Our September meeting had 10 members in attendance! The big news is that we WILL be doing our joint contest with Sumter in 2003! The date has been set for May 17, 2003 at the Lexington Leisure Center just as last time. I was especially proud of our members volunteering to handle more of the tasks involved in the contest than ever before. Some of our responsibilities will be to secure the venue, obtain raffle prizes, make the sponsor boards, and obtain extra tables, set-up, flyer design and many others. Sumter has taken on being the Vendor contact, Contest Coordinator, plus many other tasks as well as the Mammoth job of designing and building the trophies and Best ofs, but there are still plenty of opportunities for YOU TO HELP!  This will be a lot of work but with all the help from Sumter and within our own club this should be a most successful show. This will require work form all members. We need to start selling trophy packages. We will need those with trucks the day before to get the extra tables that Steve will secure and set up. There will be ample opportunity to help. Thanks to Mike Petryszak for offering to paint the two figures on the best figure trophy.  Our joint display case with Sumter Continues to offer us a way to showcase our work and we are grateful to Hobbytown for supplying the space.

Our other big news is the birth to John and Mary Sherrer of their son! We would like to welcome Nicholas Gramling Sherrer. Nicholas was born 10/08/02 and came in at 8lb. 6oz.   And was 20.5 inches long. We welcome our newest junior member and welcome John and Mary to several weeks of little or no sleep; but take it from me eventually sleep will return!

Our website continues to grow and improve. The site address is  www.oocities.org/swamp001. Everyone will need to be featured to keep this site fresh. Now posted on the website is coverage from the IPMS/USA Nationals. We have a lot of great pictures from Fred Stalbaum and a few from me that will showcase the models and the tours to NAS Oceana, Fighter Factory, MacArthur Memorial, Norfolk Naval Museum and the USS Wisconsin. There are a lot of quality photos here and it should be great for all to view. Fred also offers a CD Rom of the photos for $5.00 plus postage.  In addition Randy will have all the contest info and downloadable forms put on the website.

People have been asking for the following demos: Weathering of vehicles and aircraft, plastic polishing, Airbrush tips, natural metal finishes, airbrushing. So volunteers are needed.

We want to make sure that our flyers and Sumter’s are up in the local hobby shops. If you notice either club’s missing when you next visit a shop please let me know so they can be replaced. It is very important to let potential members know both clubs are out there.

Randy gave a treasurer’s report and we have $1428.00 in our account.

New items on display for us to drool over were:

• Finescale Modeler new issue

• Flypast Magazine new issue

• New issue of SAMI

• Aeroplane Monthly new issue

• New issue of Air Classics

• Tamiya Model Magazine

• Modeling Post war Tanks book

• M1 Abrams Modeling manual

• 1/48 Accurate Miniatures RAF Mustang Mk. I

• Airfix 1/72 Boeing CH-47 Chinook

• 1/35 DML Nato MLRS

• 1/350 Shanghi Dragon Typhoon sub

• 1/72 Fine Molds Star Wars Episode II Jedi Starfighter

• 1/48 Hasegawa Macchi Mc.205 with Royal Egyptian Markings

• 1/48 Hasegawa Bf-109G-14 with Croatian Air Force markings

• 1/48 Cavalier Turboprop Mustang conversion by Heritage Aviation      

Completed kits and in progress items were:

• 1/35 Tamiya German Wespe in progress by Chris Lamey

• 1/48 DML Ju-188 in progress by John Helms

• 1/700 diorama “Attack on the Shimakaze” with two B-25s by Paul Lovell

• 1/43 Audi R-8 from LeMans Miniatures in Crocodile scheme (3 months to apply all the decals) By Tim Darrah

• 1/60 Brocken Labor Anime figure by Tim Darrah

• 1/48 Perasauralophis Sculpted by Mike Petryszak

• Casey Love Earthbound Studios Creature from the Black lagoon, Alex the Vampire and Batman by Phil Campbell

Here’s a list of the upcoming contests:

• Oct. 19, Shawfest Airshow, Sumter,SC

• Oct.19, SCMA Contest Charleston, SC

• Jan. 31^st –Feb. 1 Atlanta Model expo*

• May 17^th Our joint show, Lexington, SC*

Those with an * are the ones members of our club and Sumter are planning to attend. If interested in joining us talk to Hub.

Next meeting:
October 24th will be our next meeting at 7:00PM at Hobbytown. I will cover masking canopies in a demo. So come on down and voice your opinion and participate. After all it is YOUR club.

Till next time

Hub