lritger

Hey Rick, good to see ya over here! And congrats on the wins last week- well deserved! Cheers, Lynn

Hi all, It is with considerable regret that we've had to make this business decision, but it has proven to be necessary- we simply did not have anywhere near the sign-ups for the tours which would allow us to pay for the coaches required to take people to and from the sites. Our Convention Chairman, John Lent, addresses the situation in the following message: _______________________________________________________________________________ 2014 IPMS National Convention Guests I am writing to you today to inform you that we made the difficult decision to cancel the tours scheduled for August 7 and 8, 2014. These cancellations affect the tours to the Mariners Museum, the U.S. Army Transportation Museum, the Military Aviation Museum, and the National Museum of the United States Marine Corps. The cancellations were due to less than expected participation for each tour and the requirement to meet our contractual obligations by July 23, 2014. For the convenience of our guests, we re-accomplished a contract with Tidewater Tours, Inc. to provide shuttle bus service from the Hampton Roads Convention Center and the Virginia Air and Space Museum for members participating in the IPMS Social / Wounded Warrior Project Benefit. We will post specific bus departure/arrival information at the convention for the folks attending this event. For our guests who paid to attend one of our tours, you will receive a full refund. We coordinated with the National Office, and we will be fully prepared to refund your payment at the convention. We will provide additional information to you on the refund process prior to and during the convention. Before closing, I wanted to let everyone know that our team was very excited about our tour offerings. We believed these tours would appeal to modelers with a wide variety of modeling interests. We are very disappointed with this outcome and we sincerely regret any inconvenience. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at eljefe@ipmsusa2014.com. Thank you for your consideration and support. Sincerely John W. Lent 2014 National Convention Committee Chair _______________________________________________________________________________ We delayed the decision as long as possible in the hopes that we may still be able to keep the tours, but even after having negotiated the best possible rates with the coach company, the current level of sign-ups would still leave the Convention deep in the red with regards to tours, and we could not allow that to happen. Still, as you'll note from John's note above, we're turning lemons into lemonade- we will now be offering a free shuttle service to and from the Thursday night fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project, being held at the Virginia Air and Space Center. We are very pleased that so many of our fellow Society members have chosen to take part in this event, and also very pleased to be able to now offer this service to get folks to and from the fundraiser safely. With just 12 days to go, we are very much in the home stretch of what we expect to be a FANTASTIC Convention, and on behalf of the Convention Committee, we thank you for your understanding, and we look forward to your visit! Cheers, Lynn

Mike, if you did not have it at the time, call them back and ask them to apply group code "IPM" to your room reservation. For 1 or 2 people, the room rate of 134 should apply. For 3 people, it should be 144, and for 4 people, it should be 154. Hopefully they'll be able to get you squared away. Best regards, Lynn

Jim, did you use the group code IPM? If not, reach out to them and have them use this code to reserve your room; that should lock you in at the negotiated rate of 134.00/night (before tax). Lynn

Thanks much for your kind and gracious words, Ralph! Just to let everyone know, the basic structure of the site is up, and these first few weeks will be rife with updates... we've got all manner of detailed Convention information to add, in fact I'm working on the Lodging page at the moment to get the most current hotel information out there. For now, let me share one important contact point for all our prosepctive vendors: Mike Mattei is once again handling our vendor arrangements this year, and he can be reached at vendors@ipmsusa2014.com. If you want to reserve a table or six, please reach out to him and he'll gladly forward you a vendor package. Thanks again Ralph- stay tuned everyone, it's gonna be one helluva fun ride to the 50th Anniversary Celebration here in Hampton! :) Lynn

I need to check in here more often... Jack, I got going on it like gangbusters, then around mid-September, all modeling activity came to a screeching halt when my wife went back to work after maternity leave. Our new daughter Evelynn has taken up most of my time since then, to the point that I only actually finished one model last year (down from 16+ the year before), but I desperately want to get back to the Bloch and get'er done... I really like it, and it will form a cornerstone of my 1/32 Battle of France collection. (No, that won't be a big collection, but I like to have some kind of central theme to things nowadays). And James, thanks for the kind words... you comin' down to Richmond in February? If you do, leave Barry at home, would ya? ;) Lynn