[modelperry]

IPMS DOES need us! In this soft economy, any way for IPMS to gain members and grow needs to be explored. Personally, I never joined the main IPMS organization until I switched to paper. Now I am more active in the overall organization and am now a "member-at-large" in my local IPMS club which I had stopped going to when plastic modeling started loosing its luster.

I have never found any opposition to my paper models during any meeting or in any contest. I have become somewhat known for my work in the tristate area (PA, MD, WV) such that a few guys I only see at contests say "there's the paper guy" when I show up. Also, I have ALWAYS been asked for building advice by those who have one or two paper kits and aren't sure how to go about building them.

It really bugs me when someone shows themselves to be a "medium bigot". A model is a model regardless of what you use to build it. The national board of IPMS does know this. As for changing the name from IPMS to IMS: not gonna happen. It is far too expensive for IPMS to change their logo on all published materials. Besides I would rather see IPMS pump their money into the things that matter, and a name DOES NOT matter in this case.

Now, everyone here is what must be done to grow paper modeling within IPMS:

1. Regularly attend local club meetings
2. Regularly attend contests in your region. (IPMS, AMPS and model car shows). You don't have to compete if you don;t want to, just set up a display.
3. Join the national IPMS organization.
4. After joining the national organization, WRITE REVIEWS for the website. I do this somewhat regularly. Also, my review of GPM's Sd.kfz. 8 has one of the higher hit counts in the IPMS website review pages. Somebody MUST be interested!

Greg