A chance to come together…
Shows, Shows and more Shows..
This opportunity to talk to you has slipped a little this month mainly because we are playing a bit of catch up after all the breaks for Bank Holidays and getting out to shows. All back on track now and this recent few weeks has given me time to reflect on just what a fantastic opportunity attending a scale model show can be….
The Scottish IPMS Nationals, Perth
This was our first opportunity to go north, deep into Scotland and take two days to meet other scale modellers, who know about SMN and many that have never heard of us – indeed why should they? This is an impressive event, well run and some great people on the organising team who made us feel very welcome and a great weekend was had by all I’m sure.
What I loved about this and the other shows we’ve attended (with many more to come during 2011) is the chance to talk; to talk to other modellers about what they do, how they do it and what they enjoy about this great hobby. Boy, and wasn’t there a huge range of views about why people attend events like this. Some conversations are memorable for different reasons and one or two are poignant.
I had at least 3 conversations with guys that have a huge stash in the loft, to one:
…”Yes, I have 524 models in the loft”
Q “how do you know that?”
A “I have them all on a data base”
Q “What are you building at the moment?”
A “Building? No haven’t built one for over 20 years, I wouldn’t know where to start, it’s all changed, wouldn’t know where to start..”
I won’t say a lot more, but he was interested in SMN and we talked for about 20 minutes while I showed him the Techniques Bank, a couple of detailed builds featuring step-by-steps from the contributor. He also wondered if he could ask questions if he had them at home? The answer is, of course – anyone can send in questions to me about the how-to stuff or reference questions and we’ll answer them. He became more and more interested and at the end he went off to carry on looking at the models on display in the show. Just before we packed up on the Saturday, he came back and recognising him again I asked how his day had been?
A “I always come to this show, but I never talk much to people, but after talking to you I chatted to a few more people and I reckon I can give it a go you know, start modelling again I mean”.
I encouraged him to just pick up a simple kit in the stash, one that didn’t matter if it didn’t work out and use it as a bit of a test-bed – practice makes perfect and all that. He subscribed to SMN for 12 months. I am so pleased, of course for the fact he decided to join the SMN community but even more so because here is someone that has (hopefully) come back to modelling as a result of attending a show and getting into a conversation with modellers that arewilling to talk about what they do, share knowledge, tips and advice and start enjoying a fantastic past time – that feels really good.
Scale modelling can be a solitary hobby… frustrating too!
Many are the times I used to sit at the bench and ponder, for ages and ages about some seemingly insurmountable problem. The fact is we may, or may not find an answer on our own, but there is only so much time to achieve all I want to in the hobby. I want to try and better my standard all the time; I’m not obsessed with it, just want to generally do better each time so that overall my standard gets better across a few years. I do sometimes look back at some of the previous projects I’ve completed and I think this is generally true. However a greater reality sets in. It’s not quite as simple as that, is it?
The fact is, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t and although this is very frustrating, on balance the direction is up and thank goodness for that! My mental approach is to try and pick something from the debris when it doesn’t work out and think, think hard about why it all went pear-shaped and the truth is that occasions when it doesn’t work out are few and far between. Because I try and learn rather than react to the failure, I feel better in the long run.
Try this… Try and adopt the blotting paper approach, i.e. Listen hard; have a go and learn well – that’s a personal philosophy that works for me and it might just work for you.
Try this
Get out more! Give it a go… it’s a good half-way house…
- Nothing is beyond you – no really it isn’t, but what’s needed in order to get results I am happy with? Practice, yes (and lots of it)
- Talk to people, yes
- Get out and visit a model show near you (and further afield if you can), yes
- Try out some of the tips and hints people have given you (I jot mine on a Post-It pad at the time when I speak to people at the shows I attend, then stick them on the workbench).
More recently I try and make sure we add the results of any of the above to the list of things we can and do cover in SMNs ever-growing Techniques Bank. In this way we can share what we do – how exciting is that!
See you soon…
Geoff
