PMM Twelve Minute Modelsphere: December 2024

Well, mo Jovia, welcome to the December edition of the 12 Minute Model Sphere and, as you can tell, you're getting a wee bit early, but for good reason. We got a lot going on in December, dave.

Yes, we do, yes, we do, and with Thanksgiving creeping up on us and all of the family obligations that that entails, best to get this recorded before then, rather than trying to work it in after.

That's right. We got a lot going on in December, and we've had a lot going on before December too. We've not been anywhere, we've got no shows to report about and we're not really going to any, so there's none to look forward to just yet, at least not in December for us, right? But we just concluded our first ever giveaway, and that was a lot of fun.

Yes, it was. That was I mean 48 scale B24J. We have a happy listener out there, and that isn't the last giveaway we're going to do, so keep your ears out and be ready for the next one.

Well, we did have a winner, and I first want to thank everyone else who put their name in for this, because we had a lot from all over the world and all over the United States. So that was fun to see. So it makes me really look forward to the next one. But the winner again, we've mentioned it in the last episode and it's been on the dojo and places, but Mr Keith Witt of Brigham City, utah, was the winner of that and his wife has informed him that the kit has arrived and he will send us a picture of him with said kit as soon as possible. Now I can't wait. Keith is a long haul trucker by profession, so he's away from home right now. So, yeah, keith, be safe out there once you get home and get to enjoy that kit.

Well, and you know that's funny, I've had communications and DMs with several of our listeners who are in that profession and they listen to us, you know, while they're driving, obviously. So, apparently, you know, I always joke about lawyers being overrepresented in modeling. Apparently, long-haul truckers may be too.

Well, folks, as Dave already mentioned, we will be doing another giveaway, and please stay tuned for that to kick off sometime after the first of the year and we'll be sure to give you all the details when the time is right. Also happening of late and we're about to get that concluded, and again, we mentioned this in the last episode, but be keeping your eye out for the launch of our new website and hopefully we get that kicked off before the end of the year. It's going to be close, but hopefully the guys are going to get things done and we'll be able to ring in the new year with a new look.

So looking forward to that too, I am looking forward to that.

Well, dave, right now is why us folks are going to learn why we're dropping this TMM a little bit early, because the month is going to be a little crowded if we put that out on the 1st of December. So we're going to try to get this out early. December is a three-episode month.

Yep Happens twice a year.

Happens twice a year, once in the summer, once in the winter, and we got episode 129, 130, 131 coming up and we got some good stuff. Man, yes, we do. Episode 129, dave, our Austin area modeler friend, jake McKee, will be returning to the show. Jake got a new toy in his workshop and has been learning the ropes and we got a little conversation coming up called laser cutting, for the hobbyist.

I am anxious to hear about this. I really am Not that I need another toy in my crowded workshop, but I can see this being really useful in our hobby and I, I, I can't wait.

Well, I've been using a laser at work for the last few years as well and I'm really looking forward to this conversation to see how he's implementing this in his work, and he sent some photos, some teasers, so I kind of know what he's up to. But I'd be curious about learning how hard it was to come up to speed and you know all the ins and outs. Curious about learning how hard it was to come up to speed and all the ins and outs. So we'll save that for the episode, but looking forward to talking to Jake. Episode 130, Dave, we got another shop talk coming up and I'm going to call back through the listener mails because I've saved a few topics for this, so maybe one or two are going to come from some listener suggestions.

If you listeners do have suggestions for things you'd like us to talk about, do have suggestions for things you'd like us to talk about. Please either email those in or DM me through Facebook. We really appreciate that. We want to give you conversations that you're interested in, so if you've got anything a particular subject you'd like to have us talk over, please send it in.

And we might pick up a topic from some of our latest bench activity too.

Yes, absolutely we will.

A couple of possibilities there. And then finally, we didn't do this last year, I don't think, but for episode 131, we're going to try another year in review kind of episode. So 2024 in review, and my plan is to bring back some familiar voices from the past year and just get a casual check-in on how everyone else, how all our friends' years have gone in the last 12 months. So that should be good. Yes, it should. We'll have to figure out who we want to get on. So hopefully some short segments from several people, Yep and folks. If that wasn't enough, somewhere in the midst of all that we're going to be dropping another short from John Miller, Dr Strangebrush, covering the aspects of primers and priming. So that should prove popular.

Yep, I definitely want to hear what he has to say on that subject.

So we got three features in a short and you're getting TMM early. That's a lot folks. We're working our tails off guys. Some other folks been working their tails off and it's been showing up in the dojo.

What's been going on there? My things. One we are now over 5,000 members in the dojo. Stats tell us we're gaining about 1% to 2% new members every month in the dojo. We appreciate all of you listeners out there recommending and inviting your modeling friends on Facebook to join. The dojo continues to grow. One of the big benefits of the growth is the community that it's helped us build. We're interacting on the dojo with everything from people showing us completed models and Lord knows I always want to see people finishing models. That's the. When you finish a model, put it on the dojo. People showing us in-progress models, always inspirational and many times prompts me or other members to ask a question like what are you doing here, how did you achieve that effect? Et cetera, et cetera.

We're also getting lots of people posting and I've encouraged the people. If you have relatives, family members who served, members who served, particularly served in World War II, korea, vietnam, iraqi freedom, any of the you know, afghanistan, et cetera please post in the dojo photographs, notes, information about their service. A big part of what we do in modeling is preserving history and so I really like those posts. Christian Gurney, a basis by Bill, just did that with his father-in-law, who served in World War II as military policeman, slash police, prisoner of War Guard, which was really kind of interesting. But we're getting about 300 posts a month, which is really good. That's basically 10 a day, 10, 12 a day.

I want to encourage people please post. Finally, almost 20% of our membership has either posted, liked or commented on a post within the last month. And when you consider we have 5,000 members, that's pretty impressive. A couple people, yeah, if one out of five, and that's unique, unique members. Of course, a lot of members post multiple times or comment multiple times, et cetera. But you know it says a lot that you all have made the dojo a really great place and it's all down to you all and your interactions. So please keep it up.

Well, dave, we're going to wrap this up here in a couple minutes to keep our time where we want it. Yes, we will. First thing I want to do is issue a call to action to our listeners out there. Invite a friend to listen to the podcast, invite a friend to the dojo, like Dave just mentioned, and write into the show. You can write in the show by emailing us at plasticmodelmojo at gmailcom or using the Facebook direct message system and then we'll pick those up and we get a lot of our topics from that and a lot of our wheel questions and a lot of great conversation with you folks out there, and we really appreciate it. Listener Mail is my favorite segment of the show, usually all the time, unless you have a really stellar guest. We have a lot of good guests, but I still like for a recurring, recurring episode. The listener mail is always fun for me. I really like it.

Yeah, also, we appreciate the support that we've gotten from listeners who've donated via Patreon, paypal, buy Me a Coffee, whatever channel. We especially appreciate that and thank those of you who did so, and if any listener chooses to join them and do that, we would appreciate that too. It helps us. We reinvest every penny back into the podcast to try and grow the community and to give you a better podcast experience.

All right, Dave, we should probably wrap it up. I want to say happy Thanksgiving to everybody out there.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody and, mike, happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Same to you, dave, and we'll catch you in episode 129.

Cannot wait, see you.