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rcboater

IPMS/USA Member
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Everything posted by rcboater

  1. Thanks, Dave. I’m guessing that the insurance is probably the primary reason for chartering. Having that gives the club access to a lot more venues for meetings and contests that might otherwise be unavailable. The reason I was asking: I’m also a member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA). Their website has a page with a clear explanation of the requirements, process, and benefits- I was hoping the IPMS had something similar... https://www.modelaircraft.org/sites/default/files/905.pdf
  2. Re-visiting this topic to see if anyone has more recent experiences to share. My RC boat club is using the mailing list service that is included as part of the package provided by our ISP. The webmaster (me) created a list of members and a club membership email address. It is set to only allow emails from members. Any club member can send an email to members@clubname.org, and it is automatically forwarded to all members of the list. In theory this is great, but in practice it is unreliable at times. The problem is that the low cost web hosting providers have thousands of customers, including the occasional spammers. This can cause the one or more of the big ISPs to block all mail coming from the hosters’ Email servers, so for example sometimes all our members with @comcast.net emails suddenly aren’t getting club emails. It typically clears in a couple of days, but is still annoying.... With the above experience in mind, I am reluctant to move our IPMS club’s larger list to a solution like that, so we are still using the “one officer keeps a master list- so the other club officers send him their messages to be forwarded to all” approach. This isn’t very efficient, especially when the list keeper is on vacation... So I’m still looking for a better solution. Is anyone using the file share options available on Google Drive, for example?
  3. Looking through the IPMS website, I was trying to find the answers to three basic questions, and came up empty: 1. How does a club become chartered? 2. What are the benefits of doing so? 3. When a new member joins, does the IPMS do anything to let either the individual or local chapter know about each other? Now in regards to questions 1and 2, I have to admit I didn’t read the constitution and bylaws - but if that is the only place the answers are posted, then that needs to be fixed, IMO. In regards to my third question, I am guessing the answer is “no”. I realize there may be privacy considerations about sharing the new member’s contact info with local clubs, but maybe there could be a checkbox to let the new member opt-in to share an email address with local clubs. Maybe it is posted and I’m looking in the wrong place? -Bill
  4. DAK, A couple of thoughts in response.... I can’t fully agree with your premise that “I believe the idea that many say they aren't interested in competition is a fanciful claim.“ I do accept your premise if you limit it to people entering the contest. My point was that the majority of Modelers who are truly not interested in competition are saying it loud and clear by not entering at all, or not even attending to begin with. My other point was that the non-entrants/attendees are also the ones who haven’t joined IPMS USA, in part because their perception is that the Society is mostly about contests. You mentioned a couple of times that this a “myth”, but no one has given any reasons to contradict the perception, at least not yet. And please note I am not saying this is a bad thing- as John Walker pointed out, the majority of the membership is happy with this, so why not be happy with who we are? The original premise of this thread was that we have a PR problem, because outsiders think IPMS is about nit-picking. I submit even more outsiders think IPMS -USA is mostly about contests, which I think it is true. (Not “bad”, but true.) Please note that when I say this, I am talking about IPMS USA— not the local chapters. At least around here, the large majority of IPMS club members are NOT members of the National Organization, and are unlikely to ever join. They join local chapters for the reasons we both mentioned- the variety of subjects, comraderie, etc. They show up at meetings, and in our club, they show up and help put on our annual contest, even though they don’t have any desire to enter. So maybe the perception we need to fight is the notion that only competition enthusiasts join local chapters... ? -Bill
  5. Maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree... John was spot on- there are lots of ppl out there building some fantastic models who don’t care a whit about competition. They are perfectly happy where they are, doing what they enjoy. Maybe we shouldn’t be worrying about how these ppl perceive our contests, because as John pointed out, it just doesn’t matter. Maybe what we should be worried about is not the perception that we are nit pickers, but that the society is all about contests and competition. If you are not interested in competing, why join IPMS? As far as I can tell, there are only three tangible reasons: You are an officer in an IPMS chartered club; You want to enter the IPMS Nationals; You want a subscription to the Journal. Note that I’m talking about the National Organization only— not the benefits of joining a local club. As John pointed out, people in our area (New England) have a variety of clubs they can join. For nearly all of them it isn’t about “IPMS vs. non-IPMS” clubs, picking a club is about subjects, people, locations, the “vibe”, etc. Like John, I am also a member of three area clubs, but only one is an IPMS chartered club. I get similar benefits (comraderie, primarily) from all three. To be honest, the only reason I joined IPMS in the first place was because I’m a club officer. When I leave office someday, I’m not sure if I will renew or not...
  6. My experience is that the reason modelers who think IPMS is too picky “aren’t filling in the comments box” is because they aren’t entering the contest to begin with! I think those of us who are active online often lose our perspective. We are a small subset of a niche group, not the mainstream. Case in point: My IPMS club has about 45 members. Only 7 of us are IPMS members. At a meeting last year, with about 20 members in the room, I asked how many peruse one or more of the online forums. Six hands went up. I asked about the IPMS forum, and one other hand besides mine went up. I found it interesting that the non-forum readers were also the same majority that doesn’t enter contests. Now everyone in the room used the internet to help with the hobby- just not forums. They aren’t Luddites— They watch “how to “ videos on You tube, read build articles on modeling websites, look at finished models on Facebook, etc. ( Generally all less critical environments.) The perception amongst many is that IPMS is all about contests, and contests are all about fault finding. DAK started this (very interesting - thanks DAK!) thread to talk about the “Perception problem” the Society has, and it quickly turned into a thread about contests, complete with slams about modelers who aren’t good enough builders. And we wonder why non-members think we’re all nit-pickers.....? Or that the society should be renamed IPMCS... the International Plastic Modelers Competition Society..? -Bill
  7. I get this issue all the time. I usually give up and don’t bother to post or even try to read posts. As others have said, this is a problem unique to this forum. I’m using an iPad on the latest iOS release and Safari.
  8. I have an old 1980s edition of the Tamiya 1/35 M-10, the motorized version. I built it in the mid 80s, painted with a spray can of hobby Olive Drab, but never decalled it. I have been keeping it all these years, with the idea that I would use it in an RC Landing Craft, with some sort of Rube Goldberg linkage — sail the model to the beach, lower the ramp by RC, which pulls a lanyard or pin to activate the tank’s motor and the tank then runs free, up onto the beach. All of this “contraption engineering” is unnecessary now, given the state of micro RC units, and the off the shelf availability of 1/35 scale RC tanks! -Bill
  9. My most unusually model I’ve built to date is this 1/35 scratchbuild: A short write up here: http://www.arcair.com/Gal13/12001-12100/gal12076-Rabbit-Michaels/00.shtm
  10. The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) - used to rotate their Nationals every year. It got harder and harder to find suitable venues to host all the different flying events, so they now hold their event at Muncie, Indiana, every year. They made the change in the late 80s, IIRC. When they made the change, they did the necessary change to have the National Organization take over managing/running the event..... Their models are a lot bigger than ours...! It CAN be done. Whether it SHOULD be done is a matter for debate. The AMA was forced to do it by outside forces (flying site issues)- they adapted, the membership adapted, and the event continues annually, 30 years later. Absent the external pressure, I don’t see the Society getting the necessary consensus to make such a dramatic change.... Personally, I’m ambivalent. As a New Englander, the Nats is almost always too far away to drive to. (Virginia being the exception.). So if I’m flying anyways, it doesn’t matter where to as much. - Bill
  11. I think lots of people call theirs the “Shelf of Doom”. I only have five on the SoD right now, and one of them may actually be coming off it soon.... At one point about 5 years ago, I had about 20 - mostly kits where something had gone wrong, or I found an error that would be too hard/no fun to fix. I then decided it was time to do something about it- so I decided to clean it out. Several were just finished as best I could, ignoring the errors. Several others were sold as a bundle (box full) for a couple of dollars over the cost of shipping. One or two were parted out and tossed. It was refreshing to have that shelf empty!
  12. Here’s one- I’ve been doing it for years: I save all my old issues of model mags (including the Journal!) in a box. Whenever I go anywhere that has a waiting room, I bring a couple along and leave them behind. (FineScale Modeler is a good one for this.) And they don’t need to be current- even two-year old issues are relevant. I also made up some simple business cards on my computer, printed them out on cardstock. (Ten to a page). They have the name and logo of the club, plus the words “”Model Building Club”, and the URL of our website. I staple one inside the cover of each magazine. -Bill
  13. Check out the ship’s forum on the Fine Scale Modeler website- that seems to be the place to go for a lot of plastic sailing ship builders. You will find multiple, very detailed build logs there for the big Revell Constitution. Looking at your photo, I don’t think the part was short shot- it is symmetrical, and has the square notch for the boat davits. I think the issue is caused by the stern being too wide— are you sure the decks are fully seated in their mounts against the hull sides? An error there, especially with the spar deck, would push the sides out enough to cause fit problems for the stern. I would suggest asking for help over on the FSM forum....
  14. Jim, I also grew up in the Burlington area, same time as you. My lasting memory was seeing the F-102s in the sky near the airport. (They were easy for a kid to ID!) I almost bought the 1/72 Draw decals the other day- then got wrapped around the axle on the kit. Do I want a “ Case X” or “Case XX” wing? ( Meng makes both.)
  15. Another vote for the HH-52 in 1/72. (There is a $50 resin kit, but it would be nice to see one in styrene!)
  16. For those of you who have a club Facebook presence, did you set it up as a "Group" or a "Page"? As I understand it, a Page increases your club's visibility, as it can be found by search engines, but there's no real security-- anyone can post a comment on it. If you set up as a Group, you can restrict both access and membership, at the expense of visibility. Just looking for some feedback on what option you picked and why, and what your experience has been.....
  17. Great input so far.... some comments: - I looked at Constant Contact, but they seem expensive at $20 a month. Is there a less expensive non-profit option they don't really advertise? - I can build out a list in my email, but then it is tied to my address and my computer, and is hard for others in the club to use. My last neighborhood had a list using that method-- we had a recurring problem where people would use the list by hitting "reply to all", but from an old message, that didn't have all the latest updates. Most people would get most of the news, but no one got all.... - I've looked at MailChimp-- I was hoping some people would weigh in with their experience........ Thanks for the responses so far!
  18. I'm researching a problem that I'm sure all clubs and non-profits have: Looking for a membership management tool that is low cost (or free) to manage the club mailing list, and our annual show attendee list. Our club has two distinct, and slightly different needs: 1. Manage the membership list for sending our newsletters and other emails to the dues-paying members of the club. 2. Collect and build a "customer list" of vendor contacts and attendees for our annual show. Currently we have a solution for #1, but not for #2. We don't want a combined list, as we don't want to send internal club business emails to our "customer" list. Right now, all we have is a collection of emails the club officers have collected over the past few years, but no central repository that any of us can access. Yes, we could just build out a spreadsheet and keep them there, but that puts the burden on one person to collect and manage the list. I have googled the topic, and found that there are a variety of online services that offer email management for non-profit organizations. Many offer free service for a list up to X members, with a sliding cost above that. But those solutions seem to be oriented more as a membership tool than a customer tool. So I figured that before I go and try to our half a dozen free or lost cost solutions, I'd ask here.... I'm sure this a problem other clubs must have already solved.....?
  19. I support the IPMS decision on this as well. The return on investment just isn't there. I do find it interesting when I hear fellow boomers (who started modeling as youngsters in the late 50s and 60s) lament that "kids aren't building models anymore". That is just not true. Kids are building models left and right, all over the place. They just aren't building our kind of models!! Have you been in a toy store? Have you seen all the Lego kits? And what they cost!?!?!! Kids are building models of all kinds of subjects. Lego teaches the same sorts of skills-- following directions, learning that wrong placement of earlier sub-assemblies cause later parts not to fit, etc. These kits have "play value", too-- just like we had when we started modeling as kids! Remember Monogram's kits with retracting gear, bomb drops, etc? Or Revell's Battleships and Carriers with flat bottoms for sailing on the floor or in the pond? My son is 27. He's a modeler, of sorts. He got into miniatures gaming at the local comic book/CCG (collectible card game) shop. Now he's into a couple of sci-fi gaming systems, building multi-media resin and plastic vehicles for Warhammer 40K types of games. He airbrushes and weathers his models, and recently built his own spraybooth, All of his gaming buddies are doing similar sorts of things. If not for dear old Dad, he would never have heard of IPMS or been to a show. (None of his friends have!) If we really want to reach out to kids and teens, we should find a way to reach them with things that interest them, not try to get them interested in our subject matter. Reach out to the gaming shops-- welcome the sci-fi modelers and wargamers. If we want more adults to join in and participate in our events, let's be more welcoming to other hobbyists. Model Railroaders. miniature wargamers- they both are researching, building, painting, weathering, etc. Rather than continue the MnT program, maybe we can think a little more out of the (kit) box!
  20. Is there a list somewhere that identitfes the first "x" chapters? Is an existing chapter considered to be the first, or oldest if the first one is no longer around? I couldn't find anything on the History of IPMS USA on the website. I also did a search in this forum for thigns like "Oldest Chapter" or "First Chapter", and didn't get any matches......
  21. I'm wondering-- how many people attended the last couple of Nats? Entrants, spectators, and general admissions? I'm not looking for exact numbers, just looking to get an idea of the size. I've never been to a Nats, but I've attended large wargaming events like Historicon, and I'm trying to get a sense of the realtive sizes of the two events...... -Bill
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