Early on Friday morning (19 July), I got up, got dressed, and drove in Julie's vehicle from the Baymont Inn & Suites in Janesville, Wisconsin, heading to Madison, Wisconsin. This day was Day Three of the 2024 International Plastic Modelers' Society/USA (IPMS/USA) National Convention. I had let Julie know the day before that this Friday would be a long day and night for me, and she understood. Julie would be able to get together with her sister Dianne and brother-in-law Dennis during the day.
After parking in a garage near the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center--the Convention venue--I walked to the Marigold Kitchen. This was the site of a breakfast meeting of the Regional Coordinators (RCs) attending the Convention. I serve as Coordinator for IPMS/USA Region 14 (Mid-Central), consisting of chapters in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and most of Illinois. Three other RCs attended this meeting with two IPMS/USA e-board members: Director of Local Chapters John Figueroa and Treasurer Mike Oberholtzer.
Figueroa and Oberholtzer brought up issues of interest to chapter operations. Figueroa in particular asked me to head a committee to study the structure and purpose of Regional Conventions. I agreed and this effort will get underway in the coming weeks.
After this meeting, I headed to the Convention venue to check up on raffle tickets drawn, to see if I won anything. (I did win a prize later in the day.) I also chatted with other attendees, including several from my home chapter in St. Louis, IPMS/Gateway. Then, I visited the Tiger Meet, a display-only room where several IPMS chapters and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) had models on display. It was a most impressive turnout of models.
This was followed by a visit to the Vendor Room, where I browsed among the many vendors on hand. I chatted with a few vendors that I knew and made a few purchases. Then, I went to the two Contest Rooms to admire the models entered to that point. Just about all the contest entries were in the room by midday that day.
That afternoon, I attended two of the many seminars held during this Convention. The first was one on space modeling, as Rob Schorry talked about how he built a MarCO communications relay cube satellite from scratch. It was fascinating to hear how Schorry had to run down various references for his project and the challenges in replicating MarCO in scale. The finished model was displayed on the table during the seminar. Door prizes were then drawn for those who attended this event. I won two prizes: a resin conversion set for the Soviet Voskhod 2 spacecraft and a book, The Times Atlas of the Moon.
Soon after Schorry's seminar ended, my friend Mike Mackowski spoke on building resin aircraft kits. He explained how these kits fill the void in niche subjects not covered by the major manufacturers. Mackowski took us through the steps in making a 1:72 scale model of the XF-91 Thunderceptor, a US 1950s fighter design that did not progress beyond the prototype stage.
(During Schorry's earlier seminar, Mackowski plugged his business, Space in Miniatures, which publishes reference books on real space subjects. He just came out with a volume on the Saturn V rocket, available in both hard copy and PDF file. Both Schorry and Mackowski are in the Real Space Modelers group.)
After a light late afternoon dinner from a Monona Terrace meal concession, I made my way to the center's Lecture Hall for the Judges' Meeting. Over 200 IPMS/USA members were attending the meeting, in which the Head Contest Judge briefed us on procedures. He also recognized judges who reached the 3-year, 10-year, 20-year, and 30-year milestones.
Along the other Aircraft judges, I awaited the Chief Aircraft Judge announcing the members of the three-person judging teams. When Team 16 came up, I was the first name announced, meaning I was the team leader. This was my first team lead in my sixth National Convention contest. After meeting my two teammates (Rommel Xu and Eric Engstrom), we headed into the Contest Room holding the Aircraft entries and received the first category we were to judge. My team worked the category, evaluating each entry and agreeing on the top three entries to receive First, Second, or Third Place awards.
After completing that first category, we went on to a second category and did the same. My team would work four categories, having these completed in approximately 2.25 hours from the start of contest judging. We then retired outside the Contest Room for refreshments (cookies and soft drinks). Having all the categories judged, Xu and Engstrom were excused from further judging work with my thanks. I stayed along with the other team leaders, as we needed to determine the Best Aircraft.
After waiting some minutes for the last categories to be judged, the Chief Aircraft Judge gathered the team leaders to point out their best entries for consideration. I talked up my best of the four category winners and the other team leaders did the same. We all examined the entries before we came down to the last two contenders. By a show of hands, we determined that a SB2A-3 Buccaneer was Best Aircraft. After that, I gathered my things and left Monona Terrace to drive back to the hotel. I arrived around 11 p.m. and soon went to bed.
I still had one more long day at the Convention, which will be covered in my next post. Later.
Websites of Entities Mentioned in this Post:
Baymont Inn & Suites: www.wyndhamhotels.com
Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center: Monona Terrace Community & Convention Center | Madison, WI
Marigold Kitchen: Marigold Kitchen
IPMS Gateway: IPMS Gateway Chapter (google.com)
Space in Miniature: Space In Miniature - Reference Books for Space Model Builders
Real Space Modelers: space-modelers@groups.io | Home
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