones and Napoleon Bonaparte to
build to apply those skills to in the future. He hopes to find more of the
models from the 1969 Aurora catalog being offered, and with companies like
Atlantis out there, he might just get his wish!
Frank has a similar concern as many of
us. The Hobby doesn’t seem to be attracting younger modelers anymore. What
would it take to remedy this? Would
advertising help? Maybe some lines of inexpensive models to attract the
youngsters. Something needs to be done before the hobby vanishes.
In closing, Frank would like to offer us
some Wisdumb --- "Don't get glue on your fingers as you put the
model pieces together." Yep! We have all been there!
~BP
EDITOR’S NOTE: After more than 20? 25? years of writing the BPMS
Bulletin, I am handing over the reins to the capable hands of Kevin Kilkenny.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve the club in this capacity for so many
years. It’s been a fun ride. Like Douglas Adams wrote, “So long and thanks for
all the fish!”
~Your
humble narrator, Bob Pokorny
Meeting date:
January 20th, 2023
People start shwoing up by 6 PM.
See you at the BBSC!