Wings Over the Wine Country Airshow 2006 Make and Take
After Action Press Release (Long Version)
The weekend of August 19th & 20th, 2006 will be a day that will live on in the history of our club as the day that started it all. Pacific Coast Air Museum held their annual, Wings Over Wine Country Air Show 2006, at the Charles M. Schultz airport in Santa Rosa, California. This year's show was full of events and aircraft for every member of the family. There were flybys from a C-17 (with a short field take off, landing, and aerial demonstration), an A-10 Tactical Demonstration, a F-18 Tactical Demonstration the Sonoma County Sheriff's helicopter demonstration, and many more.
Visitors were also given the chance to meet and greet with NASA Astronaut, Stephen K. Robinson (Ph.D.). There were also encouraged to walk through the Pacific Coast Air Museum's wonderful array of restored aircraft, such as the UH-1 Huey, HU-16 Albatross, a rare Russian IL-14 Transport, F-16N Viper, F-14 Tomcat, F-5E Tiger II, and some Vietnam era birds such as the F-4, F-105 and F-106.
In the middle of all these events was a group of dedicated modeler's and their families who sacrificed their weekend to host a free model building event for the kids in the form of a Make and Take. Our IPMS group had purchased a booth for with a generous discount from the Pacific Coast Air Museum. We also purchased 250 Revell Make and Take models from the local Hobbytown in Petaluma, California at a discount price also. IPMS Mt. Diablo's president John Clements had donated tables, along with Hobbytown Petaluma's owner Steve Elliot, who also donated the use of his stores chairs.
John Admire, IPMS Santa Rosa's second Vice president, his wife, daughter Michelle, and his son, IPMS Santa Rosa member Tim, did more than dedicate their whole Saturday to help but also donated all of the decorations for the tables. They were able to get plastic table clothes that were covered in military vehicles and symbols, supplied table buntings for the tables that held our club information and models; they also made elaborate decorative sandwich board signs, and also made donation jars made from plastic army helmets.
The club purchased Sharpies for the kids to color the models or add detail to the pre-molded in color models. We taped down paper plates so the kids could put their parts on them and not lose them. We had glue and knives in reserve just in case they were needed. We had printed a large supply of informational fliers about our club and modeling classes we are currently holding at Hobbytown. We were lucky in our model choices because the models rotate periodically from the Revell Monogram Make and Take program. We were slated to get Cobra Helicopters but these were switched to the Revell Thunder Squadron Easy Build A-10 Warthog. Which also happened to be one of the planes on display and doing fly bys at the air show. The other models we used for this event were all from Revell's Make and Take Program, and were the SR-71 Blackbird, F-18 Blue Angels Hornet, and the Chevy Impala Police Car.
The owner of Hobbytown Petaluma, Steve Elliot, has been using these models from the Revell program for birthday parties held at his store. He had given us the idea of using these because no glue is supposed to be required and no paint since the models are molded in color. But he still supplies Sharpies because some of the children enjoy adding their own colors and details. The decals supplied are actually stickers, so no water is needed at the event. Plus the kits come with extra decals to make different variations on the vehicles markings. Glue might be needed because the tabs when inserted can break, keeping the pieces from staying together.
Saturday morning after setting up for the event, we waited for about an hour after the main gates had opened before officially opening our table to the public. During the wait we had the granddaughter of the gentleman who had the booth next to us build one of each model. This allowed us a chance to find any potential difficulties that might arise with a particular model. By the time she was done building the last model we already had a small line of children and their parents lined up anxiously waiting.
As we started that first day we had an initial rush of children that lasted for about an hour, then came the lull before the storm. For the next four hours we stood, stooped, bent over, and squatted next to the kids as questions and help was needed. I had scheduled the day out so there were two shifts so the members who helped out could see some of the air show. This really worked out great for us because when the second shift arrived, we were swamped with kids. We had a little extra manpower that day and we needed it until the new volunteers were up to speed. The day ended around 3 P.M. with the 125th model of the 250 plus models we had on hand, walked away from the table.
We were tired as we cleaned up and discussed how much we really enjoyed our day. We discussed how much we all enjoyed working with the kids, especially when it was in some cases their first time building a model. Some of the older kids really surprised and delighted us when they added their symmetrical patterns to the planes using the sharpies. Most of all when we could, we asked the parents if they would like to build the model with their children. These parents seemed to enjoy the event as much as their kids and we enjoyed seeing the parents working with their kids and later how much they enjoyed it. Everything went really well, but we also realized we had made some critical errors during the day.
Part of the reason we did this was to not only try to support the hobby by starting interest in modeling with the kids, but to also recruit potential members. That's when we realized we should have had a member in a position to do nothing but hand out our club and class fliers plus answer any questions. We did answer questions as they came in but at times we were so busy I'm sure we still missed a couple of questions. The member in this position could have also been watching our table of models we brought with us to display. On that first afternoon we did have one member who did actually do all of these jobs but only for the last couple of hours. Because of this we changed our game plan for Sunday.
Sunday morning we all arrived with soda or coffee in hand to set-up our area for the next 125 models to be built. We had come up with the idea that each volunteer would actually sit down next to the kids they were helping and take up a seat. This allowed us to have fewer models on the table at one time so we weren't spread to thin and prevented any one member from being overwhelmed. This also allowed us to give more attention to each child that sat down. Plus the best benefit of all was that we weren't all sore at the end as we were after the first day. Most importantly we had a member out in front of our table handing out fliers, answering questions, and watching our display tables from the moment we started on Sunday until the end of the day.
When Sunday was done for us and as we were cleaning up, ideas came from everyone on how to improve for next years air show. We are planning to get a bigger space to allow for more tables. We want to increase the amount of models we do each day, also. Hobbytown wants to donate the models and IPMS Mt. Diablo's president, John Clements, had mentioned that they would like to help out. Next year will be bigger and better and will happen with the help from our members and their families, just as they did this year.
IPMS Santa Rosa would like to acknowledge and thank the members and their families who helped out. Randy Bumgardner, who volunteered on Saturday putting in extra time, helping set-up, and also on Sunday helped out when we needed him and this was on his own time. Ken Lawrence, from Pacific Coast Models, was the only person to respond at the last minute, to fill in when another member could not make it. Mike Winters and his son Peter, Mike put in a lot of extra time on his shift Sunday and was really active, not only watching our models, but also spreading the word of our club. He also brought a 1/32nd scale Japanese Zero Model 52 by Tamiya for display. Paul Anderson, who showed up early for his shift, put in extra time, and was a lot of help with the kids. John Boes, who also showed up early and helped Mike Winters, promote the club and our activities. Saturday when we were being swamped, Dale Bohling came by a couple of times to help out and even out of his own pocket bought us lunch. Sunday while we were busy, Tom Berto did the same thing for us because we were too busy to leave or take breaks, and he was nice enough to buy us refreshments. John Clements from IPMS Mt. Diablo for loaning us four tables that belonged to him and his wife. To all of the IPMS members who stopped by Dennis Dow, Alan Davilla, Pat Nichols, Wes Shirley, and Tim from IPMS Milpitas, and Tom Young.
We would like to give a special thanks to the following volunteers and their families who went well beyond the call of duty to make this happen. Steve and Jean Elliot and their son, Cameron, Steve volunteered his time for both days covering all shifts. Cameron and Jean both gave up their Sunday as well to help out. Steve also loaned us the tables and chairs from his store Hobbytown. Finally, Steve brought down three models for our display, which were a Monogram 64 GTO, AMT 51 Chevy Bellaire Convertible, and a Revell Metal Body 67 Corvette Roadster, which was one of the first cars that he built with his son.
Also we would like to thank John and Kathy Admire, and their son and daughter, Tim and Michelle. The weekend before the air show they shopped for a lot of items to spruce up our tables, made donation containers and signs, made a grab bag of gifts for the kids, and volunteered on Saturday covering both shifts. For three nights leading up to the show Kathy made all of our signs that were attached to the sandwich boards and tables. They put in a lot of extra effort, time and money of their own, including John covering both days, even though he only signed up for one. John also had brought in a 1/35th Tamiya Tiger I Late Model.
I had supplied the rest of the models in our display, and were the Revell Monkee Mobile, kit bashed sci-fi tank, Maschinen Krieger Zbv 3000 TW 47. Krote, Games Workshop Imperial Guard Sentinels, Games Workshop Land Raider Crusader, P-40, Lindberg Russian IS-3M Stalin and German Tiger E.
This all couldn't have happened without the Pacific Coast Air Museum's generous discount to our club for the space and we cant wait to be there next year.
Chris Zanella
All photographs copyright by photographer. All rights reserved. All photographs used with permission.
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