If any of you guys were thinking of riding down to Frontline soon, you might want to consider a trip this weekend with a stop off at Shenandoah Valley Airport. The Capital Wing of the CAF will be there taking folks for rides in a few of their aircraft, but there will also be a Fuji LM-1 on display.

The LM-1 is a very rare creature and with its relation to the T-34 Mentor, I will definitely be going to check it out. There are some more details on the SHD Facebook page for anyone interested.

– Chad

Club members, let’s all give a hip hip hooray for our NOVA winners.  The NOVA show is a tough one, with lots of competition and by-the-book judging. That said, the Shenandoah Valley Modelers came away with a solid performance at this popular show.  We are a talent-force to be reckoned with as we have shown since forming in March 2023; when we show up to a show, we win each time!  I am very proud of our competitors and how great our chapter is in helping newbies to the world of shows so they too can jump in the arena and walk away with bling.  What I like most is that we do all this with camaraderie and laughter at our meetings – we love modeling but don’t take it so seriously that we can’t chuckle at each other and help each other.  This is what is best in the hobby.  

Join me in giving a shout out to our flag wavers, they were:

Scot, with a 2nd in commercial trucks and  two 1sts in civilian diorama and humor

Marcin, with a 1st in 1/72 armor and a 2nd in all scale figures (fantasy)

Chad, with a 1st in 1/144 military aircraft and in 1/32 and smaller civilian cars, and a 3rd in 1/144 commercial aircraft

Mark, with a 2nd in 1/24 Cars & Trucks Street Stock, and a 3rd in 1/24 Cars-Racing

Jeff, with a 1st in commercial trucks and a 3rd in collections

Ben with two 2nds in out of the box sci fi and sci fi figures

MaxMedalMan, aka Randy, with a first in military diorama and 1/35 armor and a 3rd in 1/35 out of box armor and triathlon. 

Ross with first place in 1/24 or larger racing vehicles.

– Chris

I used to be a member of NOVA IPMS before Chris snatched me away, but I still get emails from the group from time to time. Occasionally there’s some good stuff in them and this one in particular I thought would be worth sharing.

This summer there are two cool things happening just a few hours away:

Personally, I REALLY want to see the Tricolori team. I’ve seen the Blue Angels, the Thunderbirds, and the Red Arrows, and every one of them has been a blast. The battleship tour isn’t as big of a deal to me but it would still be pretty enjoyable I suspect and I’d absolutely be down to tag along with someone else.

These events seem like they could make for fun club trips if anyone would be interested in going to either event. And I suspect there are more events like this that might be of interest as well. I typically see at least one air show a year and I know my wife would be more than happy to sit at home and let someone else babysit me for a day or two…

So if anyone sees some cool events coming up, perhaps we can make a list and find a way to get some more club time in between meetings.

– Chad

Beachcon is an annual competition hosted by the Grand Strand Scale Modelers in Myrtle Beach, SC. This year’s event took place on the 23rd and while it appears that only Randy was able to participate from our club, he still represented us quite well by bringing home 5 awards, including a Best Of trophy! Let’s all be sure to congratulate him at the next meeting.

Below are some photos of other models that were entered in the contest. Looks like it was a pretty fun event.

– Chad

Good day gents,

Several club members attended the 24 February Richmond show.   Six members entered various categories and four of our members walked away with “bling”. Randy was our bandleader by earning 4 awards across different categories. Way to go Randy!  Ben scored in the collections category with his neat set of figures and Scott placed in the truck category.  I was lucky too with one of my figure pieces.  This was a tough competition- with almost 1000 models entered!  The craftsmanship across the board  was simply stunning.  Proportionally, our little chapter did pretty well… in short we rock!!

Good day gents, several of the chapter members plus a guest from the NOVA chapter participated in a 2 December make it take it event at Randolph Macon Academy in Front Royal.  Chapter member Marcin organized the event and Randy, myself, and NOVA member Tim Bard helped out.  NOVA gets a shout out for donating all the many kits for the event! 

The students all seemed to have a good time and many kits were built in the 50 minute session – a pace that can put even Donovan and Ross under pressure to keep up with!  The school allowed use of the cafeteria for the kids that showed.  It was a good event and hopefully we launched the model hobby careers of several kids!

– Chris

Good day Gents, here is my report from PAXCON.  Big kudos to the club there – for their first show I must say it was one of the best shows I have ever been to.  The venue was spacious, the tables were laid out well and the members whom I met were very friendly and sincere.  The vendor areas were well situated and food was offered for purchase at the site.  I must also say the level of kit construction in today’s world is just amazing – several of the models were just simply superb.  Mark was there as a vendor and it was good to see and chat with him there.  He had met a fellow who was thinking about joining us but I missed talking with him; hopefully he will come to the next meeting and join our chapter!  And speaking of meeting fellows, I met Dana Bell – the noted author of many reference books – he was very nice and easy to talk to and he signed two of the reference books I bought from him.  FYI, the event was good for me too; I took 1 silver, 4 bronze, and 3 golds – not a bad outing.

-Chris

Hi gents. I attended the National Capitol Model Soldiers Society show on 30 September. Tentative new chapter member Randy was also there so our chapter had good representation.  I took 3 silvers and Randy took, I think, 3 silvers as well.  We hope together we talked a fellow into joining our chapter too – if not Randy’s application fee goes up $10! (Just kidding).  Next up is Paxcon where I will meet up with Mark and another prospective member who responded to the email campaign I had big IPMS do for us 2 weeks ago. 

– Chris

Good day club members; here is a report on our chapter’s participation at PennCon 2023.  Mark Tutton was present and participated as a much sought-after vendor.  Chad, myself, Scott, Jeff, Ben, and Ross were all there and helped man our kit sales table and had models entered in the contest.  Three other members also arrived as observers so more than half of our chapter were present.  Amazing level of involvement.  

As a chapter, we did real well.  We sold all but 5 of the donated kits and raised way above the goal.   Ross earned 2 bronze awards, Chad nabbed a silver award, I took 3 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze awards while Scott won a bronze award, two silver and two golds as well as the overall 1960’s theme award.  I am very proud to let you all know Jeff and Ben got their first contest awards, with Jeff taking 1 bronze and 2 silver awards and Ben capturing 2 bronze awards.  Everyone give Jeff and Ben a hearty applause for this significant achievement!  Congrats guys.

For our next meeting on 14 October at Dan’s shop, I will bring my stash of brushes so you can see the ones I use to give you an idea of the range of brushes needed for figures.  Let’s do another swap meet and folks bring stuff you are willing to trade or just give to a buddy to use.

Folks have asked about wallet sized membership cards.  I will come up with a layout and share with you all.  You can use this card at local hobby shops as most offer a discount for IPMS members.  The card will have our chapter logo and the IPMS log, your name and our chapter name at a minimum.