West Central Missouri Modelers event, 17 September 2005
This last weekend, the Western Missouri gang held their annual show. The event is held at Vatterot College, across from the Kansas City sports complex. It is extremely easy to find and once they finish the construction on I-70 east of town (which has been going on for what seems to be four or five years), it will be even easier to get to.
As I had received a package prior to the event, it was a simple matter to copy the entry form for each model. The form has ones name and subject in two parts. One part (without the name) goes with the model. There is also a registration form with address. It is nice not to have to repeat this information for each entry. Entry fee was $10 for all you cared to bring. This is a fair price in today's market and allows for a rather large number of entries. I know I brought stuff I knew had no chance of placing (actually that is true of everything I brought) because of this way of doing things.
We left home around 4.30 AM and arrived at about 9 AM. Registration was smooth as folks seemed to have things down pat. There was also no one in front of me. I noted later that when things got busy (as in just before close of entries), the pace slowed considerably and there was a bit of a backlog.
Vatterot College is really not your standard event venue. By that, I mean that there is really only one large room and that one not very big. Usually, this is where the vendors are located. However, this year, not even that was available and the vendors were stretched out along a long corridor and in one classroom. This seemed to work out to everyone's satisfaction as I heard no grumbling about it. The combination of dedicated commercial concerns and people selling off excess kits was well balanced, though some of these latter folks were asking prices that were darn close to retail. As in past years, several classrooms were used for the entries. This year, all were right next to each other with one holding aircraft, one armor, one cars and the smaller categories placed in among them. This also seemed to work out quite well. As the spaces grew tight, things were shuffled around to make room.
I do have one complaint in this area. Our group arrived early and so set our models out before most arrived. By the time the judging started at 12.00, the majority of my models had been shoved up against the back wall or moved, all without a soul asking me to move things. To many this is unconscionable at the worst and discourteous in the least. Modelers should keep their grubby mitts (this phrase has been significantly PC'd) off other people's work, while the staff has all the info on the entry form and should make an effort to contact entrants if moves have to be made. At the very minimum, there should be a box on the form indicating if an entrant gives ok for the staff to move their models if needed.
The raffle was not bad. Not great, but not bad. The group had a box for people to donate either money or kits to troops in the Near East, and most folks who won raffle kits donated at least one. The raffle was held one time and divided into sections. One placed their coupon into the appropriate box and then the staff matched up drawn tickets to kits. During the rest of the day, awards could be claimed. A very nice way to do things and a huge improvement over the feeding frenzy of past years. They did have a few kits stolen as they had them out on tables before them where slippery fingers could grab stuff. As has happened to me every year I've attended, one of my raffle prizes was missing parts, in effect, making the kit unbuildable. I don't know why people donate incomplete items or even boxes of sprue as happened in Chicago several years ago. It leaves a rather bad taste in the mouth of the recipient and reflects on the club, even though they are in no way to blame. One just remembers "at Kansas City I got a kit from the raffle that was missing parts".
The judging was over by the 2 PM deadline, but due to computer malfunctions in preparing for the awards presentation, the awards ceremony was nearly an hour late getting started from its 3 PM scheduled time. It has been my experience that, as nice as these things are to be able to see the model receiving the award, only one time in the last four years have I seen this sort of thing go on without a hitch. It seems that awards presentations and computers don't mix, or at least they don't get along well. I have no suggestions on how to improve things in this realm as I've never tried to do one of these displays. Perhaps just passing on the pictures would be a good idea until the bugs can be worked out. The award plaques were designed by the club and like last year, were very nicely done
We hit the road at 5 PM for the long drive home.
Overall impressions of the event are good. They improved two of my personal dislikes from the last event; specifically the raffle and the introduction of no sweeps in the contest. In my opinion, this last item is the biggest plus that any event can have. The idea of an event is to have as many people go home happy and want to return. To have one modeler take all the awards in a category is no incentive for someone to return. I'm sure that if this rule had not been in place, I'd have gone home empty handed! This year's event had, by the counts of the members, over 250 entries, which seemed like more than last year.
The folks who run the WCM event are friendly and make you feel welcome. Next year, there will be no event as they are going to be involved in running the Nationals so I hope you all support them by your attendance.