My mailman is retiring from the Postal Service on 31 August after more than 28 years of service alone in Berryville. “Boog”, his name like The Beaver from TV, was working my neighborhood when it was developed back in 2008. Besides delivering the mail, Boog has delivered countless Sprue Brothers, BNA, Etsy 3d printed kits, and ebay hobby finds. He delivered them with his characteristic smile and humor-demeanor. To thank him for this dedication and professionalism, the Mrs and I presented him with a batch of homemade cookies, a big chocolate bar, and a case of cheer (cough cough). On this same day, he delivered two e-bay aftermarket T-38 talon exhaust kits! Good bye Boog and as we say in the Navy, “fair winds and following seas” .

Well, no one had an entry for the Eastern Europe theme contest. No love for East Europe in the Ravenhood? Despite not have any entries in the theme build, the “regular” build models brought to the meeting were top notch. The Swedish assault craft was spectacular along with Scott’s Mack truck and display. Credit to Scott for the truck and credit to Tom and his brother in law for an outstanding looking display. It was truly next level. Personally, I love bases for just about everything so I am biased towards them – even more so when they are done so well. The Stug was a great build but we could not take a good photo of it due to the protective plexiglass cover (too much light interference).

We got a new member! Everyone say hi to Tim He should be up on Discord in a day or two. Tim does Warhammer figures and has done sci-fi and aircraft. It’s good to see the club grow with new members and new talents!

We are all focused on the shootout at the Roanoke show in late August. Let’s try and get as many members entering as many different categories as we can so we can get a shot at the Shootout Trophy for 2026! The Ravens are excellent builders so we stand a good chance but we need a deep bench! Show up and participate and remember to wear your club shirt!

Whew, the July meeting was hot! Literally! The outside temps these past few days were Sahara-like. Inside, the temps were hot due to the fantastic Tomcat builds for the monthly theme. The tribute to this venerable Navy fighter was impressive; Tom S and Chaz both are big cat lovers and their passion bore through on their builds! Good job guys and good job to Tom S for his Baby Raven award for the build of the month and a poster of a F-14 to go with it.

Plans for Ravencon are proceeding quite well. We are getting to the point of auto pilot into the final leg of even preparation. This is a good place to be and thanks to everyone involved so far to bring it this far. I am confident we are going to have a great show for our first time out of the gate. We are good on raffle donations by club members so you all can hold off and rebuild your stashes.

Good day gents. The club held its June meeting on the “day of days”. June 6. We honored the courage, sacrifice, and determination of all those soldiers, sailors, and airmen on that fateful day by having the theme of the meeting as “D-Day”. Many congratulations to Mark M for his outstanding M-18 tank destroyer. Mark M is very skilled at armor modeling and he did not disappoint with his submission at the meeting. His M-18 won the Baby Raven award but his M2A3 Bradley on the non contest table was just as impressive.

Also impressive was Jeff’s Rat Fink semi. That was a very interesting and colorful build. Scott’s blue Mac truck was typically superb. Another well deserved shout out to Gabe for his awesome Stuka and Me-109 diorama. The aircraft were both done very well and Gabe’s base was done quite well. Good show Gabe!

Mike, our guest from the NOVA club, gave a well received primer on running the raffle. His insights and suggestions were very helpful and the club very much appreciated his willingness to drive nearly 2 hours to our meeting location and give his brief. That was an excellent example of the camaraderie of model builders and the desire of each of us to help in any way to other clubs and builders. Thanks Mike!

Before classes wrapped up for the academic year, the Shenandoah Valley Modelers coordinated with Randolph Macon Academy for a make and take event with ten of their students in mid May. The event was organized and led by the club’s Outreach Program Coordinator, Marc’in S. Ravens who supported this event were club treasurer Tom S, club expert-level builder and judge Randy C, Marc’in, and club benevolent autocrat Chris K. The students built a range of kits from the simple to the mildly complex; even two of the school instructors got into the building as well!

The students at RMA are very sharp and each of us participating from the club were impressed by the students’ intelligence and drive to succeed. Hopefully the make and take event sparked a new interest in model building and a new generation of craftsmen and craftswomen. We will look to return for the Fall semester as well as doing reach outs to other schools.

Good day gents. The theme for the April build was summer and Scott won a mini Raven for his bodacious babes dio. I think he won for the figures vice the vehicle! The other entries were just as great and the models on the regular table were top notch. Special thanks to Chaz for his very interesting primer on what it takes to be an air show reviewer. Everyone should check out his website for some great aviation photographs

Ravencon planning is pacing along and we are up to five committed vendors so far. We have room in the gym for about 15 vendors (more or less) so we are about a third full. If we get a lot more interest from vendors, we will see if we can negotiate renting hall space at the school to allow for extra vendors or work with the 15 or so vendors this time to learn and perfect our vendor expertise for the next show.

The June build is D-Day so any build that is rather obviously tied to D-Day. A P-51 with invasion stripes for instance. A Sherman with hedgehog gear attached to it. The model must be easy to determine it is related to “the longest day”. And July is Tom S’s happy theme-the F-14 Tomcat. Meeeeeow.

On April 18, the Ravens of Shenandoah Valley Modelers flew into the Northern Virginia’s Model Classic show. As anyone knows, the Model Classic show is one of the biggest in Region II and competitors and vendors come from near and far to attend this show. Some only attend this show given it size and scope. Many members of our club showed to observe, shop, and compete and included brand new member Chaz, former member Chad, and current members Scott, Jeff, Tom L, Todd, Pat, Marcin, Mark M (with Mrs Mark M!) and Mark T, Nick and Gabe, Randy, myself, and Coby. Randy was a vendor and from he told me, he did very well for himself – good on you Randy!

Competing were myself, Scott, Jeff, Todd, Coby, Gabe, and Pat. The Ravens did rather well at this very tough show. Scott, as usual, took the most awards out of all of us. I hope he has a good safe deposit box at some bank to safeguard all his bling! Special shoutouts to Pat, who competed for the first time in a large show and took a First in motorcycles and to Gabe, who took the special award of Best Junior. Wow! Gabe is on a roll! First at Nationals and then again at Model Classic. You go Gabe! Another shout to Coby, who also competed for the first time and took an award in the maritime category. Great work Coby!

The April meeting went very well. We were a bit shy on member attendance due to many having holiday commitments with family and friends. Those who attended were able to take a delicious bite of our anniversary cake sharply cut by little Rob! Good cutting Rob! The humor theme of the month brought out two candidates, with the guillotine vignette competing with a super neat “funny” car crafted by Andre. The guillotine vignette won by 1 vote! It is interesting to note the theme winner for March was tied at first before Pat won; this short trend tells me we are all equally talented! Todd gave a superb second parter of his lecture on creating custom molds and parts. Todd is a natural in teaching and I hope he volunteers for more lectures.

We discussed having a solid attendance at the Salem shootout this year. The Roanoke club puts on their show every 2 years and in addition to each contestant competing, each club competes against the other. The Tidewater chapter usually takes the honors as they have a deep and talented bench. So let’s show in force; it’s hard to beat a flock of Ravens. We will need folks to compete in many categories across the board, not just two or three. We all know when Ravens show up, Ravens win but we need as many of you to come to that show or give your entry to one of us going to enter it for you. Aircraft builders, armor builders, car and truck builders, ship builders and diorama builders – unite!

Good day Ravens. The March meeting was so much fun and was marked by three neat highlights. The first was Todd’s most excellent how-to demonstrations on making silicone molds. I like Todd’s style as he lays it out in easy to grasp steps and words. Next month Todd will do the second part of his demonstration on how to make parts using the silicone molds. That should be another great demonstration

The second highlight was the March theme month build contest of “babes and animals”. The models presented were absolutely stunning and everyone was contest-worthy. Taking the club’s first ever Baby Raven award for best theme month model was Pat’s Creature from the Black Lagoon (hence the monster mash title). This was Pat’s first ever figure and he took the honors! Wow! What was personally rewarding to me was Pat’s admission he likes the dark side of figures now; hehehehe another convert!

The last highlight was the reveal of the Ravencon 2026 Best of Show award, which was built by Tom S and his brother in law over the course of about 60-70 days. When the trophy was revealed, it was neat to see the reaction of everyone and I think I can sum it up by stating all the members were blown away! I know that the Order of the Raven award is likely THE most unique and dare I say best looking contest trophy out there! I am not posting a picture of it here so we can keep it to ourselves till the show in November.

Wow, that February meeting took place on one very cold day! The theme of “winter” was spot on for this meeting. The two highlights of the meeting were celebrating Scott’s birthday and Mark T’s excellent primer on judging. The presentation on the large screen was very nice and Mark’s keen insights and experience were perfect adjuncts to the brief.

Marcin raised a great idea off line regarding the theme model builds each month, so we will do what we did in December with the members present at each meeting voting on the “people’s choice” build for that particular month. Remember, March is babes and animals month. After the meeting, Scott and I went to Dan’s store and found Coby had beaten us there – good business day for Dan with Ravens showing up at his “nest”.

I still have a good number of the comfy club logo sweatshirts so let me know if you want one before they all sell out. Scott, Tom S, Nick and son, any myself have one so far. Don’t miss out.