MMCL & IPMS Santa Rosa: PMM Model Show Spotlight

well, mojovia, I think you might have been expecting episode 124 on this Monday, but as life would have it, we've got to push that out a little bit. Our guest has had some life challenges of his own, and we'll be getting to the Wheel of Infinite Wisdom a little later in the week, dave.

Yep, yep, I can't wait. It's always a fun episode to do.

Well, what we're going to do for folks today is have a double bill installment of Model Show Spotlight, because we have two that we really want to promote for a couple different reasons. One is the Military Modelers Club of Louisville. Our own home club has a show coming up real soon, yep, and the other is IPMS Santa Rosa out in California, on the West Coast, who is experimenting with a new judging format for their region, and we wanted to get both these folks on and tell us about their shows. So, dave, how about we get right into it? You got it, man.

Well, folks, first up is a conversation we had with our club president MMCL, rich Gittig, and discussing the upcoming Military Modelers Club of Louisville Invitational. It's going to be in Shepherdsville, kentucky. You're coming up on September 28th, september 28th. So thanks for bailing me out, dave, you're welcome, but we can let Rich tell us all about that. So let's get right into that segment. Well, dave fall is here and we are getting back into the fat of the show schedule. And September's always good because our own show, the Military Modelers Club of Louisville, hosts their Invitational this time of year. And tonight we've got club president Rich Gettig on the line with us. And Rich welcome to Plastic Model Mojo.

Thank you, glad to be here.

And you know we certainly like to promote this show cause it's the, the home cooking, but looking forward to it, man.

Yeah it's, we're ready. We're just tying up loose ends and but everything's set and we're looking forward to it.

moving back out to Pariquat Springs, Okay, so let's, let's do the the who, what, when, where's first the show is next. Well, as we record this, the show is next Saturday, the 28th of September. Doors open when.

Doors open at 9 o'clock general admission and registration. And it'll go to about, I think, the award ceremony's for about 3.30, but everybody it should be over with by award ceremony's for about 3.30. But everybody it should be over with by 4, no later than 4.30.

Yeah, we pride ourselves on getting those awards done and getting people out the door Now. Registration runs from 9 to noon.

Yes, 9 till noon, unless the head judge decides to delay it. But we're pretty set on noon right now.

Okay.

And general admission will go from nine till about 12 to one.

Now this is at Paraquette Springs, which is a convention center in Shepherdsville, kentucky, and Shepherdsville is about 25 miles south of Louisville and we've held contests here before. In fact, we've held a couple regionals at this location before, but this is the first time that the show has moved back to Paraqued Springs. Why'd you all decide to go back there?

Well, last year with the Triple Crown Plaza, there was a few little issues that we felt like we did not want to put up with this year, and that was like the cleanliness of the bathrooms and the garbage that was piling up. The facility, I mean as far as lighting was always was excellent and vendors could pull right up to a garage door style opening and it was good. But we just and also they went up on their price a little bit. Sure. And with checking into Paraquat Springs, you know, the reason why we left there a few years back, or several years back now, was because they went up in their price. But now we have a little bit of a connection with our show chair, joe Betts, and one of the individuals out there that runs Paraguay Springs, and we were able to secure the spot this fall and we're looking at talking with them about going ahead and scheduling two years out.

Oh, that's fantastic. So we can check here in the next year after that. So that'll be the next step after our show. But Paraquat Springs, as you said, is in Shepherdsville. It's a top-notch facility. Like you said, we had some regionals out there. There's plenty of room, the lighting's really good and on top of that there's numerous food establishments around that people can go out. Plus, though, at Paraquat Springs, there will be concessions there, and I hear the food's pretty good.

Since we were out there previously, many years ago, that area which is really right off the interstate.

I mean you get off the interstate you can see the facility and you are literally two minutes from it. But the area around that intersection, or that interchange, has grown. There's now a bunch of hotels, there's a bunch of restaurants, there's a go-kart and mini golf place. If you're bringing the family along and you want to take them over there and keep them entertained, the facility has pull-ins for the vendors so that they can get their stuff in easily. The lighting is really, really good Every bit as good as Triple Crown, where we've been doing it the last few years. If you all were able to pick it up for a good price, I completely understand why you made the move.

Yeah, it was a little bit lower than Triple Crown and of course, with Triple Crown I think they were going up in their price a little bit too. Triple Crown holds a lot of little conventions and things there, so I think our honeymoon period with them had to come to an end.

So let's talk about the MMCL show. And you can't talk about the MMCL show without talking about the raffle, because our club prides itself on literally the best raffle I think I have ever seen at any show, including any nationals. We have tons of stuff, we have quality stuff, the tickets are reasonably priced and literally people walk away with armloads of raffle winnings. I know there are plenty of guys who come to the show just because our raffle is so good. I'm assuming this year we're set up for more of the same. Yes, yes, we are.

We've been pushing the raffle is so good, I'm assuming this year we're set up for more of the same. Yes, yes, we are. We've been pushing the raffle items with the members and they've been pulling in their donations and, matter of fact, I still have to get mine over there, which would be a nice chunk. As you mentioned the price you can't go wrong with a dollar ticket and six for $5 and then going up that gradient On top of our regular raffle. You know we always have the miscellaneous, the armor and aircraft barrels that you can put your tickets in.

Right.

And on top of our big, you know that raffle, which we have several items for in each category, we have a super raffle and this year is looking great. As usual. They are $5 a ticket because most of the items are large 1-16th scale armor, oh wow. 1-6th or 1-12th scale cars. We have a number of 1-6th or 1-2nd scale nice aircraft and in addition to the large items, we also have, you know, like the I don't know if you guys have seen like Andy's was Andy's Hobbies Headquarters was selling those tigers like three in a box and two in a box. Well, we've had some members donate some boxes of those for the big raffle. You know, it's just, it's shaping up like it usually does. Our system is we went to a computer system a couple of years ago and that's been a big hit.

Oh yeah, in fact, other shows are now imitating and doing something similar, where the whole process is automated. So instead of a guy standing in front of a big easel with a paper writing all this stuff out, you've got a big computer monitor and it's all automated, so the numbers are constantly updated. It's I mean, it makes collecting your raffle winning so much easier.

Oh yeah, and the ticket sales. You know, the biggest thing we had to go into uh were, well, not the biggest thing, but the tickets have those barcodes on them. Right and take up right into that computer system. And, matter of fact, a gentleman that is going to be that's in charge of the raffle for next year's nationals is coming to our show next Saturday because he wants to hear everything about our system Good, all the bad because he wants to use it, basically next year.

And that's good. That's good Because I think gosh, Dave, the last two nationally we've been to, they've been using the big Post-it note, ledger pad things with the magic markers.

Yeah, the raffle at the nationals is not what it could be, and so now, two years from now, with our club participating with some other clubs to host the nationals, I expect that we're going to see a really good raffle performance at the Nationals in two years.

I don't know if you knew, Dave, but we are running that raffle in 2000.

I did indeed.

Yeah, alex Restrepo has been spearheading that. Yeah, and I didn't know it. But the Nationals I hope this is okay to say on here. If it's not, you can delete it, mike, but you know the Nationals gives $2,000 for purchasing items. I had no idea they did that.

Yep, yep, to help seed the raffle prize package, and then they solicit from vendors who show up and they also solicit from the host chapter and some surrounding chapters. I have no doubt that in 2026, the Nationals is going to have the best raffle it's ever had. Because, Louisville kicks butt in that regard.

Yeah, as we purchased too. A couple of years ago, we purchased some tumblers for our miscellaneous armor and aircraft, and this year, bruce bunger, brian's brother, has built this monster of a tumbler that we're going to use for the super raffle, and it is really cool can't wait to see it. Yeah, I can't either some people had mentioned last year. Oh, y'all didn't mix the tickets up enough. You know I always gave you grief, Dave, when you always did our right.

I know.

That was just joking with you, sure.

The other reason everybody comes to contests is vendors, and we are well-stocked with vendors, are we not?

Yes, we are set up for 65 tables at this point. We have 63 firmed and I was told the other night we're thinking we're going to have two more tables sold and we still have another week before our show and I'm sure there's going to be some individuals that are going to call at the last minute and say, hey, do you have a table? I told our show there who is Joe Betts and we'll talk about him and Terry in a minute, but I told him. I said you know, and Dave Crouch is who's in charge of our vendors. I said you know you go ahead and sell a few extra if you can, because you know the more vendors the better.

Well, and that's the nice thing about the Paraclop Springs location there is tons of space, so it's not like you would have to wedge those vendor tables in if you sold some extras there's still plenty of space.

Well, they gave us like so many tables. The setup here is so nice that they gave us so many tables. Matter of fact, I think I think we're covered for all of our tables and if we go over 65 we have to pay for them. And I was like big deal. This is about modelers and getting them the best you know possible show that we can put on. And again, it's not I didn't care about making money, but but it's about, you know, having vendors there. That's a lot of reasons why I go to a show, just to go there and find the deals.

So, Mr Betts, we have a new show chair, Mr Betts, who is being trained by our club founder, our longtime show chair, Dr Terry Hill.

And president of the club.

Oh yes, and longtime president of the club as well and president of the podcast, and so I get to spend a lot of time with the other vendors in the vendor area during the show and the vendors are so complimentary regarding the ease of setting up the assistance they get, the ease of breaking down the quality of the facilities. You know vendors like our show, so I have no doubt that we're going to have a great vendor turnout and there'll be plenty of people happy to take your money.

Yeah, you know, they've always mentioned. You know we always have a big crew of members on hand to help carry in their items and they are always appreciative of that and we still have all our members showing up next saturday to help and break, to put up and break down.

You know their items that is one advantage that our club has. Because our club is big as far as number of members somewhere around 120 or so we get a lot of them that show up to our show, ready to work that day.

Yeah.

They're just the day soldiers for the club, for the contest. So I mean we have one of the best groups of members for coming out to the show and doing all the little grunt work that needs to be done of any show you could ask.

Well, I'll give you a breakdown real quick. You know, hasif and Cliff are doing the registration, as usual.

Yeah, big surprise there.

Yeah, as usual. Yeah, big, big surprise there. Yeah, brian Bunger, bruce Bunger and Alex Restrepo are in charge of the raffle and they have plenty of volunteers already for that, as you mentioned. Dave Crouch, with the vendors, and we have several members that will be there to help set up. Judging will be uh, the head judges are Stu Cox and Randy Fuller and they will be getting all of the judges together and going over the rules and everything.

We've always had tremendous help from other club members that are coming to the show and several of our members. As far as the vendors go, I know we have some really good vendors showing up. We have a lot of our own members we'll be setting up and I know some of them are liquidating friends of theirs' collections. So I know there's deals to be had. All right as far as that goes.

And Joe Betts as you mentioned, joe Betts has been with the club now for about three or four years. Very good modeler, he's hands-on all the time with helping and he terry, who I call the godfather. The godfather decided to step down after I guess, 20 something years or longer, at least show chair, and so he's been showing joe the ropes and and I want to say a plug here too. You know our awards. We've always given out nice medallions, and recently, when I took over in January, I wanted to give back to club members some token of appreciation and not me myself, but the club officers, and that. So we're in the process of designing and getting challenge coins made. Oh nice, yeah, and on top of that, just giving one to each member, we're also going to order so many that we can take around to other shows, like I've seen at several shows I'm sure you have.

Yeah, lots of clubs are doing that, lots of groups, some podcasts, some Facebook groups.

Where's the plastic model mojo?

Well, everybody else is doing it, so we're thinking of doing something different. You'll see that in the near future.

Yeah, I saw dog tags at the Nationals. That was cool. A little dog tag, oh, that is a neat idea. Well, so where I was going with that was we have decided to this will be the last year of the Valiance. I think we're going to go to gold, silver, bronze, challenge coins.

Oh, okay.

And we've also added a few extra awards. I think you know of them. You know Best Soft Skin, we have a Best Loof Wafa and we have of course the Mike Knopf Singer best sci-fi.

Absolutely.

And, who knows in the future, a friend who passed last year. I want to bring something up about, you know, doing something in his honor.

Yeah, that would be cool.

We've been well attended over the last several years and I don't see anything that's going to come. You know that's going to stop that from happening next weekend.

Okay, to wrap it up, let's hit again. This is September 28th. Doors open for the general public and for registrants at 9 am at Paraquat Springs Convention Center in Shepherdsville, kentucky, which is right off the I-65 Shepherdsville exit. It's about 25 miles south of Louisville. For you people coming up from Tennessee and Alabama, it's actually going to shorten your trip by almost an hour compared to the old location. So I cannot. I'll tell you, rich, I cannot wait I'm super, after having had so many MMCL guys at the Nationals this year and for us to get to all see each other and hang around at a Nats. I've got to tell you I cannot wait to be at the Louisville show.

Well, we're glad you're going to be there.

Well, we're looking forward to it.

Well, we're looking forward to having you guys. We're always looking to see great models on the tables, absolutely.

All right, we'll see you in about a week All right man.

Thanks for having me.

Well, what do you think, Dave? I'm excited. I'm looking forward to Saturday.

I am jazzed. I really am jazzed because A I really like Paraqued Springs. We've held numerous contests, including a couple regionals, there in the past. Oh, I'm well aware the area around it has only developed since we last held one there. Nobody doesn't like that facility. All of the vendors love it because you got the ability to roll up and unload. I really enjoy it and I'm looking forward to it. And besides, I'm looking forward to our home show. I always do. It's a chance to reconnect with a lot of the club members, some of whom you don't see at meetings or at other contests, so I'm looking forward to it.

How about you? Well, I'm really looking forward to it. I got it all set up to be there and hopefully I'll get there right as doors open and be there well into the afternoon. One thing I'm looking forward to and our listening audience can help with this I'm just anxious to know who's coming. You know, we have a lot of reach out into Region 4, our own region, though we're kind of on the southern edge of it. So we pick up a lot of folks from south of us and that would be Region 3. And then, I don't know sometimes, uh, even from the west of us.

So yeah, we, we pull in from folks from region five, st louis, southern middle illinois, stuff like that. So yeah, we got a fair reach and I, I I know in chai's coming. I know some other listeners who we communicate with regularly are coming, so I'm anxious to see who all shows up.

Well, I'm hoping folks will let us know that they're coming before Saturday. Yes, yes, absolutely, if you are, dm us or send us an email and let us know you're coming and when you do. Please stop by the table and have a chat with us. We'd appreciate it.

Yes, absolutely.

Well, Dave, our next show we want to spotlight the folks running. This deal reached out to us about a month ago. They gave us a lot of warnings, so we've kind of had this one on the back burner for a while. It's IPMS Santa Rosa out in Northern California there, and they are yet the next club to be experimenting with an open format for judging.

Mm-hmm. Yes, and they've apparently done a show pretty consistently for years and they're trying something new and different.

Let's let them tell us all about it years and they're trying something new and different. Well, let's let them tell us all about it. Well, dave, we've got another show to spotlight this month. With us tonight is Randy Bumgardner and James Morando from Region 9, ipms, santa Rosa. Is that right, guys? That's right. And you guys got a show coming up, why don't you guys introduce yourselves? And then we'll get into the meat and potatoes of the show.

Sure, I'm Randy Baumgardner. I will be the co-head judge for the show this year, in addition to Michael Kleeman, who is the other co-head judge. I've been around at IPMS Santa Rosa for 20-plus years, except for my 10 year stint in Texas. There, where I was part of Austin Scale Modeler Society, held various positions in the club treasurer, president, all that kind of stuff so got a big show coming up. It's a big change. We'll get into that in a little bit.

And I'm James Morando. I'm the current club secretary and, in connection with the show, I'm one of the chief people responsible for trying to promote it. So we're really happy that you guys were having us on this spotlight tonight. We're excited about the show and looking forward to talking about it.

Well, let's start with the details when, where, from when to when? Give us the lowdown on the date, the time, the location.

We're IPMS Santa Rosa Club, which is in Northern California, and just south of Santa Rosa is Roanoke Park, and this is at the Roanoke Park Community Center. It's being held on October 12th and Saturday and the hours are from nine to four.

Is this a long running show for you all? Have you all done this year after year, or?

are you just?

getting started.

Yeah, yeah, we've, we've, we've had. I mean, I joined the club back in, I think, 2002 and we've had shows every year from then until up until now, I believe, like during COVID. Obviously, that put the kibosh on some things.

Oh yeah.

And I think there was a couple of other years while I was in Texas that show that we didn't have a show. But there's, yeah, this isn't our first rodeo necessarily.

Now, I've never been to a show on the West coast. What's the kind of attendance like for your, your, for your show on the scale of small to large, for an invitational type IPMS show? Where do you guys kind of fit? I think we fit in kind of medium.

Historically, we've had probably 70, 70, between 70 and 80 actual contestants we put the model into the contest and anywhere between 280 to 350 models on the tables, depending on the year. Some years obviously better than others. So I would say we're about a medium-sized show.

Yep, that's about dead in the middle of where an invitational contest happens. So what stands out about your show? What's different? If somebody's going to roll up to your show, what are they going to notice?

well, I think a couple of things. One is that we have a pretty diverse set of genre in terms of both the modelers in our club and also who will probably be there again this year at our show. I mean, we range from, of course, the more traditional aircraft, armor, but there's a lot of interest in sci-fi and in Gundam and ships and everything in between. So I think we'll have a broad participation in genre no-transcript for the people who are coming and who are used to coming to our shows. That we've done in the past.

I take it your previous shows were always your classic one, two, three, first, second, thirds. So what made you all decide that you wanted to convert to an open system?

to convert to a open system. Our previous president, dev Sodegar he's very active in Kublai Khan and Reaper Khan and figure shows and he kind of came from that side of the fence, so to speak, and he put a stake in the ground and said we're going to do open system this year. And a lot of us were already thinking about it. I mean, I come from the amps world and so I'm already aware of it and so we were. You know, it didn't take a whole lot of convincing for a lot of the members. We said, all right, let's give it a shot, let's see what happens with this thing.

Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mean we have figure modelers in our group. We've got car modelers, people who come at it from and, like Randy said, amps. I went to Scale Model Challenge last year, really enjoyed the atmosphere there and experienced and appreciated their gold, silver, bronze judging, so it really wasn't a hard sell and I think people quickly got behind it and now we're. We're super excited about trying to do this the first time and hopefully it'll go well.

Well, we'll be real curious to post show, to hear from you guys. So I'm curious to know how this goes for you, because I think there seems to be we're getting close to a groundswell kind of grassroots thing, in my opinion for this kind of being a kind of a format change for a lot of the invitationals. But back to your show what's going to be the theme? I think you have a theme that's kind of related to this change as well. If I'm not mistaken, it is.

Our theme is evolution of modeling, which directly comes out of the evolving into a new approach, a new judging system. And yeah, I completely agree, we've seen more and more examples. In fact, we sort of have looked at and are utilizing as references, if you will, some of the judging criteria that was developed in the PaxCon show that was last, I think 2023 fall, and then the more recent Rocky Mountain Hobby Expo show that was in last June, both of which used open judging formats and developed some criteria for how to go about that, and so we've studied those and gotten permission from them to use their approach, which was really helpful for us in terms of not trying to reinvent the wheel.

Well, that sounds good. What about your staff? Are they going to be? Well, I don't know. Are they going to be. You're going to have to do it this way. This is what you've advertised. What, I guess a better way to ask it is what are you doing with your judging team there to help facilitate?

this. So we're trying to train as many judges ahead of time as possible on the open system. You know, not looking for a flaw and compare it to your neighbor. You know we're trying to get people out of the mindset of comparative judging. It's like, ok, you have a model in front of you, you know what the standard is, let's apply the standard and see where this thing falls. The standard is let's apply the standard and see where this thing falls. And so we're hoping to have a core level, a core cadre of judges that can kind of hit the ground running as soon as the models hit the table, starting at 9 am Saturday morning.

We're probably not going to have the numbers of judges we would like to have trained up by then. So we're going to have to or I'm going to have to develop short and sweet kind of judges training on the fly the morning of the show for those who are interested in pursuing this, you know, for who wants to see what open judging is all about, and that's that's. That's the tricky part. The first year After this we'll have people to call on to form judging teams ahead of the show and say, okay, you six guys there's two teams here for, say, armor, and we have two more teams for figures and that kind of a thing. It's just this first year. That's going to be a little bit of a tricky spot for us, but I think we'll do okay. We have a lot of interest in the show from some of the surrounding clubs and I think I can pull from their members to hop on these judging teams that I need.

So you're going to do as far as the judging, you're going to start judging as soon as models start getting entered, much like they do it in amps, rather than closing entries at a certain time and then beginning your judging Exactly.

Yeah, so our registration still runs from nine to noon, like a normal show, a normal invitational would. But we don't have to wait for all the models to hit the tables to start judging these things in the categories. We can. You know, that's kind of the luxury of the open system is, you know, as soon as you see a model, you're judging it, or a group of models. What we're doing for the contestants is, if they bring a number of models in a single category, we're going to kind of triage it and say, okay, well, this is the model that kind of stands out amongst them, that's the model they're going to get an award.

You're going to limit modelers to one award in a particular category.

Category yeah.

Category is kind of nebulous when you're talking about an open system, right, you mean one award per category type or one award per subcategory well, we're not.

We, we did away with the subcategory. So we have aircraft, armor, auto, ship, figure, gundam, sci-fi, real space, and then the junior categories. And so if I, you know, I I'll probably bring a few models and I'll kind of smatter it across. You know, I'll bring a couple of aircraft and a couple of armor, and maybe a couple of Gundams. I build Gundams as well. So, yes, and so, so, to to limit the amount of time that we have, or to, you know, since time is a limit, even in the open system, we're not, we don't want to judge 300 models. We, we want to focus on you know which, which. Which model is the best one in this modeler's category for aircraft, and which one is the best in his category, armor. And so he'll get two awards, one for aircraft, one for armor, if they meet the threshold.

Gotcha. Yeah, I understand.

Well, for the theme of evolution. As far as model entry is concerned, what does that entail?

Well, we were looking at 3D printed parts, newer models, that kind of a thing. Reskit does some fantastic work. We don't have a set theme award. Essentially, ah, okay, this is the best evolved model that we have. But our thinking is in terms of we've come a long way, You've come a long way, baby, that kind of a Sure.

Well, that makes sense.

And so I mean look at the Edward kits that are coming out these days. They're just fantastic the photo etch, the 3D printed parts that are included in them, the plastic there's still room for scratch building if you want to go that route. But there's also newer technologies that you can use. You know, print masks on your silhouette or Cricut cutter right, or if you have your own 3D printer, you could print your own 3D parts, and so we're kind of trying to showcase that, or at least bring that into the folds as part of our theme.

It is a changing world. I bought the Arma P39 kit and they have the downloaded STL files to print your own canopy parts and it's just pretty amazing. And that's the first kit. I know that's done that and you go back enough years and the's the first kit. I know that's done that and you go back enough years. And the idea of including PE in a manufacturer's kit was new and novel and part of the evolution at that time. But now we're into a further phase.

Yeah, I remember when the tank kits first got metal gun barrels and everybody just was absolutely stunned by that evolution.

Well, as far as facilitating the show, you've given us the location. What can folks count on coming in for filling their bellies or having a place to sleep?

And I just timed it out this morning. I didn't walk, but I looked on Google Maps and within 10 minutes walking distance there's a couple of good taquerias. Just south of the rec center there's a sandwich shop there, Mountain Mike's Pizza is there. And this is all within walking distance 10 minute walk to the show, so you can stretch your legs, get out, enjoy the sunshine, Because you know it's Northern California after all. We're not going to see rain until November, December kind of a thing, so it's safe. Oh and, Leslie, if you want to drive, there's more traditional things like subways and McDonald's, you know, within about a five minute drive.

Well, I assume shows on the West Coast aren't any different than those in the Midwest. Here and on our East Coast, what is the vendor situation going to be like at your show? How's that stacking up so?

traditionally we usually have a pretty good lot of vendors. Since it's a medium-sized show, we probably have 15 vendors, maybe sometimes 20 vendors, depending on our space situation. Like the last few years, we were kind of constrained space-wise within our show so we really had to limit the number of vendor tables. This year the community center is a it's a larger space for us, and so we've increased the size of the vendor tables or decreased I'm sorry, increased the amount of the vendor tables, and so we have a good range of stuff. You know there's always guys selling off their stash, so you get some old kits and then all the way up to, you know, we have some resellers who are selling newer stuff and we kind of run the whole gamut of what you would typically see in the vendor room as far as kits, anything from, you know, an old, old monogram, 190th scale, dc3, for instance, all the way up to the new edward, 72nd scale, what mustangs? Or 109 g10s I think they just brought.

I have both of them sitting behind me right now.

No surprise.

I'm actually working on that DC3, that 190th kit right now, oh man.

Well, is there anything else about the show you'd like our listeners and your potential attendees to be aware of?

Well, the other thing that we're doing is one of the tables we have reserved for one a display only table for our own club members at work, but at that same table we're going to be promoting and soliciting donations to support the Help Heal Veterans organization. This is kind of part of our this year's charitable initiative of our club. One of our club members, Chris Zanella, has been heading that up and we've got a terrific batch of stuff that we're going to donate to their organization. And then we're asking people who are coming to the show to bring along a donation or to buy something from one of the vendors and donate it. I think you guys were both at the nationals where Help Heals Veterans had a big table there, and we're doing a similar effort.

It's just a terrific organization which you know helps heal and rehabilitate veterans through modeling and craft work for therapeutic purposes, which has been shown to, and craft work for therapeutic purposes, which has been shown to be very effective, and so we think it's a great cause and hopefully people will be generous at the show. And then later in November Chris is going to lead a contingent down with a van or a U-Haul and bring all the stuff down, so we're excited about that too.

Well, that's great. So remind us one more time date time location.

Date is October 12th 2024, from 9 to 4 pm and it's at the Roanoke Park Community Center in Roanoke Park, California, 5401 Snyder Lane, perfect.

All right, guys. Well, it's been our pleasure to have you on and to help you promote your show here and we wish you all success. And I have two requests one which I've made already we would really like a follow-up Email's. Fine, we can get that into listener mail so Dave and I can discuss it at the close of your show, when you know how this went down through your feedback and stuff. Please let us know how this went, because this is a growing topic and when we've got our eye on, we'd like to see how this works out for you and wish you all the success. The other is, if anybody there is taking lots of pictures, we'd like to see those on the Plastic Model Dojo Facebook page. If either of you are members there and you both should be I'm going to be angry at you. I am.

We both are, we both are, and those are great requests and we will do both for sure.

Yes, yes, thank you for having us.

Yes, and if you haven't done it already, post your show flyer on the dojo as well, okay, we can certainly do that.

All right guys, I got a football game to get back to. Yeah, it's a tight one. Pleasure talking to you and we look forward to hearing about your show.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you as well. We enjoyed it very much.

You're very welcome and thanks for listening to Plastic Model Mojo. We appreciate that. Listening to Plastic Model Mojo, we appreciate that. Well, Dave, I hope these guys make good on letting us know with some feedback after the thing is done and dusted and they've gotten their own feedback to see how this went. You know, our friends at the Model Geeks and their PaxCon show did this. I know Model Fiesta in San Antonio is getting ready to run this format first of the year. I'd be real curious how this goes for Santa Rosa.

Yeah, I am too. I'm really interested to see how not only the judging logistics work because obviously if you're doing an open system, it kind of requires different judging logistics but in addition to that the logistics of the awards, making sure you have the right amount, all of that stuff. Whenever you'd make a big change to your show be it awards or vendor setup or raffle or whatever there's always some adjustment, and so I'm interested to see how the adjustment goes here.

Well, I'd be curious to know from our listening audience what other invitational shows out there are considering this and why.

Well, I know Pittsburgh has done an open system for years Now. Of course you know Military Modelers Club did an open system for quite a only that. But what open system. When MMCL started doing it it was because we had a lot of figure modelers and therefore the way we handled it many, many, many years ago was very reminiscent of a figure show. And then I know a number of clubs Amps obviously does an open system and then a number of clubs model their open system over the way Amps does it. So I'm really interested to see how this develops over the next couple of years.

Yeah, and personally I encourage it. I guess that's the way I would say it. When I go to a show we've talked about this before when I go to a show, the rules are the rules and that's my expectation when I go in the door, I guess. Personally, I think the system has a lot going for it. As far as overall show attendance and attendee satisfaction, I think would be a fair statement attendee satisfaction.

I think would be a fair statement. Oh yeah, rarely have I heard somebody come away from an open system show dissatisfied with the judging. Now, that said, that doesn't mean they're just like any system. They're pitfalls and downfalls, but I've not really heard any complaints.

Well, I think the biggest part of this is now. This is getting frequent enough that the pros and cons of such an awards format are actually getting hashed out in reality, not in a hypothetical sense.

Yeah, no, I agree.

And I think the clubs running these systems are going to feed off each other and this is going to curate down to something that's going to be workable, and I'm just curious where it's going to go, and it's kind of exciting to see this happen and I don't know, man. We'll see how the Santa Rosa show goes and really look forward to those guys' feedback.

I'm looking forward to it as well.

I really am to it as well. I really am Well. Folks, we always encourage you to get out and attend a model show in your area when you can if you can, yep, we've been very lucky this year.

You and I have managed to assuming we both make it to the MMCL show and we both make it to MMSI and maybe one other show. You and I will have done really well this year as far as show attendance and I think you'd have to agree it made your overall modeling experience better.

Oh, I agree, it's just a lot of fun. I like traveling to places I've not been before. I like going to haunts that are in places I've been to lots of times.

Yep and meeting new people. I mean just think of all the, just this year, all of the modelers that we've met, that we, you know, not only did we meet plenty of listeners that we hadn't met before, but just absolutely new people hadn't met before, but just absolutely new people. That's the joy of going to model contests.

Well, I'll let you know that I'll have to double check the house social calendar. But as far as work interference goes, MMSI is back on the table for me.

All right, that is fantastic news, because I was going to not enjoy going without you, but if I had to I would, because a Husted Martini is awaiting me at MMSI and I'm not going to pass that up.

So, folks, if you are the commutable distance to these two shows, please attend if you can, and if you see other shows you'd like to go to, please make every effort to go. You're going to have a great time. Agre, right, dave. Well, we're gonna wrap this one up and, as we always say, so many kids, so little time. Dave, see you soon, see you saturday, you got it. Bye.