Well, BuffCon is over and I thought the club did a great job executing all phases of the show! Congrats to all you who assisted or entered the show, as well as our vendors. We had approximately 406 entries, larger than the previous year.

IPMS Niagara Frontier Meeting Agenda - April 15, 2019

7:00 PM to 7:10 PM - Place models on tables with description forms - members trading kits.

Someone left a bag of purchases in the vendor room at BuffCon. If that was you, and you can identify the contents of the bag, please contact us. Contact info can be found at the end of the newsletter.

There was some confusion at BuffCon regarding the entry forms. Some entrants used the information form found on the front page of the club website as an entry form. This Model Table Info Sheet is intended to be used for models brought to club meetings and displayed on the tables. It is NOT a contest entry form! The contest entry form could be found on the BuffCon website front page. For next year's BuffCon, please use the correct entry form - thanks!

We would like to encourage all club members to join the national IPMS. Help support your hobby on a national level. IPMS provides the insurance that allows us to have our events, and membership includes a nice monthly magazine. The website can be found at: IPMS, and an application form can be found HERE.

The April 2019 newsletter of the IPMS Patriot chapter is available HERE.

The minutes from the March 2019 general meeting are included below. Thanks to our Secretary, Al Germann, for the meeting minutes.

March 18th - President Rich Bernecki led the meeting.

• Rich called for motion to accept previous meeting's minutes. There was a motion, a second, and membership accepted the minutes.
• Old Business:
  • Rich reminded the membership that club dues are due.
• BuffCon #36 on April 7th
  • Updates included helpers are to arrive at 7:30. Also helpers will receive wristbands to cover the admission fee for their services. Model entries will be separate.
  • Vendors are to enter starting at 8:00 and vendor door security and vendor name tags were also discussed.
  • The story was restated that a Massachusetts club event had an entry model stolen off the tables and members should be aware of suspicious activities.
• NorEastCon #49 in 2020:
  • Updates included our club has made the $1,000 deposit to the hotel. Rochester club will cover half of the deposit.
  • Our side of the bi-club planning committee will consist of Al Germann, Tom Faith and now Larry Osolkowski as a replacement for Justen Hanna.
• New Business:
  • Rich called for a moment of silence in honor of club member Samantha Hanna who passed away recently.
  • It was communicated that Section 8 Hobbies will be suspending the 10% club discount due to recent circumstances.
  • "Meet the Members" forms were passed out for future presentations in the club newsletter.
  • Tom provided an overview of the meeting's round table discussion format for this meeting and will offer an opportunity for members to meet and talk on focused topics and genres.
  • Upcoming local events include HeritageCon at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario, and a show in the Pittsburgh area. NorEastCon #48 for this year is in the Albany area also in April.
  • Tom Faith provided a financial report of the cub. There was a question on the expense to IPMS National. Part of the expense covers elected Executive Board Members (aka E-board) membership fee for IPMS National to offset their time and effort given back to the operation of the club.
• Floor was opened to the members:
  • There was a motion to run a 50/50 raffle at this year's BuffCon in honor of the passing of Samantha Hanna and the club's share will be donated to Justen Hanna. This was discussed with Tom Faith with regards to the requirement of acquiring membership approval for a potential (relatively) larger amount. This was presented to the general membership and the motion passed. Mike Patskin will coordinate the 50/50 raffle.
• Table models were presented. Rich stated he still has plans to use the club's camera and digital projector to aid in the presentation.
• The next meeting demonstration will be in May and Al Germann stated the topic will be on how to build models faster. He asked the general membership if they have any suggestion to talk to him or send an email using his email listed in the club's monthly newsletter.
• There was an update for the club members' models on display at the Central Buffalo Library as the WWI exhibit will be changing and most of the models will be removed in early April.
• After a short break, many of the members moved to the round table discussions.

To promote greater transparency regarding the operation of the club and the EBoard, action items from the previous month's Eboard meeting will be published in the newsletter. These will not be detailed minutes of the meetings, but highlights that the general membership should be aware of.

March 11 - President Rich Bernecki led the meeting.

• Dick Schulenberg provided an update to the Erie County and Buffalo Central Library exhibit on WWI and the club members' models. The Library will change the display and the most models will have to be removed. The applicable models will need to be removed by April 19th. There was some discussion on picking them up prior to the BuffCon show. There were some suggestions of displaying the WW1 models at other suitable locations such as the Niagara Fall Aerospace museum, Buffalo Naval and Serviceman's Park or the WW1 building at Old Fort Niagara.
• Justen Hanna bought up the display case in Section 8 Hobbies belongs to the club. This display case needs cleaning and a light replace. Larry O. will take the action item to coordinate the models being picked up by the members.
• Tom Brown Jr. provided an update to his action item on the club shirt project that included they are in progress and possibly ready in April.
• NorEastCon #49, 2020:
  • The $1,000 deposit was made to the hotel in Batavia for the event.
  • Paul Hines will review and forward details about trophies from 2017 to Ed Button for reference..
  • Our side of the bi-club planning committee will consist of Al Germann, Tom Faith and now Larry Osolkowski as a replacement for Justen Hanna.
  • Tom Faith reported that the hotel is in progress of some remodelling. Rooms are available now for anyone that is interested. Dave Schwab (RocCity club) has the action item to confirm.
• BuffCon #36, 2019:
  • A guest to the E-board meeting was Daniel Price and he formally requested additional categories to figures, Sci Fi (large and small). Daniel will send an email to provide additional details and category suggestions. Discussion followed and the E-board is in favor of expanding categories for this.
  • Justen Hanna stated that our club needs to be more knowledgeable in War Gaming and Gundam as these are growing sectors. It was noted that these will follow suit but we need further input by someone other than Daniel. Also, there is an outstanding invite for someone that Tom Brown Jr. was talking to about this.
  • Flyers for BuffCon #37 in 2020 will be available for this year's show but it was agreed upon to not list the categories with the planned expansion but to state something along the lines of "see website for category list". This will be communicated to Frank Blonski (coordinator of the promotional flyers).
  • Tony G. stated that he was at a recent event at the Knight's Hall and the hall provided hot food kitchen service. A short discussion followed with Al G. pointing out that we took in $200 range of net profit and this would be lost if the Hall ran the kitchen. Still the E-board will review this option for BuffCon #37 in 2020.
• New Business:
  • Rich stated he still wants to pursue the use of a camera and projector during presentation of the table models during the general meetings. Rich will lead this action item.
  • Agenda for the March general meeting shall include the club's financial report from Tom F.
  • Our club's check to National IPMS was cashed. This includes membership to National for elected E-board members.

Member Name: Dick Schulenberg

What kind of modeling? What scale?
Mostly 1/72 scale aircraft with some 1/32. Also, small scale ships and 1/35 armor.

Member Name: Ed Button

What kind of modeling? What scale?
Real Space and 1/48 WWII Aircraft.

Model tables from the March meeting:

Al Germann displayed a work-in-progress, a 1/48 Glencoe James Bond Republic Seabee. Al is using Tamiya primer and paint, with a Vallejo desert sand diorama base which still needs water. He said he added a scratch-built interior, and the whole model is clear plastic which makes it weird to sand the seams. He picked this subject for the TV & Movie theme for BuffCon, and mentioned that the base is for the beach scene from "Man With a Golden Gun".

Al also brought in a group of cars that had been heavily weathered, as a possible topic of discussion at the roundtable groups at the meeting.

Rod Adam showed us his 1/350 Tamiya Japanese Submarine. He used Tamiya paints to finish it, and added photo-etched handrails. He said there were no issues with the kit.

Eric Hillebrand brought in a 1/35 Roden Holt 75 Tractor. It was finished with Tamiya rattle can paints, with no weathering done yet. Eric said he built it out-of-box, and had issues with lots of flash and huge sprue attachments. He added that it's a cool subject, and he might get the Howitzer to tow.

Jim Greenfield had a 1/35 Bandai M61A5 Main Battle Tank from the Gundam Series for us to examine. He is scratch-building some interior and plans to paint it in Israeli colors. Jim said he picked the subject because it was "crazy".

John Zaranek brought in a 1/72 Hobby Boss SH-60 US Navy Seahawk. John used Model Master enamels, Tamiya acrylics and Vallejo acrylics to finish the model, with Tamiya black panel line accent added. He built it out-of-box with the exception of seat belts made from strips of Tamiya tape, and had no issues with the kit. John likes helicopters.

John also had several armor models on display. The first was a 1/72 Revell T-72 Main Battle Tank from the East German Army. He used Tamiya paints for the majority of colors, with Vallejo acrylics used for details. The model was weathered with an oil paint wash and pigments and chalk used for dust and dirt.

John's next model was a 1/72 Revell M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle from the US Army. He used Tamiya paint for the three-tone NATO camouflage, masked with Vallejo masking fluid. Washes were added with oil paints, and dust and dirt applied with pastel powders.

John's final model was a 1/72 Revell Fennek NATO/German Army Personnel Vehicle. He again used Tamiya paint for the three-tone NATO camouflage, with Vallejo acrylics used for details. Washes and dust and dirt were done as described before.

Larry Osolkowski showed additional progress on his current project, a Tamiya 1/20 Ferrari F-189 Formula 1 race car. Paints used include Tamiya acrylics, Alclad primers and metal lacquers, and Model Master enamels. The tub of the car has been drilled for the addition of small, machined aluminum bolt heads, and the engine airbox received Studio 27 and Model Factory Hiro carbon fiber decals. The front wing is now assembled and painted semi-gloss black, and will get more carbon fiber decals. The nose was painted with Alclad white primer followed by Tamiya spray can red decanted and airbrushed. Body nose side panels received white primer after extensive filling to remove seams that don't exist on the real car. The other side panels will get aluminum and matt black on the interior, and red on the outside.

Larry also brought in the usual stack of modeling magazines, which disappeared rapidly.

Dick Schulenberg had a couple of models for our perusal. The first was a Valom 1/72 F101C Voodoo US Cold War Fighter. He's planning on using Tamiya Natural Metal acrylic spray can lacquer for the base, with Vallejo acrylics for the rest. Dick added Cobra Company resin exhausts, and will use old Microscale decals for most markings rather than the kit decals. He said the model will be built clean as fits the use and era. He also mentioned that the kit instructions are not all that good. Placements are vague, fits are problematic, especially wing to fuselage, and internal bracing is required. He picked the subject because it's a neat and colorful airplane. Dick said he could remember seeing and hearing the 2 seat F101Bs flying out of Niagara Falls AFB years ago. He added that this project has been more work than he expected, but should look good on the shelf.

Dick's second model was a 1/35 Hobbyboss EBR-10 Armored Car with AMX 13 turret. It was painted with Vallejo acrylics in reflective green over black primer with a black wash. He replaced the vinyl wheels with a DEF resin set, and the rest is out-of-box with added wire antennas. Dick said that other than the wash, it may get more weathering if it goes on a base. He had no issues other than some photo-etch parts that were just too small to work with. Dick thought the subject was a cool-looking cold war vehicle. It was French designed and built, and used in the North African colonial wars.

Dick Schulenberg also brought in a 1/32 resin aircraft kit from a company called Civilized Models.

Paul Hines had a new group of paintings for us to see. He decided to try something new and paint subjects that are not mechanical or shiny. Dogs and horses fit the bill, and he said to expect more.

Dave Armitage brought in another large collection of finished models and kits. Unfortunately, description sheets were not available, but Dave had signs identifying several of the models.

There were a number of items on the tables without description sheets, or with sheets that were not collected. Please make sure you fill out sheets and get them to Larry Osolkowski before the end of the meeting.

Finally, some around-the-room photos.

Thanks to Rich Bernecki for passing the microphone around for the tables, and Larry Osolkowski for the photography.