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A NEW
FEATURE - BPMS MEMBER INTERVIEWS: Years ago Frank Tripoli
used to interview new members for the Bulletin, but now Frank Colucci and I
will be handling the job. (Thanks Frank!) As one of the “senior members” and
officers of the club, I thought I would kick off this new feature by
interviewing your humble narrator, Bobby Pokorny!
Meet Bobby Pokorny: Hello
everyone! I’m Bob! You may call me Bobby, Bobby
the Blue, B2, Robert, but you may NEVER call me late for BBQ or pizza!
But I
digress.
Models have always been a part of my life. My father was a car modeler and had
a wild imagination making all sorts of modifications like he would on real
cars. I grew up in a house with shelves of car models on display, and supplies
were readily accessible. My parents encouraged the hobby in the early years
buying me models of cars and dinosaurs. I didn’t take the next step until years
later while visiting my neighbor in Bayside, Queens
-- Jeff Eng. He had an impressive display of science fiction models and a huge
armor diorama in his basement. Loving both sci-fi and tanks, the level of
realism I saw inspired a new interest in the hobby. Over the coming years, with
Jeff as my mentor, I built often and of varied topics, everything in the
spectrum. Cars, armor, air, figures, and lots of science fiction. When it got
to the point that my work was show quality I joined “The New York
Crew” started on the contest circuit. By the time I grew out of the junior
category I had amassed over 100 awards. Around that same time I had started
studying accounting at Queens
College. In February of
1989 I joined the BPMS. Back then the club was still meeting at Marcy Studios
and I had the privilege to know club legends like Joe Turner, Andy Yanchus,
Bill Smith, Bert Berg, the Kasza family and Al Marciano to name a few. Since
then the club went through many changes. We have moved twice. I have held
positions as treasurer, Veep and Prez for four years. After that I consolidated
the positions of secretary, contest coordinator, and activities director since
it’s almost impossible to tell where one of those jobs ends and the next
begins. As long as I was wearing those hats I started writing the Bulletin
during the ‘90s, and created and / or maintained the various club websites,
blogs and Facebook pages.
In the rare moments I have for the hobby that I
am NOT working on club business, I
currently build mostly science fiction subjects, such as mechs and figures.
Other hobbies I don’t have enough time for would
be my aquariums with various breeds of turtles, working on real cars (the other
garage kits!), playing with tech, drumming, photography, Sudoku, reading,
target shooting, taking things apart and putting them back together, and
traveling with my wife of 15 years (whom I have been with for 25 years!). I
find that I need many diversions since being an accountant (for over 20 years
now) can be pretty dry and not creative at all.
I look forward to what the future has in store
for the hobby and the BPMS. While the hobby has had its ups and downs over the
years, the BPMS has remained fairly steady. Despite adversity, the club has
endured. I credit that to a strong group of like-minded members who care more
about the ongoing life of the club and less about rare petty squabbles. Plus,
having been around for so long, the club has a structure and a fairly steady
schedule so that the members know what they have coming up. It could be a
contest night, or a theme, holiday dinner or even pizza night; we always manage
to have solid meetings with things going on and topics to discuss while having
FUN. Where do I see the hobby or the club down the road? I would like to think
that there will always be a BPMS long after we’re all gone. A strong foundation
was been set. It’s our job to maintain it.
