All preparations for Midland Expo 2014 this coming Sunday are now complete and we look forward to welcoming our exhibitors, traders and visitors to the show.
For more details please go to the Midland Expo website.
Wednesday, 23 July 2014
Saturday, 12 April 2014
Across the Pond Hurricane Group Build Challenge
Inspired by our friends at IPMS Syracuse in
the USA, a number of whom have taken to building Hawker Hurricanes in
various scales we now have the "Across the Pond Hurricane Group Build
Challenge" under way and at tomorrow's club meeting those of us from
IPMS Birmingham who are joining in with this "fun" event will be
bringing along there builds for an initial progress report.
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| Charles Wise's (IPMS Syracuse) 1/48 Hasegawa Hurricane under construction |
The challenge is open to members of both clubs and the rules, such as they are, are quite simple - any
scale, any version, any markings - just so long as it's a Hawker
Hurricane. There is no time limit, but this year would be
appreciated.
Tuesday, 8 April 2014
April Meeting, change of date and recent shows.
April Meeting.
Please note that owing to Easter falling on the third weekend of April this month's meeting has been brought forward by one week and will take place this coming Sunday the 13th, normal time and venue.Recent Model Shows.
The club has attended two local model shows over the past few weeks, below are slide shows of photos taken at each of them.East Midlands Model Show (Hinckley)
Shropshire Model Show (Cosford)
Wednesday, 19 March 2014
March 2014 Meeting
This month's main Sunday meeting was held on 16th March and featured a demonstration of salt weathering by our Newsletter Editor, John Duffield as seen in the photo montage below.
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The competition winner was was Karl Robinson's 1/72 scale Focke-Wulf Fw-190D in Soviet markings,
Finally, following on from John's salt weathering demo here is a YouTube video on the subject:
The competition winner was was Karl Robinson's 1/72 scale Focke-Wulf Fw-190D in Soviet markings,Model shows
The branch will be attending several shows over the coming weeks, firstly the East Midlands Model Show at Hinckley on Sunday 23rd March. In April we will be at the the Shropshire Model Show being held at the RAF Museum Cosford on Sunday the 6th followed by Model Kraft 2014 at Milton Keynes on Sunday 27th.Finally, following on from John's salt weathering demo here is a YouTube video on the subject:
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Parabellum Christmas Opening Hours
Our local model shop, Parabellum, who are normally open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays only have advised that they have extended opening hours over the Christmas period as follows:
To download this notice a PDF please click here.
Monday, 18 November 2013
November Meeting and Club AGM.
IPMS Birmingham's November meeting includes the club's Annual General Meeting at which committee members are either elected or re-elected (When same person is going to continue in the role) and any changes to the way the club is run are agreed upon.
Two changes were proposed and accepted: First that henceforth the changeover date for newly elected committee members should be the 1st of January following their election (Proposed by Roland Turner outgoing Branch Secretary). And second that a new system of judging proposed by George Green, Competition Secretary be adopted - details see the Monthly Competition Page.
All the existing committee were re-elected apart from Roland Turner who is standing down, with Rob Barwick being elected as the new Branch Secretary and will take over the position on 1st January 2014. Rob is already the Exhibitor Booking Secretary on the Midland Expo Management Committee and will no doubt bring his enthusiasm and dedication to this role.
Of course it wasn't all serious business and a few die-hards actually got some modelling done in one corner while the meeting progressed.
Isaac Peat also brought along his Gold Medal wining diorama from Scale ModelWorld 2013 for us to have a closer look at. A well deserved win for a young and talented modeller.
Two changes were proposed and accepted: First that henceforth the changeover date for newly elected committee members should be the 1st of January following their election (Proposed by Roland Turner outgoing Branch Secretary). And second that a new system of judging proposed by George Green, Competition Secretary be adopted - details see the Monthly Competition Page.
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| Rob Barwick, Branch Secretary Elect. |
All the existing committee were re-elected apart from Roland Turner who is standing down, with Rob Barwick being elected as the new Branch Secretary and will take over the position on 1st January 2014. Rob is already the Exhibitor Booking Secretary on the Midland Expo Management Committee and will no doubt bring his enthusiasm and dedication to this role.
Of course it wasn't all serious business and a few die-hards actually got some modelling done in one corner while the meeting progressed.
 |
| Live action model building at the meeting! |
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| Isaac's Gold Medal and diorama. |
Isaac Peat also brought along his Gold Medal wining diorama from Scale ModelWorld 2013 for us to have a closer look at. A well deserved win for a young and talented modeller.
Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Looking back on Scale ModelWorld 2013
Well, Scale ModelWorld 2013 is over and we can look back on a show that lived up to its billing as "The best model show in the World".
First of all, thanks go to our club Chairman Pete Betteridge , Treasurer Matt Nicholls and Dave McQueen who went up to Telford to set up our stand on the Friday afternoon so everything was ready for members to put their models on the table when they arrived on Saturday morning.
In the competition the club had three winners, Bill Mohan got a Bronze award for his 1/72 scale Short Sherpa and David Allison also received a Bronze for his 1/43 Lola Judd T88 Indy car but pride of place goes to our only junior member Isaac Peat who gained a Gold Medal for his Jeep and Sherman diorama, congratulations Isaac.
We had our friends from IPMS Syracuse, USA, John Kesler, Jim Marconi and John King visiting for the show. This was John King's first time at SMW and his his first trip to Great Britain. "The Boys from Syracuse" had arrived at Heathrow on Wednesday morning and been met by Michael Gossage, Gareth Thomas and Roland Turner and taken to the RAF Museum at Hendon. After an overnight stay at Eastleigh they went on to the Tank Museum at Bovington and the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton before travelling up to Birmingham. Friday was taken up with a visit to Warwick Castle.
The show was a celebration of the Society's 50th Anniversary and was bigger than ever, at the Branch Secretaries and SIG Leaders meeting on the Sunday morning it was announced that the visitor numbers were up by 6% on the Saturday compared to 2012 and competition entries had increased from 900 plus to over 1300.
There were many foreign visitors with people who had travelled from as far afield as South Korea, Argentina, Canada, USA and most European countries to menion but a few, either to display at the show or just as members of the general public, keeping Gary Wenko the society's Overseas Liaison Officer busy, a task on which he appeared to thrive.
As always the overseas visitors brought a selection of local delicacies and liquid refreshments with them to share with visitors to their stands adding to the convivial atmosphere.
A number of awards were given for the best displays with the Aerobatic Display Teams Special Interest Group winning Gold for the best SIG display.
As already mentioned the competition had a huge number of entries this year and all to a very high standard with the best in show going to Stefano Marchetti (for the second year running) for his remarkable fantasy piece "Bugatti/Tesla Type 159sc - magnetic levitation race car".
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Inevitably with anything of the magnitude and complexity of Scale ModelWorld something is almost certainly going to go wrong at some stage and this year was no exception with a problem on the Saturday morning at the members' entrance. This appears to have been due to conflicting information which the show organisers attempted to resolve quickly but were frustrated by the centre management. While it was annoying for the people involved, it should not be allowed to detract from an otherwise superb event and the IPMS (UK) Executive Committee, all of them unpaid volunteers, are to be congratulated on its success.
First of all, thanks go to our club Chairman Pete Betteridge , Treasurer Matt Nicholls and Dave McQueen who went up to Telford to set up our stand on the Friday afternoon so everything was ready for members to put their models on the table when they arrived on Saturday morning.
In the competition the club had three winners, Bill Mohan got a Bronze award for his 1/72 scale Short Sherpa and David Allison also received a Bronze for his 1/43 Lola Judd T88 Indy car but pride of place goes to our only junior member Isaac Peat who gained a Gold Medal for his Jeep and Sherman diorama, congratulations Isaac.
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| John King meeting IPMS (UK) President Paul Regan |
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| Gary Wenko, Overseas Liaison Officer |
The show was a celebration of the Society's 50th Anniversary and was bigger than ever, at the Branch Secretaries and SIG Leaders meeting on the Sunday morning it was announced that the visitor numbers were up by 6% on the Saturday compared to 2012 and competition entries had increased from 900 plus to over 1300.
There were many foreign visitors with people who had travelled from as far afield as South Korea, Argentina, Canada, USA and most European countries to menion but a few, either to display at the show or just as members of the general public, keeping Gary Wenko the society's Overseas Liaison Officer busy, a task on which he appeared to thrive.
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| The AMV 83 team from the south of France |
As always the overseas visitors brought a selection of local delicacies and liquid refreshments with them to share with visitors to their stands adding to the convivial atmosphere.
A number of awards were given for the best displays with the Aerobatic Display Teams Special Interest Group winning Gold for the best SIG display.
As already mentioned the competition had a huge number of entries this year and all to a very high standard with the best in show going to Stefano Marchetti (for the second year running) for his remarkable fantasy piece "Bugatti/Tesla Type 159sc - magnetic levitation race car".
Inevitably with anything of the magnitude and complexity of Scale ModelWorld something is almost certainly going to go wrong at some stage and this year was no exception with a problem on the Saturday morning at the members' entrance. This appears to have been due to conflicting information which the show organisers attempted to resolve quickly but were frustrated by the centre management. While it was annoying for the people involved, it should not be allowed to detract from an otherwise superb event and the IPMS (UK) Executive Committee, all of them unpaid volunteers, are to be congratulated on its success.
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