Region Coordinator Dick Montgomery's insightful article on how to increase your Club's Membership - a lot of great tips and suggestions for taking advantage of your Club's Shows/Events to gain members.

Several customizable Chapter presentations in MS-PowerPoint format on CD-ROM, are now available FREE OF CHARGE to all active Chapters. A great tool for promoting your chapter and getting the word out about IPMS/USA!

Michael Benolkin, while with IPMS/NM, Albuquerque Scale Modelers, posted their club's excellent By-Laws with the following observation; "How many clubs are operating out there on an ad hoc basis? We did for over 20+ years! We offer ours as a blueprint for other chapters to 'get organized'. Thanks, Michael.

IPMS/USA is pleased to offer this Chapter Auctions application. Auctions are a popular activity with many chapters and currently are managed by keeping a hand-written, running log of sales and purchases. This program automates that process, and calculates each Buyer's and Seller's amount owed at the end of the auction. In addition, it automatically calculates the commission paid to the chapter treasury, if your chapter does this as part of the auction.
The spreadsheet is an Excel 97 file, is "user-friendly", and includes instructions on the first page of the file. A PC or laptop is required during the auction to use the spreadsheet, but most chapters have a resident techno-geek ! The only other supplies required are a bunch of 3"x5" index cards marked with large Buyer/Seller numbers, some price stickers, and an auctioneer. At our chapter auctions, we enlist the younger members as "runners" to deliver purchased items to the members. We believe you will find this to be a useful tool for a fun chapter event and send any questions or suggestions to jnoack@ipmsusa.org. via John Noack, IPMS/USA.

This Handbook is designed for the use of modelers everywhere, competitors and non-competitors alike. For competitors, it outlines the basic principles that guide IPMS model contests. For judges, it outlines the standards and objectives that make for fair, effective, and efficient competitions. For all modelers, it is a single best reference on how to look at models objectively: to know what to look for, to know what others are looking for, and to learn how to set personal standards of satisfaction and accomplishment.

The handbook is available in three versions:

• An HTML file, suitable for viewing on-line (for browsers that support frames)
  
• An HTML file (for browsers that don't support frames)
  
• An easily printable PDF file. You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the PDF file.
  
  Get it free by clicking here:  

Downloadable MS-Word version of the Official IPMS/USA promotional flyer - includes membership application.