Mike George
Region 5 Coordinator
February 27th, 2008

Hello Region Five,

An interesting question to be pondered, what is the state of our hobby. It is one that often gets brought up, discussed, argued, dissected and probed in nearly every orifice nearly every year or two by folks who fear the end is nigh, we are teetering on the brink of the precipice. Ok, I am trying too hard to sound intelligent here (which I NEVER claim to be). I do profess to be rather observant of things. I think I'll sit at my workbench and consider this question..

While waiting for some paint to dry on my model, some thoughts ran through my mind (no, it did not hurt, not much anyway). As I looked around my workbench, I found that I was alone in the room. There was no one around but me. Occasionally the wife would poke her head in, probably to ensure I wasn’t bleeding to death on the floor from a hobby knife blade cut. I looked at my models on the display shelves. Some were award winners, but mostly they were one’s I’d built and had never left my basement.

Much has been discussed in the Journal and at the IPMS USA website discussion forum about a lot of things. A couple of them items that come to my mind as I sat alone at my workbench, things like the E-board’s concern over falling membership and some concerns about making us more acceptable to the Joe Modeler and get them in our little group.

Modeling is actually a solitary endeavor. A person can go to the store or hobby shop, buy a kit of his interest and bring it home. When time allows, he’ll sit at where he works on models and work on the current project. Some folks will actually get together in small groups and work on models together; several members of my chapter do this monthly. Kind of like a ladies bridge party or whatever. However, one person alone generally does the actual construction of a model. When he’s completed his model, on the shelf it goes. Happy, he begins another. What is important to note here is that he did not need an IPMS chapter, region or even IPMS USA to enjoy his hobby.

Now if this is such a solitary experience, why do we have clubs, contests and other gatherings of modelers? Excellent question I answer to myself. Well, perhaps a model builder has trouble with painting, decaling or whatever. He hears from his hobby shop about a group of model builders in the area. So he attends a meeting or two. He finds that there are others in his area that shares an interest of Monster Trucks, WW2 aircraft (insert your favorite here) and so on. So they chat at the meeting about the kits they have built and problems they had. This modeler, he will either enjoy the group or not. If he does, he will return again and again. If he doesn’t, he can still go to the hobby shop, buy a kit and build it. He is still enjoying his hobby.

Now let’s take it to the next step. The modeler is enjoying the folks in the group; he has been going to meetings, sees other’s models and over time realizes, “Hey, mine looks that good, maybe even better.” He might also learn that some of these models have won awards at contests both locally and elsewhere. So he enters his model at the club’s event. Again, whether he enjoys the event will determine whether he does so again, not necessarily winning awards, but the enjoyment of ALL that goes on. Assuming he enjoys this, he might do the same at a Regional or National.

The important thing to remember is that any of us in the hobby can happily enjoy it all by ourselves. If at any point our modeler becomes frustrated with the goings-on, he can happily go back to building what he wants, when he wants, the way he wants and put it on his shelf (or give it to the kids to play with) or whatever. There are far more members of IPMS USA who don’t enter contests than those who do enter competitive events. I think the key to IPMS and its future is figuring out how to ensure that the non-competitive modeler can enjoy the hobby and more importantly IPMS activities (including chapters, regions and national ones).

Perhaps the Tenex vapors have affected my mind as I have thought even further in this topic. IPMS USA is kind of the glue that holds the model clubs together. Their purpose is to give some order that is chaos to the 4000 plus members and 200 plus chapters. What the IPMS USA organization is supposed to do is give direction and a path for those interested to follow. It gives a set of rules, procedures to help the members, chapters etc to organize and maintain themselves. The centerpiece of the IPMS is the contests, in particular the National Convention. IPMS USA tries to make a set of rules, categories, and philosophies and so on that will remain reasonably constant from year to year and event to event. They try to assist the membership with events by providing insurance, expertise (experienced folks who have held events) and judges who have at least had some training. As a voluntary group of members, including the Eboard (& Associated positions), the consistency has been the key factor. I was a member of a couple of national car building clubs, MCCA and then the Automotive Modelers Society. I joined both after joining IPMS (chapter in 1984 & USA in 1990) and sadly both car groups long ago faded into oblivion. IPMS still survives.

Our world today is much different than it was 20 years ago. Kids expect instant gratification and don't want to take the time to learn how to build models. Most adults have endured workplace downsizing, increasing cost of living (gas, taxes, health insurance-insert your favorite problem here) and basically have a lot of things going on to keep their interest away from building models (kids, second jobs, long hours at work, health issues, etc). In this world how does IPMS survive? What changes should be made? That is a really hard question to answer, and really, I don't have a solution. IPMS traditionally is more of competition, quality based group of folks as a whole. I for one, would like to see our events, particularly the "by modelers for modelers" concept be more of a driving force in our contests especially at the biggest events. We have seminars at the Nationals but most are not geared toward casual model builders. We don't show folks seam filling, decaling, etc for the most part (there are usually one or two more or less basic seminars but that is it). Instead we get into the myriad of the varieties of markings of the sherman tanks in WWII, the various colors of the Z-28 Camero etc. So a hand on illustration/teaching by good model builders is generally not done. We really don't work very hard at making mediocre & beginning modelers better. Some chapters, like mine make an attempt to, but the events don't generally. I really think more folks would get involved in IPMS if this was done. It should also be done at the Regionals as well. The regionals should be a bigger deal too, but that is another issue for another day. Unfortunately those who join IPMS USA (above joining their chapter or group) are usually older and more accomplished modelers. If novice to moderately skilled modelers join IPMS USA what happens to them? Since IPMS USA does not have monthly meetings they can attend, classes they can take to get better, the only avenue left for them is to attend the Regionals and National Conventions. At these events, they will likely see some really top notch quality models and feel rather overwhelmed or inadequate. As much as we like to proclaim that we like to assist the modelers in getting better, frankly at the IPMS USA level, this is not the case. We make very little progress at making the lower and mid level skilled modeler better. We will have speakers/seminars where someone will explain that you need 10 books/20 magazines/etc to make sure that you have every bolt head or whatever is correct on your P-51 mustang or whatever. Does all that help a modeler identify seams, ejector pin marks, things out of alignment, decal silvering, etc and help them improve in those areas? Sadly, I say no, we don't. On a few rare occasions, a newbe member/modeler might see a model being put away that he thought was outstanding. He might overcome the nervous thought of rejection and ask that modeler how he did this or that. Now the moment of truth does that accomplished modeler builder politely brush off the questions of the newbe or does he take the time to answer the questions in depth, offer a phone number or email for any additional questions. I think the former occurs much more than the latter, based on my attending nearly every Regional in my Region and every national since 1993 and watching and listening to conversations at these events. I was one of the fortunate ones, I asked and was answered in depth by a modeler who became a good friend. More often than not though, in those early years, I was brushed off more often than I would like to admit.

An interesting approach was recently proposed to perhaps help these lesser skilled model builders in the MAP. A concept that at glance was probably meant to help but got way too bogged down in technicalities. Who would certify, determine the scoring of points, who had certificates of proficiency, etc were all there. What really is needed is a group of members of IPMS USA willing to be teachers/tutors and be on a list made available to any IPMS USA member. If I had a ship modeling question, I could go to the website, my chapter, or RC and get the names of the volunteer members who are knowledgeable in ship modeling and contact one or more of them to give me some advice, critique my work, etc. No need for points, grading, working on specific models (ie resin, vacuform, etc) to earn a proficiency rank, just help the newbie to get better. He may never desire to compete; he might just want to make better models for himself. Frankly, the system as I read it at the seminar at the Nats, basically is a system that stroke egos of the accomplished modelers rather than help newer modelers. A modeler who wishes to compete may find MAP helpful to a degree, but there are many more modelers in IPMS who don't compete that those who do, and as such would not find it much help. On the positive side, IPMS USA has added an Adult Model Class (ABC) to the website and it is a tool to help chapters do teaching. I believe it was the brain child of IPMS Houston (if I am incorrect, my apologies to the actual chapter).

A comparison was made to the issues produced by various magazines and compared to our 4000 or so members. We are unfortunately comparing apples and oranges here. I know folks who subscribe to car/racing magazines, aircraft magazines yet they don't restore/own/race/drive a classic car or airplane. I am sure the same analogy would hold true for "modeling" magazines. So just because there are XXX thousand copies being made/distributed/sold doesn't mean that there are that many folks building models. Even those who do build models, may not be competitive in their building and therefore don't particularly gain anything from being in our group (as unfortunate as I find that to be).

Allow me to expound on some final thoughts. Using my chapter, IPMS Gateway, as a guide let’s take a look at how our club generally operates. We have about 70 members (give or take a few). Of this number about 25-30 are USA members. Out of our 70 members, only about 20 bring in models to our meetings and enter our chapter contests. Of the 20 that bring models, only about 10 do so on a regular basis. Of our 25-30 USA members, only about a dozen go to events such as Regionals and the National and only about 5-6 enter models in these events. Clearly, there must be a reason that roughly 50 members continue to be part of our club yet don’t compete. IPMS USA has a membership of somewhere around 4000. At any given National (I attend nearly every one) there are about 700-1000 who register (are able to participate in all activities, including the contest). Of this number only about 400-500 traditionally enter the contest. Of this number only about half (250) are die-hard competitive modelers who compete every year. The others are split half and half as occasional competitors (when they can get off work or when the event is near their area) and local folks who might be entering for their first or second time. So there are roughly 500 or so of the USA members are actually competing regularly. Why then would the other 3500+ continue to be a member of USA? They must be getting something out of it. As I said above, I believe the long-term success (or failure) lies with what this group of non-competitive modelers thinks and does.

In closing, let me offer my time for any questions you may have. I will also be happy to help any modeler at any time I can to critique, discuss or just fellowship. To quote a response from the Techmages chapter, we are not dying—we are evolving as a society. I think that was a really accurate and insightful description of IPMS USA today.

Enough for now, please check the chapter and member spotlight columns.

Mike George,
Region 5 Regional Coordinator