MichLUG Meeting Report - August 2nd, 2008

Attendees:

  • Duane Collicott
  • Jim Garrett
  • Steve Grant
  • Peter Guenther
  • Ken K.
  • "Purple" Dave Laswell
  • Chris Leach
  • Sandy Leach
  • Tom Morse
  • Steve Wieser

Guests:

  • David Lawrence
  • Kira and Ethan Leach
  • Son of Duane Collicott

Overall Picture Galleries:

 
Jim Garrett
 

Briefing:

By Steve Grant and Peter Guenther

For this meeting, we gathered at the Livonia Public Library, where several members had displayed models in March.

MOCs

A number of members brought MOCs to show:

  Chris Leach showed off his new 6-wide fire trucks and ambulance. One had the old light system completely disguised within it.
  Steve Weiser demonstrated his LifeLites eLight, an electronic brick with two input switches and 8 LEDs. It can run several different programs to light the LEDs in different patterns.
  Peter Guenther displayed his new Romanesque fire station as well as a corner ice cream parlor. He also brought a "Blacktron 3" modular spaceship.
  Jim Garrett showed his Indian Village house as well as a Mars salvage rocket "SS Buzzard".
  Ken K. displayed his son's new fire truck design.
  Purple Dave brought his Bat-pod motorcycle and a couple other small MOCs including a lifesize sculpture of a Black Moor, or telescoping-eye fantail goldfish.

LEGO Sets

In addition, we looked at several new official sets:

  Star Wars (Clone Wars) Magna Guard Starfighter
  Mars Mission Ultra Drill Walker
  Star Wars UCS General Grievous

Guests

David Lawrence contacted us through the website earlier in the week and came to the meeting; he's interested in becoming a member and his building focuses on transportation-- he's built a number of trucks and planes, while a large cruise ship is his newest project.

Club Business

We continued to talk about the possibility of club dues, as a way of bringing more money into the coffers to pay some members for old (NMRA 2006 and 2007) expenses and to encourage members to stay active or drop out of the club. The consensus at the meeting was that this was very reasonable. This is the third time the possibility has been raised at a meeting this year and no real objections have been offered.


We also reviewed the list of possible upcoming events. Next Friday, 8/8, Chris will do a small show in Northville; Tom Morse volunteered to help him with it. Aside from that, the only definite event is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the Saline Rails on Wheels show which we've done for 5-6 years now. We have another half-dozen events possible in the November/December timeframe, but those aren't definite. We already have several possible shows in 2009. Peter will update the Yahoo group database to list the shows we know about. Additionally, NMRA will return to Michigan in 2012--Grand Rapids-- and we are very interested in that, as well as possibly the Milwaukee show in 2010.


Peter Guenther recapped BrickWorld, the Chicago show from June, and also talked about plans for BrickShow at the Plastic Brick Museum in Bellaire, OH. He and Larry are planning a small layout; others are welcome but should speak up quickly.


The meeting closed around 4:00.

Meeting Pictures