April 16th, 2005 – Monthly Meeting Wrap Up | Michigan LEGO® Users Group

April 16th, 2005 – Monthly Meeting Wrap Up

Posted by administrator on 2005/04/16

Attendees:

Stefan Garcia
Victoria Garcia
Jim Garrett
Peter Guenther
Rick Hallman
Ken Koleda
“Purple” Dave Laswell
Chris Leach

Larry Pieniazek
Nik Pieniazek
Jason Spears
Lester Witter

Guests:

Peter Alway

Overall Picture Galleries:

Stefan Garcia

Rick Hallman

Jason Spears

Briefing:

By Ken Koleda

Weather for the meeting was beautiful – perhaps too much so. While driving was very enjoyable in the comfortably warm sunshine, I suspect many members found other things to do with this fine Spring Saturday. Turnout was a bit low and we did not have a quorum for voting.

MOCs that arrived to this meeting included Jason’s large red/gray hotel, which debuted at COSI in February. This building was passing through on the return trip to the West side of the state. Other MOCs included a new tan/gray and green building from Chris, a Harry Potter style train car by Jim Garrett, 8-wide, featuring the internal hallway and compartments as in the movies. Stefan Garcia had a minifig-scale space container hauler and also showed off his excellent LEGO mod of the game Homeworld 1. Stefan has modeled about 20 classic space LEGO ships for this game and it is technically impressive and just plain cool to watch. Nik brought some small creations including an entry for the vignette contest.

We had a guest, Peter Alway, from Ann Arbor. He brought a dulcimer and played it… quite amazing to someone like myself who is musically challenged. Purple Dave brought a two-baseplate robot-ninja module. Someone observed that it appeared to have no purple in the MOC whatsoever. In his defense I believe that all the building in orange brick of late may have skewed PD’s color receptors and he may have thought the blue was purple.

The business portion of the meeting was called to order by President Jason Spears at around 1:30pm. Since a quorum was not present the no bylaw amendments were voted on… nor even really discussed.

Jason began the meeting by describing various upcoming shows. These included:

- House of Bricks, in Schaumburg, IL May 6th-8th. (15′x15′ Train/Town)
- Origins – Gaming Convention – June 30th to July 3rd, Peter Guenther will be running BrickQuest and BrickMech.
- NMRA National Convention – July 3rd-9th. Lester described the layout planning challenges that come with working with multiples clubs on both sides. There was a general call for contributions of buildings, we have lots of area to work with.
- Brickfest – August 12th-14th. Info has been posted to LUGNET. People are encouraged to arrive Thursday. If you are interested in volunteering, contact Larry Pieniazek.
- GENCON – August 18th-21st. Peter and Larry will be running some Lego gaming, along with a number of GameLUG members.
- City of Westland Public Library – Nov 19th (weekend before Thanksgiving) – We have been invited to work with them, as this is close to many members, we are mostly likely going to do something. Details to be worked out as we get closer to the date.
- Festival of Trees 2005. November 20th-27th. Peter reported that he is in contact with the new coordinator of that event. They were very happy with our help last year and we are looking forward to this year’s event.
- COSI Toy Factory event. December 29th through January 1st. They have invited us to display during this time. We have not committed to this event, as we are concerned about the dates.
- Ann Arbor Model Railroad Club – Saline, MI – Feb 18th-19th. We had a date conflict for 2005, so they invited us for their 2006 event to get in early.

One other note that was made is that despite the large number of shows on this list, we still are quite open in the fall and we expect the calender to fill in as we move forward.

After this list of events, discussion then turned to the club trailer. Some specific features of the trailer and preferred time-line on acquisition were discussed – it would be preferable to have one by HOB (only three weeks off – Yikes!). Much of this was ultimately deferred to side discussions of the key folks involved but the general consensus that appeared was we are leaning towards: Initially one single-axle trailer with a rear ramp door and a side door. Probably white to minimize heat absorption. One issue not fully resolved is where the trailer will be stored. If you have a location please let someone on the EC know the details.

The business portion of the meeting closed and we spent some time looking at the curved track ballasting options. Chris, Larry et al spent some time working these up throughout the meeting. We are still trying to work through all the issues on ballasted track and have not made a decision.

Jason Spears orgainized a Vignette Contest and there were five entries from four builders.

- Rick Hallman made a nanofig scale train layout.
- Nik Pieniazek made a japanese influenced outhouse.
- “Purple” Dave Laswell made a forced perspective Gotham City.
- Jim Garrett made two entries; a Han Solo Fun House Mirror and the Harry Potter Mine car.

After the voting, Jim’s mine car was the winner. He choose set 1355 Temple of Gloom as his prize.

Meeting adjourned earlier than other recent ones, in part because we had no parts draft. After the meeting, about 8 folks went over to Relli’s for dinner and more discussion.