Wespe Models

This just in:

Dear Sir,

We are WESPE MODELS,manufacturer of WWII vehicles,kits or all fitted
resin scale 1/35,1/72, 1/76,1/87,1/48,1/10,1/24.

You can see our models at: www.wespemodels.ro

If you are interested(or you know someone interested) please contact us.

Respectfully,
Adrian Laptuca - Wespe Models

Region 1 Update: Ides of March

Howdy folks,
Time for a short update.
The best news for today is that we have a host on deck for the 2006 version of Noreastcon. While I won't officially announce who they are until the business meeting in Rochester, I will tell you they've done this before, and have a new venue. Plus, they wrote up one of the nicest proposals I've seen as RC. Come to the business meeting to find out first!! My thanks go out to these guys, and you know how you are!!!
The folks in Rochester are working hard on this years event. By now I know the registration packages have been mailed to all our chapters. If your's didn't get any yet, let me know, and I see you get some. I need to pass along some info I received after the last update. Armand informed me the T-Birds won't be in the area that weekend after all. I guess we'll just have to look at great models all weekend!!! Anyway, I know they're still looking for sponsorships, so please consider helping them out.
Also, I'll be after the names and addresses of all that participate in judging, as a way to establish the start of our Regional Judges List. I know that everyone that has judged at the regional level won't be at Noreastcon. So I'll be asking for each chapter to submit a list of their members who have judged at either the regional, or national level for inclusion. Inclusion is strictly voluntary, and there won't be the judging police showing up checking ID's. But having a roster of regional level judges available for future Noreastcon's and local events couldn't have a negative impact. When we discussed it at last years business meeting, all that attended were in favor of it. I know I should have done more on this during the past year, but y'all know how real life invades our hobby time!!!!
Also, nominations for Region 1 Chapter of the Year, and Person of the Year are coming to a close March 30th. Time is running out on nominating that deserving person and your quality chapter. E mail me your nominations before the cut off date so you can be considered.
I hear from Associate Webmaster Dick Montgomery that he's looking for walk-around's and event pictures for the IPMS web site. One thing I always hear from you guys is what a cool museum you have near your home, or what great event your chapter hosted recently. Take some pictures of these things, and send them to Dick. Check out the web site for more detailed information on what format and stuff. But send him some stuff. Unfortunately, I don't have any cool museums down the street from my house. But if I did.........
I'm happy to report all Region 1 Chapters have renewed, and are current. Our numbers stay the same, with none dropping, but no new ones forming. I guess that's good, given our geographic location, and the current density of chapters.
Which brings us to the end of today's update. Please share this with the officers and members of your chapter.

Semper Fi
Doug Hamilton

This just in from Champlain Valley

CAN/AM Con 6 will be on April 9th, 2005. However, our location has changed. This year the contest will be held in Plattsburgh's Holiday Inn, conveniently located across the street from our former location at the Comfort Inn.

The directions on our flyer remain the same, but instead of turning right into the Wal-Mart/Comfort Inn plaza, you'll be making a left turn into the Holiday Inn. We'll have signs on the street, and at the Comfort Inn to guide those who aren't aware of this change.

Thanks,
Frank Baehre, President
IPMS/Champlain Valley

Pics from the February 2005 Meeting

There were many great models on the tables. It was a contest night.


















The officers preside over the meeting.


John shows the group some goodies during the "Show Us Your Tool" segment.

You can find more pics here:

Bobby's BPMS Gallery at Hobbyfanatics for 02/2005

March 2005 Bulletin

Our February meeting was another in a long string of successful meetings. We had 25 members and 3 guests bringing in 36 models.

FEBRUARY MEETING!!!

A MOMENT OF SILENCE was observed for recently deceased member Lanny Reinish. Our sympathies go out to his family.

A PUSH TO BUILD MORE: Veep, Jimmy T. unveiled his new concept to help encourage the group to bring in more new models: The Resupply Raffle. In a nutshell, all new models of the evening with kit slips are qualified. Three winners are drawn, and in order allowed their choice of supplies up for grabs. We only ran it for the first time last month. We’ll see often we run it. Another plan is the “2 for 1” Night. At random, the officers will declare a meeting night to be 2 for 1, where you’d essentially get double credit that night for the super raffle. It won’t be announced in advance, so build and bring stuff in each month to keep your chances greater for this benefit.

MODEL OF THE YEAR COMPETITION: The numbers were crunched and the results were as follows:

Air: Kevin Batterman for his Corsair.

Armor: Kevin, again, for an M25 Tractor.

Figure: Bobby Pokorny for Yoda.

Sci-Fi: Jeff Eng for the Klingon Heavy Cruiser.

Sea: Adrian Davies for the HMS Warspite.

Misc: Ray Keegan for his Mad Max V8 Interceptor.

CONTEST NIGHT – 1ST QTR: This was the first installment of the annual contest for 2005. A lot of nice kits on those tables. This will be an interesting year.

SHOW US YOUR TOOL: Everyone’s favorite activity, and not nearly as vulgar as the name may let on. Some members gave us a glimpse into their toolbox and showed us a couple useful items. Thanks to those who participated.

On the agenda: March

MUCH ADO ABOUT DECALS: The march meeting will essentially an all about decals night. Bring in decals to trade, sell, or just unload and give away. We will be having a decal panel hosted by Kevin, Frank C, and Jimmy, butt hat doesn’t meant hat if you have any tips or tricks that you shouldn’t be prepared to offer the group a few words on the subject. Every pearl of wisdom is golden! Hmm. Golden pearls? What’s that about? At any rate the discussion will likely be animated and educational.

THEMES FOR 2005

IN THE MOVIES: Ted and Phil are sponsoring “In The Movies” in for June 2005. Basically build something, ANYTHING from a movie. This in from the sponsors: The parameters of this contest have been nailed. There will be no category judging just first, second and third places with honorable mentions. This contest is wide open, so build a scene, a prop, or anything else that is recognizable from a movie. It can be Godzilla leveling Tokyo, a space battle from Star Wars, a scene from Apocalypse Now, a monster from a classic horror movie, a plane from Top Gun, a naval battle from Ben Hur, etc, etc. This should be fun, its up to your imagination. Get ready because June will be here soon!

REMINDER: We don’t have a theme for December yet. Do you want to sponsor something? A great concept brought up at teh last meeting was Cats. Contact the officers if you want to sponsor it or anything else for December.

Region 1 Update: 03/01/2005

Hi all you Region 1-ites,

This just in from IPMS President Dave Morrissette. The news from the top is a good gauge as to the direction IPMS is taking.

For me, the most troubling item is the cheating that went on at last years Nationals. The good part is that the E Board is, and has taken action to prevent it's reoccurrence. My question is why cheat at a model contest? As I've said before, what we do in this hobby only effects us. Our little corner of the world (Pun intended) has no bearing on events outside our group.

As always, please share this with the officers and members of your chapter.

Semper Fi
Doug

Hi everyone:

Welcome to the latest update from your IPMS E-board. Things are relatively quiet but we are less than five months away from the fun of Atlanta and what promises to be a wonderful 2005 IPMS National.

One serious issue I need to address is the results of the issues that occurred with multiple entries at the Phoenix Nationals. The person involved was Fabrizio Dandramateo from R11 and, unfortunately, all of our efforts to contact him via mail have failed to elicit a response or explanation. We have taken all the steps we could and revoked his membership and he is not allowed to participate as a contestant in any Nationals. This is a very sad situation but let me restate several things. First, we (the E-board and the contest committee) take the integrity of the National contest seriously and try to make it as fair AND fun. Second, the IPMS National contest has rules and we will do everything we can to enforce those rules. That’s why they are published in the Journal, web sites and we have all sorts of communications about it. There are not too many rules but we are adamant about those rules we do have. Basically, you have to be a current IPMS member and do your own work to enter the contest. The rest of the rules are listed in the Journal. If you have any questions, comments, please let us know.

We have one constitutional amendment being passed through the CRB and a ballot will appear later this year to be voted on during the summer. The amendment deals with the chapter recharter fee that has been at $10 for about the last 20 years.

Also, it’s election time. If you are interested in running for an E-board office (President, 1st VP, 2nd VP, Secretary, Director of Local Chapters and Historian/Publications Director), e-mail MJ at the office for the form. We also have a good description of the job duties for each position and can forward those also.

On to the updates-

1st VP- John Noack

· Monitoring the recent flurry of traffic regarding licensing, intellectual property and copyright issues as they apply to the modeling industry. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Rod Lees, a member from OKC, who took it on himself to dig into this area and provide the OEM industry perspective. See Rod's excellent article on the website if you're interested.

* Review products continue to flow into the office, and several new suppliers came on board this month including Jiver Miniatures, Euromodels Plus, Panavise, and ICM. Watch the Reviews section of the website which is updated weekly.

* We're in the opening stages of a dialog with IMMA, the International Model Manufacturers' Association, on how we might work together in future Make and Take events.


2nd VP- Ron Bell

· Atlanta is on course to be a really large show. The initial hotel block was filled and they have added rooms.

· There is only one bidder for 2007.

· Phoenix report is in and is being reviewed. Show was profitable and many good suggestions are coming in from the group holding the show.


Director of Foreign Liaison- Glen Broman

· We have reached an agreement with IPMS UK for a swap of magazine articles. I've been asked to write a specific article on the M1A1 tank for the IPMS UK magazine, which is almost done. We will be getting an article from them in return.

· We received a new batch of foreign IPMS magazines that I am reviewing and I will add them to an upcoming column for the Journal.


Director of Local Chapters- Jack Kennedy

· I have 190 chapters renewed with a few more on the way.

· I will be sending out the "Dropped" letters next week.


Historian and Publications Director- Mark Gustavson

· The only outstanding issue on which I'm working right now is the update of the membership rates in the advert carried in Model Cars magazine. I should have that updated by week's end -- in plenty of time for the next issue.


Office Manager- MJ Kinney

* Total number of journals mailed out in January - 4,481. This is 4 more than the previous issue.
* We had a total of 804 new members in 2004 and 108 to date in 2005.
* The liability insurance policy has been renewed at a cost of $ 6,900.00. Chapters have listened and have been requesting coverage in a more timely fashion this year making the process much less stressful!!
* The D & O insurance policy has also been renewed at a cost of $ 980.00
* The annual registration of the corporation has been done with the State of Georgia
* Lapel pins have been ordered with an expected delivery date to the vendor of 2/22/05. They have been added to the special product sheet sent out with each new member/renewal membership and to the Products page on the web site. The journal order form should be updated in the next issue.
* I am gearing up for processing memberships for the convention - all members need to remember that waiting until the last minute to renew or join could result in them not receiving their membership cards in a timely fashion. I will be taking memberships at the convention located near the convention registration desk. I will also again have a supply of our special products for sale.

That’s all for. Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions and comments are always welcome.


Dave Morrissette

President, IPMS/USA

God Bless America

Some words from the V.P.

Well, I would just like to say that so far I think the first two meetings of the year have gone pretty well. We have had a lot of kits displayed by our members and by several guests and I hope this trend continues throughout the year. We have also implemented what I will name the “Resupply Raffle.” For those of you who weren’t in attendance for the February meeting I’ll explain it. For every model you bring in you will receive a chance to win some simple staples of model building. For example, in February, Kay won some Tamiya putty, Dan took home a can of Tamiya spray paint (Dan, if they catch you tagging up the train with the BPMS logo, don’t tell them where you got the paint) and Nestor got a bottle of Tenex 7R. So, from now on if you’re running low on something, bring a model and maybe you can take home what you need. I’m going to try to put a survey in the bulletin so you can let us know what items you go through the most, be it paint, sanding supplies or knife blades. I would also like to spice up certain months for this raffle, mainly contest nights, but that needs further review.
Vinny also suggested that certain months we have a two for one night, meaning that say in April (just using April as an example) any models brought in will count double towards the super raffle.
Speaking of the super raffle, I mentioned trying to stream line it just a bit, maybe not quite as many rolls of masking tape and maybe a slightly higher quality of prizes. I don’t necessarily believe in the old Soviet proverb of “quantity has a quality all its own” but I do understand that the BPMS super raffle has a history that includes a fair amount of silliness. Anyway, since I started the idea of upgrading I will volunteer to donate what I consider a quality item, more on that come raffle time. Get some!! Get some!!
I would also like to thank Frank Colucci for his article on the Hasegawa 1/48th Harrier; he made a great looking model and followed that up with a great write up. Everyone keep your eyes open in the next few months as we should have some more great articles from our ranks. God Save the Queen! (Hint, hint)
So, these are just a few things that I wanted get out there and for you to think about. I hope that we can talk about it at the meeting and feel free to discuss these with myself or any other member of the Royal Council, just remember to bring us a cup of coffee and a donut before you do.

Jimmy T.

"In The Movies" Theme Contest Info

IN THE MOVIES: Ted and Phil are sponsoring “In The Movies” in for June 2005. Basically build something, ANYTHING from a movie.

This in from the sponsors:

The parameters of this contest have been nailed. There will be no category judging just first, second and third places with honorable mentions. This contest is wide open, so build a scene, a prop, or anything else that is recognizable from a movie. It can be Godzilla leveling Tokyo, a space battle from Star Wars, a scene from Apocalypse Now, a monster from a classic horror movie, a plane from Top Gun, a naval battle from Ben Hur, etc, etc. This should be fun, its up to your imagination. Get ready because June will be here soon!