John Carter

We have received tragic news of the sudden death of one of our younger members John Carter.

At the moment we have very few details and understand that the matter is in the hands of the coroner.

Meanwhile, our thoughts and sympathies are with John's family at this distressing time.

AGM and New Venue.

The Sunday 15th November meeting included the club's Annual General Meeting for the election of the branch officers for the coming year. On this occasion there were no changes and all of the previous incumbents were re-elected unopposed.

George Green proposed that the competition theme for 2016 should be "The Best of British" - anything that is predominantly British in content, which was unanimously approved.

The major decision was the move to a new venue in the new year. While we have had no problems with the management and staff of Kings Heath Community Centre, regrettably the same cannot be said of Birmingham City Council Finance Department who, despite us having paid in advance for the room hire, persist in sending payment demands culminating recently in our Treasurer, Matt Nicholls receiving a communication from a debt collection agency. This is a totally unacceptable situation which has forced us to seek an alternative venue and Matt fairly quickly located somewhere suitable.

So, from January 2016 our new venue will be:

Longbridge Methodist Church

Reception/cafe Area

1654/8 Bristol Road South,

Longbridge,

Birmingham.

B45 9TY

Meetings will continue to be on the third sunday of each month but will start half an hour later than at present - 3.30 to 6.00 PM.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 meeting/Christmas party will be at Kings Heath Community Centre as usual.

Counting down to Scale ModelWorld 2015.

It is now only a fortnight until Scale ModelWorld 2015 and the plans for the club's display are well advanced.


This year there will be three elements to our stand:





Forming the centrepiece will be a tribute to the late Bill Nicholls who passed away in May. It will include some of Bill's models and photogrphs of him and his modelling activities supplied by his family.









This will be flanked by two further displays:



One featuring models built for, or are appropriate to, the club competition theme for the whole of this year - "The Silver Screen".








Plus a display models built IPMS Birmingham members for "Shermania" this year's "Across the Pond Challenge" with our friends at IPMS Syracuse in the USA.









And speaking of IPMS Syracuse we will be welcoming back our old friend from upstate New York, John Kesler making his biannual visit to SMW.



As always, we will be happy to talk to fellow modellers, so please drop by our stand for a chat.

Three events in early September.

This coming weekend, 5th and 6th September, IPMS Birmingham will be attending two events:

On Saturday and Sunday we have a display at in Wolverhampton at the Bantock House Museum's 1940s World War Weekend event in association with our friends at Forever Forties; http://www.bantockhouse.co.uk/…/64/world-war-2-1940s-weekend

Bantock House Museum

And also on Sunday some of our members will be displaying at ASVC Womboirne's "Fantastic Plastic" show.

The following Sunday, 13th September we will be at  Sutton Coldfield Model Spectacular.

 Please note that this show is at a new venue; Shire Oak Academy, St Marks Road Entrance, Walsall Wood, Walsall. WS8 7AQ.

One week until Midland Expo 2015

With just a week to go until our annual show Midland Expo 2015 everything is now in place for the show to take place.
A timetable of the day's activities can be viewed on the Timetable page of the show website or alternatively be downloaded as a PDF.

As announced in a previous post this year's show is being dedicated to the memory of our old friend Bill Nicholls who passed away in May, he was a long standing, indeed a founder member of IPMS Birmingham and there will be a special display of his models along with photographs commemorating his life.










There is also the new feature, the Social Media Modellers Meet, Greet and Display Area, which we hope will prove to be popular with those people who interact with each other via forums and the likes of Facebook and Twitter.


Details of the clubs, SIGs and traders attending can be found on the Exhibitors and Traders pages of the show website.



 
The car parking will be once again marshaled by our members with assistance from the centre's staff, we would ask that visitors be considerate and park as close as is practical to the next vehicle thus maximising the space available. There are three parking areas on site, the front car park for traders and exhibitors, the side park for IPMS Birmingham members and exhibitors and the rear car park for visitors. There is also an off-site overflow car park which visitors will be directed to should the rear car park become full. Please also note that there are disabled spaces in the front car par which should not be used unless you have the relevant badge.  Centre staff will also be asking for small voluntary donations from visitors which will go towards the upkeep of the centre figures in the region of 20 to 50 pence have been suggested.

We look forward to seeing many of our old friends and meeing a good many new ones, until next Sunday, see you there.

Midland Expo: Midland Expo 2015 to be dedicated to the memory of...

Midland Expo: Midland Expo 2015 to be dedicated to the memory of...:

Following the sad news of the death of one of IPMS Birmingham's longest seving members, Bill Nicholls , it has been decided to dedicate this year's show to his memory.

Bill Nicholls

Yesterday we received the very sad news that Bill Nicholls, one of the club's oldest and staunchest members has passed away.

 

Bill had suffered  a long period of failing health and passed away on Wednesday 20th May, at 10.00 PM in Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital with his son Matt at his side. He was one of the club's great characters and will be missed by all of us.

Our condolences go to his wife Ann and sons Matt and Glen.

An "In Memoriam" page will be created on this website in the near future bringing together members' thoughts and recollections about Bill.

March and early April activities

The March edition of  the club newsletter The Rotunda is now available to dowload in PDF format.

Previous editions from the past five years of The Rotunda are now available on-line to download from the archive, links from the Newsletter page.

Having published this months newsletter John Duffield, the editor, has headed off to Malta with his wife Mary for a break. We understand from messages on Facebook that they have already visited a local model show and no doubt John will be writing up a report for the newsletter on his return.







The next show the club will be attending is the East Midlands Model Show on Sunday 29th March 2015 at The Leisure Centre, Hinckley, Leicestershire. LE10 0JR.













Then, after the Easter holiday we will be at the Shropshire Model Show on Sunday 12 April 2015 at the RAF Museum, Cosford.







Our next main monthly (Sunday) club meeting is on Sunday 19th April at the usual venue, Kings Heath Community Centre, however for a trial period we are going start holding an evening meeting each month at a different venue, for the time being a room above the Mind Charity Furiture Shop in Addison Road, Kings Heath. More details on these meetings in as separate post in the near future.

Midland Expo 2015

The date and venue for Midland Expo 2015 have been announced, once again the show is being held at Leasowes Sports Centre, Halesowen on Sunday 26th July.

Happy New Year

A Happy New Year to all of our members, friends and followers.

From a modelling point of view 2015 already promises much with some excellent choices for new releases from Airfix, and doubtless many more to come from other manufacturers.

M4 Sherman 75mm,37th Tank Battalion,
4th Armoured Division, Brittany, France 1944 Dragon 1/35 scale.

This year in conjunction with our twin chapter in the USA, IPMS Syracuse, New York, we will be having our "Across the Pond Challenge" this year the subject being Sherman tanks. The challenge is just for the fun of it (as should all modelling be) there are no prizes and very few rules, basically build a model of a Sherman tank, any version, in any scale. The finished models will be photographed and shared with our friends in Syracuse.

Photo credit: Model and photo by Alan Brown of Leicester Modellers.



We are intending to run Midland Expo again this year and are waiting for confirmation of our preferred date from Leasowes Sports Centre before making a formal announcement.

Don't forget the the competition theme for this year is  "The Silver Screen", so lots of possibilities and as George Green our Competition Secretary has pointed out, if we have a good response, it will a good basis for our club display at Scale ModelWorld in November.

Also, with effect from today, Roland Turner takes over the role of Branch Chairman.