Good day gents.  The October meeting was very good in that there was a lot of shop talk; with the main conversation and many side bars going on.  It was great to see (or hear?) and shows we are melding together.  We are now over 20 members and we grew by an amazing 5 brand new members from this meeting.  Say hello to the new members Randy and Martin, Ed, Andre, and Daniel.  Welcome aboard, sprue bros.

Speaking of Martin, he raised a neat opportunity for the club to teach the kids at Randolph Macon Academy in Front Royal.  Martin’s task is to chat with the administrators at the school to work out a schedule, number of kids, and so forth.  To start off with, he, Randy, and myself can be mentors but it would be great to have as many club members participate and lend your expertise and time to the kids.  This will be a great opportunity to create new modelers for the future and the health of our hobby.

As I mentioned, we are not ready or in a position to host a show in 2024.  If we do, in fact, want to host a show, it needs to be deferred to 2025 or later.  The head of the chapter that hosted Paxcon made that point his first one when I talked with him about what it takes to host an event. 

Tom earned bonus points for us by securing a new venue for us to use – hopefully for a long time.  It is at his church – the Church of Christ at Mountain View.  The address is 153 Narrow Lane and is in the lot next to the Virginia DMV that is on US Hwy 11.  We will meet there for the 11 November meeting at 11.00 am.  I will try and get our page on IPMS/USA’s site updated with our new meeting venue but IPMS/USA’s web page is not easy to use so wish me luck on that score.  As well, now that we have funds from our kit sales at Penncon, I will be doing the submission to IRS to get our 501 status secured.  I also had membership cards but I forgot them for the October meeting.  I was too focused on getting donuts!

For November, let’s hold a chapter raffle to raise additional funds for the club.  Please contact me to donate your kit(s) before the meeting.  New member Ed started off by donating 5 kits at his first meeting with us so you can’t be upstated by the new guy! 

Good building all; Chris