Initially, our donation went to the Acorns Children's Hospice, during which time the trophy was known as the Hospice Trophy.
It was decided that IPMS Birmingham would support a different charity each year in order to help raise awareness of the good work done by the various charities in the UK, At this point the competition was re-name in honour of Bill Nicholls, a long time member of the club who had recently passed away and so became the Bill Nicholls Charity Trophy.
The charity we are supporting in 2018, decided by a near unanimous vote at the March meeting, is Birmingham Children's Hospital Critical Journeys Appeal.
The charities we have supported are listed at the bottom of this page, should you want to offer your support.
Each year at the December meeting we have the initial phase of the Charity Trophy when members donate kit(s) wrapped as Christmas gifts which are then put into a "Lucky(sic) dip" and drawn out by another member on payment of £2. The 'lucky' recipient then has to build the model by the following March meeting or pay a further £3 as a 'fine'. A winner is then picked via the normal voting system for the competition table.
There are a few rules, mainly that apart from paint, glue and filler the model can be completed using only what is in the box - in the past this has resulted in some fairly ingenious recycling of sprues, instruction sheets and even decal backing paper.
Inevitably a good deal of effort goes into finding the worst possible kit from peoples' collections to foist onto their fellow members or searching for humorous and bizarre subjects and a good deal of amusement combined with despair is generated at the December meeting when comparing kits drawn from the sack.
The amount raised at Decembers Lucky Dip was £84.40, any 'fines' for failing to build kits will be added to give a final total.
March's meeting saw the climax of the Charity Trophy; the results!
Acorns Children's Hospice
Diabetes UK
Mind UK
Charlotte & Craig Saving Hearts Foundation
