IPMS efforts - contests, chapter and SIG

[rbeach84]

Chris, IPMS Hampton Roads Scale Modelers has a semi-official dues scheme to pay for our meeting room & annual Chapter charter fee. We do occasionally host some event that generates a "profit" for the club, but that simply rolls to the expenses for other club's show sponsorships (primarily trophy packages) and before we went to email, for a newsletter. Nothing extreme, purely on an at-cost basis. For a virtual chapter, the only expense should be the annual chapter fee to the national organization ($10/year I believe.) This is if the 'infrastructure' is provided gratis (website hosting, etc?)

More so I wonder what the motivation is for your initiative (rationale perhaps a better word.) Is it primarily to promote awareness of paper modeling within IPMS? If so, perhaps it might be more appropriate to solely go the SIG (Special Interest Group) route . Most SIGs are virtual, hold worldwide memberships and are not (as far as I am aware) subject to the requirements for a Chapter. And since a virtual Chapter would not really need to garner the benefits of 'chapter-hood' (such as event insurance) provided by IPMS/USA, the idea seems somewhat redundant - unless you're looking at some other aspect. Oh, IPMS chapters only have to have five current IPMS members, plus all chapter officers must hold current membership. At our chapter, IPMS members are actually in the minority - though we keep working to improve that situation! I just think the less formal SIG mechanism might work better in the 'virtual arena'.

What do you think?

[blueeyedbear]

Some time ago, I belonged to IPMS and attended monthly meetings (until they moved from the eastern edge of Dallas). I dropped out when they moved the meetings to the far western edge of Big D --- only some strange sort of person would drive all the way across Dallas to a club meeting!

I think they collected $1.00 per meeting for coffee and mailing costs for reminders and announcements.

Wow! I just realized that was before home computers and the internet! Nominal entry fees could be used for paper, ink, refreshments, trophies, etc.

Bob, the formerly 1/72 scale plastic bear