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Contest entry forms for the 2023 national contest are now posted to the convention website. There are both fillable PDFs as well as Microsoft Word documents. Convention contest staff will have blank hard copies on hand at the contest registration desk for those that do not get a chance to fill out their forms ahead of time. IPMS National Convention | Contest Entry Forms (nats2023.com) -Len

Greetings everyone. As promised, we are opening convention pre-registration tomorrow, the 1st of March at 9AM central time. You can go to this link: https://www.myipmsusa.org and on the menu items on the top you will see a convention registration choice. Clicking on that will bring you to all the choices. We are also selling tour tickets, banquet tickets, T-shirts, hats, extra pins as well as tickets to 3 paid workshop/seminars: Bryant Dunbar and Grex are returning for their airbrush class. New to this year’s convention is Rick Lawler conducting two sessions of his Diorama Basics class. Also new are master figure painters Bob Bethea and Henry Nunez conducting an Andrea Figure painting class. I’m have additional descriptions of these seminars – along with all the free seminars - up on the website soon. I’ve attached to this post pics of the T-shirts and hats. I will be getting these up on the website soon as well. Two tours that we are offering are one on Thursday, August 3rd, to Fredericksburg, Texas with admission to the National Museum of the Pacific War, otherwise known as the Nimitz Museum. Then, on Friday, August 4th, we are sending a coach to San Antonio to visit the private collection of Lewis Air Legends. The hangers where these aircraft are kept are closed to the public but one of our convention team members made special arrangements to get a close-up and personal look at the aircraft in this collection of flying warbirds. Unfortunately, the Lewis Air Legend tour is limited to 40 people only. For the tour to Fredericksburg, if and when it sells out, we will add a second coach and sell more tickets. So, if the Fredericksburg tour sells out, check back to look for more tickets in the near future. Convention pre-sale will continue through June 30th. After that, if you want to attend, you’ll have to register in-person, at the convention, at a price of $65 ($10 more than pre-registration). I'll have more updates and other details in the coming weeks. -Len Pilhofer

...will go live and open for reservations on SATURDAY, September 3rd at MIDNIGHT, central time. I will link the reservations web page Embassy Suites has created for us to our web site - www.nats2023.com - that morning before the rooms go "live". Any updates or changes that I learn of I will post here as soon as I am aware of them. -Len Pilhofer

Greetings everyone. Here with my first post for next summer’s convention...scheduled for 2 - 5 August at the Embassy Suites and San Marcos Convention Center in San Marcos, Texas. I’ll post all updates as I have them here in the National Convention sub-forum. I’ll also be posting updates to our website: www.nats2023.com as well as to our dedicated Facebook page. I recently took control of the page from Scott Hackney and now it is focused on San Marcos and 2023. If you are a Facebook user, you may find the page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/270897917458272. My first order of business is to ensure the room block goes public as smooth as possible. I am in contact with our convention manager at the Embassy Suites and I will have news on this front very soon. Expect the rooms to open in September. I’ll announce the specific day here, on our FB group and on the website. I will link from our website (www.nats2023.com) the reservation page to the Embassy Suites as well as our overflow hotels. Soon after this we will start posting dates for such things as award sponsorships and convention preregistration…among other important dates. For any specific questions please feel free to reach out to me: chair.nats2023@gmail.com. -Len Pilhofer

The following is a joint announcement from the San Marcos 2020 Convention Leadership team and the IPMS USA Executive Board. We jointly appreciate all the feedback we received regarding this year‘s convention. We’ve taken your comments and concerns into careful consideration, while maintaining an ongoing dialogue and negotiation with the Embassy Suites convention center in San Marcos. These negotiations have been proceeding carefully due to the significant financial exposure that IPMS would be subject to if we simply decided to cancel the convention unilaterally. We are now prepared to announce that the 2020 National Convention is officially canceled. While this may disappoint many, including your authors, we believe it is the prudent, safe and sensible thing to do. On a more positive note, we have been successful in negotiating the use of the Embassy Suites San Marcos location for the 2023 convention. Therefore, the rotation for the next three years, circumstances permitting, will be Las Vegas in 2021, Omaha in 2022, and San Marcos in 2023. Tentative dates for the 2023 convention will be August 2nd through the 5th. We are currently finalizing details of the contract with Embassy Suites and expect a finalized version within a week. For those who have registered already for the convention, we will be processing your refunds. For those who have booked hotel reservations at one of the convention center hotels, it will be up to you to cancel those on your own. Vendors will be refunded their money for tables as well through our vendor coordinator, Craig Gregory. Chapters and individuals who have sponsored contest categories may also receive refunds for their sponsorships. Again, we want to thank you all for your patience and support during these trying times, and hope that you recognize we have made the best possible decision for all under the circumstances. For any questions please contact John Noack at: IPMSPresident@ipmsusa.org Or Len Pilhofer at: director.nats2020@gmail.com Respectfully submitted, Len Pilhofer, 2020 Convention Chairman John Noack IPMS USA President

As of today, Monday, May 25th, the IPMS/USA 2020 National Convention is still very much a go. I am in contact with the Embassy Suites and they are gearing up to get their staff back in place not just for our convention but others in June…well over a month before ours. The guidance that we are following is from the state of Texas: https://gov.texas.gov/organization/opentexas. Right now, the state is in the process of slowly “opening up” and we fully expect, while things will not be back to the “old normal”, they will be of a condition that we will be able to hold a convention. Tours: The two tours we were offering: one to San Antonio and The Alamo and the other the Fredericksburg, TX, are now cancelled. There is too much uncertainty with the destinations of the tours and along with poor ticket sales, have forced us to make this decision. While we have a fairly certain control over the convention venue the same cannot be said for the tour destinations…especially The Alamo as it remains closed with no opening date announced. For those that have purchased tickets we have started the refund process with the IPMS/USA Home Office and you will see refunds soon. I have taken the links to purchase tour tickets down from the Nats 2020 website and the same has been done in the IPMS/USA web-store. Vendors: while we have received a few vendor cancellations we still have a healthy vendor attendance with 77 unique vendors and 291 tables paid for or reserved. I fully recognize many of the overseas vendors are in more of a pickle to decide whether to come or not…we will honor refunds for their tables if they decide that the trip is too challenging in the next couple of months. My authority (knowledge-wise) on who is coming and who isn’t is with our team’s vendor coordinator, Craig Gregory. Our website was updated today by me with all the current attending vendors as well as an updated vendor floor-plan. Registration: We are extending pre-registration (a discount of $10) to the right with a new deadline of June 30th. This will give the convention registration team, led by Dick Montgomery, time to sort out all the pre-registrants and ensure their packets are good to go by the start of the convention. Awards: We now have several special awards listed on the Nats 2020 website. These can be viewed here: www.nats2020.com/contest_pages/theme.html. As with past conventions these are judged outside of the normal IPMS NCC judging that occurs Friday night. If you have a special award that you or your chapter would like to present please get with our awards coordinator, Rob Booth: rbooth@hctc.net. We are still seeking award sponsors. Each category is $88 to sponsor and can be purchased via the IPMS web-store: https://www.shopipmsusa.org/product-p/natsreg-2020-award-category.htm. Choose you or your club’s top 3 choices and state this in the comment box in the web-store item. A list of the contest categories with purchased sponsorships (i.e., those already claimed) can be viewed here: http://www.nats2020.com/contest_pages/categories.html. If you see a mistake on this page please reach out to me at director.nats2020@gmail.com and I will get with our awards coordinator, Rob Booth, and fix the issue. I urge any of you that have not purchased pre-registrations or banquet tickets (if you intend to attend the banquet) to please do so at your nearest convenience. This will help the convention planning team determine numbers regarding large, important purchases (pins, decals, etc.) that we have to make in June in order to make sure everything is in-place by late July. As I have mentioned in my last update, everything related to the convention is refundable from IPMS/USA in the event we are forced to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances (re-imposed government restrictions, for example) in the next couple of months. As usual, please feel free to reach out to me with any questions you may have: director.nats2020@gmail.com Len Pilhofer IPMS# 49932 Director, IPMS/USA National Convention 2020

Hope everyone had a great time at the 2019 Nooga Nats. If you missed the 2019 IPMS Nooga Nats Posters, they are still available for $20 (see attached image) FREE SHIPPING anywhere in the Continental US Poster is 18in x 24in - suitable for a standard frame (frame not included) Send Paypal payments along with your address to the artist, Michael Mattheiss - msmattheiss@gmail.com Checks are also accepted - email msmattheiss@gmail.com for address For addresses outside the Continental US - email msmattheiss@gmail.com for shipping costs before ordering. “Mikey” stickers are also Available! (see attached image) Minimum order for stickers only is 3 for $12 - they are $4 each after FREE SHIPPING to anywhere in the Continental US Individual stickers can be purchased at $5 each with purchase of poster. 1941 Mikey Beetle Mikey Towing Mikey D-Day Mikey Time Travel Mikey Apollo Mikey thanks Michael