To all members of IPMS/USA, and the greater scale modeling hobby community:

Our President, Dave Lockhart, recently offered an editorial intended to emphasize the supportive partnership history of IPMS/USA within the hobby, to motivate scale modelers to consider the benefits offered by joining our organization, and to urge the membership to more fully participate in all that IPMS/USA has to offer.  Unfortunately, his choice of words clearly missed the intent, and he offered a sincere apology upon realizing the mistake.

Our hobby is rapidly growing. It’s also expanding exponentially in subject matter and technology to include a broad new generation of modelers.  We realize that messaging is generational in its nature and takes time and contemplation to fully resolve.  The Board supports David Lockhart in his continued long service to our organization and the hobby.  We discussed the necessity of committing to a more welcoming message from IPMS/USA to the broader hobby community, and an appreciative thanks to our membership for their support.  We’re working together to get that message out to everyone involved.

If you’re a scale modeler of any subject matter, and particularly one who prefers to model newer, non-traditional modeling genres such as Gundam/Gunpla, Mecha, MaK, Anime and other Science Fiction subjects, we welcome you.  We also encourage you to consider attending the IPMS/USA National Convention to be held August 2-5, 2023 at the Embassy Suites Convention Center in San Marcos, Texas this summer.  You do not have to be a member of IPMS/USA to attend this event.  Whether you choose to attend for a day, or for the full convention, we think you’ll discover a welcoming community of modelers that will immerse you in all the things we love about this hobby of ours.  We trust you’ll leave the experience fully motivated by world-class contest models, how-to seminars, demonstrations, all the newest and some older classics product offerings from the world’s largest 4-day hobby shop, and most importantly, you’ll have the opportunity to form new relationships with friends that share your passion for the hobby and new direction for IPMS/USA.

We encourage the membership, and those of you from the larger hobby community to join in this new commitment from IPMS/USA to make our organization more welcoming and valuable to all modelers.  We look forward to hearing your ideas about how our Society can continue to grow and evolve along with the modeling community we are a part of.  You have our assurance we welcome all modelers and listen to all voices.

Sincerely,

The IPMS/USA Executive Board

The International Plastic Modelers Society – USA Branch
By Modelers … for ALL Modelers.