Convention News 2012
Guest of Honour
The Committee is delighted to welcome as the Guest of Honour Jimmy Wood. Jimmy has been actively involved in one way or another with The Model Boat Convention since Day 1 and is the proud owner of the lace pattern plate awarded for the “Best in Show” model at the 1990 Convention.
Although Jimmy has, since he was a very small boy, had an interest in ships (he was born near Aberdeen), his earliest foray into model making goes back quite a number of years – to 1940! Still at school, he was very interested in the aircraft involved in the 1939-45 war and started building aircraft models – scratch building from wood! This model building continued till he was “called up” to the RAF, which put paid to the model building until after being demobilised in 1947, when a few more aircraft models were built. He still possesses about twenty of these models.
Life changed rapidly after 1947, when any thoughts of continuing model building had to be put aside – work, studying, getting married, having children etc, made sure that the model building had to be put to one side until nearly forty years later, after retirement! At this point – 1980 – he decided to take up model shipbuilding as a hobby to keep hands and mind active after a very interesting career as a chemist with ICI (now Astra Zeneca),. Jimmy decided, after much pondering, to concentrate on merchant shipping from 1950 on, preferably ships he could stand a good chance of getting aboard to take photographs of the vast amount of “detail” on every ship.
To summarise, ships that Jimmy has modelled include – MV St Columba, THV Patricia, MV Benarty, CS Alert, RV James Clark Ross, CS Cable Retriever, CSO Seawell, Polar Star, R.V.Meteor and, currently under construction, THV Galatea. The average time taken to build each model is three years with a range of two to four years. All of these models have won firsts at shows in our NW area and five have been judged at the ‘ME’ in London, all five being awarded Gold Medals. All the models are scratch built using wood and brass, based on the original shipbuilder’s plans, and all to a Scale 1:100.
Jimmy has also been a noted Model Boat Judge in the North West area for the last twelve years. He does not have a workshop but builds all his models on the kitchen table under the eye of his very understanding wife, Margaret.
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Convention News from 2011
A great Event, A great New Venue , Superb Models, Just some of the comments we have received regarding the Model Boat Convention 2011, Hope to see you all in 2012 and keep checking the website for information..
Hello Jean
May I on behalf of Southport Model Boat Club, thank you and your team
for an excellant weekend, we all enjoyed it and the new venue Thank you
Kind Regards
Michael Sandiford
Treasurer
Southport Model Boat Club
Mrs Jean Barlow.
I would like to tell you how much my friend and I enjoyed the Model Boat Convention today at Haydock, a wonderful place to hold it.
We do appreciate how much work you and the rest of the organisers must have put in to achieve such a good result.
Looking forward to the next time.
Thank you.
Regards. Stan Barraclough.
Hi Jean
Thanks for an enjoyable show excellent venue superb facilities( I am trying to say the toilets where immaculate) I am new to boat building not yet in a club but of retiring age .
I arrived with wellies a brolly and bad weather clothing ,that's right I did not realise it was an indoor venue and NOT weather dependant .
Perhaps you would consider making this clear to new faces who otherwise might have been put off thanks once again
Regards Graham
Hi Jean / Arthur.
Thanks for another great show, the new venue is spot on, Book me down for next yr please in the same location with 4 tables.
I will fill in the form and return it to you shortly and I am sure you can count of karen for some door patrol as well in 2012.
Regards Chris / Karen.
Jean ,Give yourself a big pat on the back ,you got this to be a good event ,no doubt some one will give a negative ,but I heard quite a few people saying ,very good ,and I have to add to this ,Well Done
regards Dave .
ps looking forward to next time ,as are a lot more people ,
Dear Jean and Arthur,
Just a short note to thank you and your team for such a great show at Haydock.
We are already looking forward to 2012.
The form will be in the post shortly.
Regards
Les
Secretary
Southport Model Boat Club
Many thanks for a good weekend.
from Alan and Russell Brown
Runcorn Model Boats.
SUPERB...
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Paul Freshney – Guest of Honour 2011
Paul is 59 and has been full time Editor of Model Boats since June 2007. Prior to that he was a regular freelance contributor for the Focus on Scale column in collaboration with Dave Brumstead, as well as being a kit reviewer and builder of scratch-built models.
His working life from 1975 was actually until recently in pharmaceuticals and he was the sales director of an East London based private generic and parallel import wholesaler from 1983 to 2004 when the business was sold. Following on from that, Paul worked in pharmacy at a hospital in Romford, Essex, prior to being offered the post of Editor of Model Boats in 2007. This is a home office based job, so it has many attractions!
Paul has been involved in model boating since his school days, but more particularly being active in multi-racing from 1975 to 2000 and then switching his attention to radio control scale models in the early 1980’s when his son Mark, a chartered accountant, and daughter Sara who is an NHS doctor, were born.
Thus Paul has been active in scale radio control model boating for more than 30 years and has built over 40 such models in that time, including kits, semi-scratch models and scratch built models. He has been a member of the MPBA since the 1970’s and was also its National Treasurer for five years until 2004, as well as being a long time member of Brentwood MY&PBC.
Of the scratch built models, the most notable have been HMS Kite that was awarded a bronze medal in the 2000 Naviga Section C Championships, held in Mons, Belgium and HMS M15, a WW1 small monitor that was the subject of a series of articles in Model Boats magazine just prior to him becoming editor. RMAS Moorhen, also totally scratch built was featured in the magazine in the 1990’s. Since the 1980’s, Paul has been awarded three gold, five silver and six bronze medals for his models at the annual Model Engineer Exhibition, including a bronze medal for a railway locomotive by way of a deviation!
Currently he is still building at the rate of approximately one new model every eight to ten months, the two most recent being the Jötunn tug and HMS Dark Biter. His next major semi-scratch build project will be HMS Bicester on which initial work has commenced followed by a totally scratch built Ham class inshore minesweeper for which the research is now complete.
Paul’s wife Rosemary, who is accompanying him this weekend, has been a school teacher since the 1970’s and is looking forward to retirement in 2012!
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