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.

Midland Air Museum Model Fair 2014

Next Sunday, 7th December, we will be displaying at the Midland Air Museum Model Fair as we have done in past years. Although this has the reputation of being the coldest show of the year we will be in the heated Argosy Centre, but pity the traders in the unheated main hangar.

Meteor F.4 surrounded by traders at last year's show.

The venue is The Midland Air Museum at Coventry Airport, Baginton for more details and directions please see the museum's website.

Given the time of year the weather can be even more unpredictable than usual; (right) at the 2010 show the day started cold and misty but made for some atmospheric photography.

But our members were quite comfortable in the Argosy Centre, popping out every so often for a look round or to take a few more photos before returning to warm up again.

2015 Competition Theme

Our Branch Competition Secretary, George Green has announced the theme for next year's competition theme which will be - "The Silver Screen".

George proposed the idea at Mike Gossage's November Midweek Meeting this Wednesday, the consensus was that it is a good idea and as a result he sent the following email out to the membership the next day.

"At Mike Gossage's soirée last night we came up with a theme competition which we believe will suit all modelling tastes. That theme is:THE SILVER SCREEN. 

Basically if you can prove a link between your model and any cinema film past or present, it will count as an entry. During last night's discussion we came up with many and varied ideas which address all aspects of our hobby. Ideally it would be nice if this was to form a themed centrepiece to the club's Telford display in 2015 - Steve Newton please don't panic, participation is strictly non-compulsory. 

So please get started and let's see what finds it's way onto the table in 2015."

Happy modelling,
George"

AGM and Scale ModelWorld awards

The past two weekends have been fairly busy for the club, first there was the annual modelfest of Scale ModelWorld over the weekend of 8th and 9th November and as always it attracted modellers from around the world as well as the UK. Followed by the Branch AGM on Sunday 16th November.

Scale ModelWorld 2014

We had a good turnout from the membership, all of whom contributed to the branch's stand. Of particular interest to many visitors was Shaun Bowater's  1/32 scale B-17G. Our display always reflects the diversity of interests within the club and this year it was exceptional, thank you to everyone who helped to make it the best  for a number of years.

Steve and Isaac with their Gold medals

In the competition we had two Gold Medallists, Steve Newton for his scratch built sailing boat and Isaac Peat for his Paratrooper figure. This is Isaac's second Gold in as many years, it is good to see a young modeller making such an impact, may he continue to flourish in our hobby.

Isaac's paratrooper

These were no mean feats given the volume and quality of the models in this year's contest so their awards were thoroughly well deserved and our congratulations go to them both.

Steve's sailing boat

Bill receiving his award from Paul Regan

The other notable honour was a Life Membership of IPMS (UK) for one of our oldest club members, Bill Nicholls. Until poor health curtailed his activities Bill was a stalwart of Scale ModelWorld awards ceremony for many years looking after and organising the trophies and it was in recognition of his long service to the society that the National Executive Committee made the award. He was also the instigator of the bomber Command Trophy and was again able to present it after a two year absence from the show.

Bruce (left and Matt

Another of our members, Bruce Heideman, has also been unwell in recent months and it was good to see him back in harness with his Pinnacle trade stand, ably assisted by club Treasurer Matt Nicholls.

Group photo of branch members in front of the IPMS Birmingham stand.

For more photographss from the show please view the slideshow below.

 

AGM

Pete Betteridge

Sunday 16th November saw the branch's Annual General Meeting the main business of which is to elect the officers for the coming year. Apart from the role of Chairman all the existing holders were reelected. Pete Betteridge, the current Chairman is standing down and Roland Turner has been elected to take over from him on 1st January 2015. For full details of the office holders go to the "About IPMS Birmingham" page.

Roland Turner

Next month's meeting will be the Christmas Party when members and their families bring along food to share around plus any winning competition entries from the year to be voted on for the Branch Chamionship. Also, as seasoned members know there is the "readed" Hospice Challenge - but more on that in a future post!

Scale Modelworld 2014

As just about everyone in the modelling world will already know this weekend sees IPMS (UK)'s flagship show, Scale ModelWorld at Telford International Centre, TF3 4JH.

IPMS Birmingham will, as usual, be displaying at the show, our stand being situated in Hall 1, Block E. As always our members will be happy to chat to visitors and share modelling techniques or discuss the pro and cons of the kits used. A frequent talking point is Steve Newton's scratch built models and the remarkable effects he achieves, for example turning plain plastic card into totally convincing wooden planking (people often think it is actually wood).

On a practical note it is worth mentioning that IPMS members living in the Telford area are reporting via the likes of Facebook that there are extensive road works being carried out around the centre of the town some of which direct effect the approach to the show venue particularly,  St Quentin Gate with temporary traffic light controlled single file operation. Additionally according to the Telford Roadworks website work is scheduled to be taking place on Junction 4 of the M54 (the exit used by most visitors) and also at the junction (traffic island) of  the A464, A442 and Queens Drive. So it would make sense to allow extra time for your journey.

Car parking; we understand, again from local members, that a new multi-storey car park has been opened nearby, opposite the Cherry Pink Car Park, the Parkopedia, Telford website gives details of all public car parking in the centre.

Have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing as many of our friends, old and new, as possible at the show.