The IPMS (UK) Magazine

The next edition of the IPMS (UK) Magazine arrived on my doorstep late last week, so it should be arriving with the wider membership within the next 10 days or so. Despite everything else that’s going on the world it’s great to see that the editorial team have been able to keep the magazine on schedule. It’s a mark of the fact that we already do much of the work remotely, so Dave Berryman and Chris Ayre have been able to keep things going much as they normally would.

Now, more than ever, the magazine provides a constant for IPMS members. We can’t attend shows, the Branch meetings have gone ‘virtual’ or stopped altogether and that essential social element of the society has been put on hold. Whilst we can keep members informed through the medium of social media and our website, we are very aware that a significant proportion of our membership do not frequent our online channels. Thus the magazine is the only truly universal form of communication that reaches all our members.

There are two articles in the new magazine that really caught my eye. The first is a great article on the Churchill AVRE in 1/72 scale (AVREs are something of an obsession but I digress). The second article concentrates on Danish F-100 Super Sabres. Not only is the F-100 one of my favourite 1960s fighters, but the overall green Danish examples, often brutally weathered to a patchwork of different shades are a delight.

In this edition, our President, Paul Regan, provides a general update on the state of IPMS in the current pandemic and also an overview of the situation regarding Scale Model World in November. At this point in time we are still moving ahead on the basis that the show will take place. As I’ve said on several occasions in previous blog entries, we are fortunate in not having to make a final decision until late in August. The International Centre at Telford remains closed and the staff are furloughed. Despite that, we have been quietly maintaining informal contact with our friends at TIC and remain confident that we can work with them to deliver a show on schedule if all goes according to plan.

There are clearly a lot of unknowns at the present time and it is virtually impossible for anyone to predict what the circumstances might be as we get closer to the show dates in November. It still remains a possibility that the decision on whether we can run the show gets taken out of our hands but it’s far better for us to have the planning in place for various options than leave everything undecided and suddenly find the show can go ahead.

John Tapsell
IPMS (UK) Publicity Officer