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Schmitz

IPMS/USA Member
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Schmitz last won the day on January 23

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  • FirstName
    Don
  • LastName
    Schmitz
  • IPMS Number
    35303
  • Local Chapter
    Three Rivers IPMS (Pittsburgh)
  • City
    Gibsonia
  • State
    PA
  • Gender
    Male

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  1. I'm pretty sure Ollie's contracts for special runs of kits - a friend pointed out that for whatever reason the kit boxes have the retail price as part of the box art, under the shrink wrap.
  2. Ron, I think this one sentence answers your question. You can have events without a "parent organization", and because those events are for-profit the organizers tailor them to what makes the attendees happy. Aside from the Journal that the internet has made increasingly less valuable, what advantage does membership provide? The one time I looked at IPMS finances, its almost as if it was two separate organizations. On one side, the individual memberships roughly pay for the Journal, the Reviewer Corps, the website, and the cost of having an office (mostly just paying the Office Manager's). The Chapter Charter fees roughly pay for the insurance policy. On the other side, the Nationals. Registration, vendor fees and various sponsorships pay the bills for the event, with a small "surplus" left over that is shared with host chapter. The National's share of the surplus basically covers the rising cost of putting on the event for the coming years. To participate at the Nats we make you pay for the Journal, Reviewer Corps, Office Manager, etc - but none of that money goes to making the Nats better; it just props up the Journal that has become less and less relevant. For an example of how IPMS could operate without the Journal and without individual memberships, look at Wonderfest. It is a two day show (Sat&Sun) that focuses on SciFi and Fantasy subjects - it is sometimes called the "SciFi Nationals" and is basically the size of a big IPMS Regional. Last year they had slightly over 1000 models in the contest. It is held in the same place every year (Louisville). Their pricing is (roughly) $50 for a two day ticket; that gets you in to the vendors and presentations, and lets you spectate in the model contest. If you want to enter models, that's another $30 for up to 10 models (technically you can enter just 1 model for $15, but most people bring multiple entries). So entrants are paying the same $80 for 2 days that they would pay for a Nat's registration + 1 year membership, but all of that money goes into the show. They have the funds to bring in a few guest speakers - often movie FX folks - and that attracts non-modelers who are still paying the full $50 registration fee - no family membership deals. Now think about what happens if we eliminate individual memberships. The Journal goes away, and with it the need (and cost) of managing memberships. What remains of the organization would exist largely to keep the insurance policy in place, and coordinate chapter-level events, and plan and organize the Nats, and it could be funded by the Chapter Charter fees - which could be raised a bit (and still save the Chapter's money since there would no longer be a requirement to have 5 IPMS members on the roles). This may not be a feel good answer, but I think the "invisible hand of capitalism" will eventually push us to something like this.
  3. As one of the much maligned IPMS/USA FB moderators I want to bring a little reality to this conversation. The IPMS FB group is a very small piece of modeling on Facebook. As mentioned above, the group has about 14,000 members. For comparison "Doogs Models", a popular group run by a single individual has 19,000, "Starship Modeler" is run by a mail-order company and has 95,000, and "I Love Scale Models" has 186,000 members. There are easily 100s more groups all related to various aspects of the hobby. Modelers are not breaking down the door to join our group - they have lots of alternatives. The IPMS group is - by Facebook standards - heavily moderated. A moderator must explicitly approve every member the first time they try to post or comment, and we review their profile and their answers to our "security" questions to try to weed out scammers and trouble makers. We also approve (but not always read) every post before it appears. When the rare T-shirt seller or "middle aged woman looking for love" manages to post, that post is deleted, the person who sent it is blocked, and it is never seen. Facebook does not let us see comments before they appear, and if they did we don't have the manpower to look at them all, but when scammy stuff slips through it will be reported and the person who made the comment blocked. When I say "we", I mostly mean me; a few other folks have become moderators but mostly lose interest. Most of the posts are modeling related: photos of completed models, research photos of interesting subjects, how to questions. Commercial posts - mostly from small aftermarket/speciality companies - are allowed at a rate of 1/week. Local and regional club shows can advertise as much as they want, and some do. A large fraction of the most active members do not seem to be IPMS members, although we have no way of knowing. Personal names are not unique, and FB makes has no requirement that you use your real name (and many people now use "handles" - like "Iron Wulf" or "Tex Modeler"). There are a fair number of members from foreign countries (there are IPMS societies around the world, and they are all welcome and often come to the US Nats). Posts and discussions that are critical of IPMS but civil are allowed. This is a very small fraction of the posts made, and is little different from the same discussions about IPMS that are held here on the IPMS forum. Because of this there seems to be an assumption that the IPMS FB group is a hotbed of anti-IPMS conspirators; I get the impression some think the whole "flying tank" and "sharpie judging sheet" controversies were launched on the IPMS FB group. The truth is that both of those posts appeared first on other groups and social media, and I did my best to verify that they weren't hoaxes before approving those posts. I paid close attention to keep the discussion on those posts from raging out of control - deleting comments and suspending individuals. I know this policy is not popular with some in IPMS. As a moderator, I refuse to outright censor posts and comments only because they point out problems in the Society, mostly of our own doing. If the group is limited to putting a "happy face" on IPMS, FB members will recognize that the group is propaganda and ignore or discount it. If the EBoard decides that's what they want, they will have to replace me. What does IPMS gain from having the group? We get the IPMS name in front of modelers who may not even know it exists. They see contest announcements, can ask questions about modeling and IPMS, and can be encouraged to join a chapter, join the National organization, or come to a National Convention. Post pandemic there was a lot of buzz around the Las Vegas and Omaha Nats on the FB group, and I have to think that contributed to the turnout at those events. When controversial issues do pop up, we (mostly me) can respond as the voice of reason, correcting misinformation and explaining why things work the way they do. There is also an opportunity for IPMS to "take the pulse" of the hobby by following and participating in the discussions on the group, although there doesn't seem to be much interest in that. I have seen suggestions that this group is a thing of value that should be for "IPMS Members Only". Aside from the technical aspects of enforcing members only (remember, we have no way of knowing who member "Iron Wulf" is, or if they are an IPMS member, or if they let their membership lapse), the IPMS group is little different from the many other groups available to everyone on FB. There is nothing special in the way of how-to information, and EBoard members rarely (ok, never) come to discuss issues. It doesn't cost anything but the moderators' time. I've also seen suggestions that discussions of IPMS business should be done in a "Members Only" group to hide our "dirty laundry". Consider that with 5000 members anything discussed in such a "Members Only" group will immediately leak to social media, and nothing will stop the greater modeling community from trash-talking IPMS in all of the other FB groups and social media forums.
  4. Models are usually moved without being picked up - if its not on a base by sliding the model on its registration form. Some judges are quick to pick models up, but the last few times I judged it was discouraged and latex gloves were passed out to those who felt they "had" to see the bottom.
  5. The general rule is that if a model can go into more than 1 category, it is up to the modeler to decide. However it really comes down to what the head auto judge decides the policy is, and it changes from time to time. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that despite what the description says, a lot of judges and modelers see "curbside" as a sort of beginners category. Alot of judges would like to do away with curbside just because of the confusion it causes. I've seen models in that category pooh-poohed for consideration of best auto. If you've gone all out detailing and painting your rally cars, I'd put them in the competition category. If they're closer to out-of-the-box, I'd put them put them in Curbside.
  6. A friend uses one of the commercial products, he uses it to track any aftermarket he has for the kit and reference photos (in case he ever gets around to building it).
  7. I've had some luck stripping tamiya spray paint with 90+% isopropyl alcohol from the first aid section of the grocery store. Let it soak a while. Seems to get most of the paint off, but always a little left behind.
  8. Modelers have been abusing the term "acrylic" for a long time - "acrylic" does not mean they're non-toxic water-based, its just the chemical family that the paint resin is drawn from. Out in the real world, there are "acrylic enamels" with petroleum-based solvents and "acrylic lacquers" with even more aggressive petroleum based solvents. Read the labels, if it comes out of a spray can you almost certainly need to wear a respirator if you're using it indoors.
  9. For the curious, there are financial statements online for the 2016 and 2021 Nats: https://ipmsusa.org/sites/default/files/minutes/files/2021nationalconventionstatementofactivity10092021.pdf https://ipmsusa.org/sites/default/files/minutes/files/ipmsusa2017businessmeetingpresentation.pdf Remember that the 2021 Nats were unusual in many ways (no 2020 Nats and in a higher cost city than typical); the 2016 Nats (in Columbia SC) are probably closer to typical.
  10. Quite a few medals fit in the kind of cardboard box many of us already have stacked in our basement/attic/etc - they are a small part of the contest supplies our club officers already have stashed somewhere in their homes.
  11. About 1-foot square is pretty common; any smaller than that gets hard to include enough to "tell a story" and is more likely to become a vignette (or whatever we're calling small dioramas these days).
  12. Don, what issue are you thinking about for the referendum?

    1. Show previous comments  1 more
    2. jcorley

      jcorley

      Well, there have been Gundam specific categories added FINALLY

      Here in R3, I have triple splits in Gundams a few times now.  It is the single largest segment of the hobby now 

    3. Schmitz

      Schmitz

      Yes, we're taking some steps in the right direction - but I was at the Chattanooga NCC meeting where getting those Gundam categories was fought tooth and nail - when as you say its the only part of the hobby that is growing. I was amazed when my 30 year old daughter who never had any interest in my modeling bought some pricey Gundam kits - because those are her childhood memories.

      I've been spending a lot of time in the Facebook wastelands (moderating the IPMS group) and I see lots of the supposedly non-existent young modelers getting into the hobby; and they are running blogs and podcasts with huge followings and writing how-to books and inventing products - and they by-and-large don't think highly of IPMS. If we can make them welcome I think the organization has a future beyond my own 😉

    4. VonL

      VonL

      From the Peanut Gallery...

      Suppose there was a judging item/factor for 'Special Effects,' maybe parsed out between electronic and non-electronic (paint, etc), disply setting/mirrors, etc. Or maybe make a separate category for SF (i.e. 'inflight' display of aircraft) where the entrant selects that category of consideration?

       

  13. I heard "if it ain't broke don't fix it" from my Dad starting about age 12. He was a mechanic and that was his frame of mind: cars either worked or were broke, and if they were broke you put them back the way the manufacturer built them. He sent me off to engineering school, where we learned that the people who designed things were constantly innovating and making tradeoffs trying to make things work better, because their competitors were doing the same thing. It's not obvious to me that everyone who didn't win would leave on Saturday morning. Many attendees would have already made travel plans, bought banquet tickets, raffle tickets, tour tickets, have non-refundable hotel reservations, be waiting for the vendor clearance-sale, or want to take one more circuit through the contest room. A modeler with vendor-money left in their wallet isn't about to leave. As long as there is stuff to do on Saturday afternoon there is no real reason to pack up early. There would be a tendency for non-winners to start packing up around 3-4:00 PM Saturday afternoon to beat the rush, but you could minimize that by having some "big event" about that time: a big name seminar or a pre-awards happy hour that was already included in the price of registration, so that people would want to stay for what they had already paid for. I'll be the first to admit trying this would be an experiment; we wouldn't know if it would work or not. That is the nature of innovation: you study it as well as you can and make contingency plans, but in the end you don't know if it works until you flip the switch and see what happens.
  14. If you like the thin elastic thread, it is available on a spool under the brand name "EZ Line" - check a hobby shop or type that into google/ebay/amazon to find an online seller. Don
  15. In the old days, I used Krylon Dull Aluminum - about $3 for a big spray can at WalMart - to paint anything that was supposed to be non-polished aluminum. It went down smooth - even on bare plastic, dried hard, looked like cast aluminum, and and it took washes extremely well. Then Sherwin Williams reformulated the whole paint line - probably took out all the chemicals that gave people in California cancer - and now the Matte Aluminimum that took its place looks just like silver paint (I'm pretty sure the new stuff has the same part-number as the original - 1403). I've weaned myself from the other Krylon paints, but I would really like to find something as cheap and easy to use as the original Dull Aluminum. Any chance its still available under a different name, or someone has old stock? I'm ready to order a case, but I want to be sure I don't get a case of the new stuff... Thanks! Don
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