2021 NRG CONFERENCE

[kurtvd19]

The dates are set for the 2021 NRG Conference.  October 21-23, 2021 at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum. 

[druxey]

Well, here's hoping....

[mtaylor]

My fingers are crossed on this.  

[Justin P.]

If everything works out, it'll be my first.

[garyshipwright]

Hi Kurt. Is there a possibility that the conference will be held on the east cost like Virginia , Florida,maybe some place like where the Constitution is in the future. Last one I went to was in Chicago and really had a good time. Thanks. Gary

[kurtvd19]

Gary:

The history is that we move the conferences so that as much as possible East and West coasts plus the Midwest are covered as close to equally as we can do so.  This is so that all members can attend a conference without having to travel clear across the country as often as possible. 

Since 2013 there have been 4 Eastern events, with the 2020/2021 being in CA that will be a third Western event.  The only Midwest event since 2013 was 2014 in St. Louis.  So, we are overdue for a Midwest conf.

The 2021 event will be in CA where the 2020 event was to be held.  We plan on the 2022 event being a Midwest event possibly at a Great Lakes location.

We have talked with the Mariner's Museum in VA and it is a likely location but there have been absolutely no plans made beyond 2022.

A membership survey will be done before we make any plans beyond 2022.

Kurt

 

[garyshipwright]

Thanks Kurt. St. Louis would be great and the others that you mention to. Gary

[Roger Pellett]

My first choice for an overdue Midwest meeting would of course be Duluth- a working Harbor, the largest on the Great Lakes; two Museum ships; a dynamite conference venue that I have access to;  wonderful lodging; and New England like fall colors without the crowds.  But we’ve already beat that subject to death.

 

My second choice, would be the new National Great Lakes Maritime Museum in Toledo, Ohio.  Easy access from Detroit airport (a major Delta hub) and Cleveland.

 

PS.  In my opinion, a major Disadvantage of the California venue is accessibility.  Correct me if I am wrong but the only airport sort of nearby with non stop service back east is LAX and to those of small town folk Los Angeles traffic is a real pain.

 

Roger

[kurtvd19]

Roger:

We lost the third vote for Duluth when Steve died. 

Toledo is on the short list.

You are probably correct about the CA airport situation but good spots near to airports are very expensive and already been done.  There are many of our members who can't get to anyplace on a non stop flight but they bite the bullet and do it.  Then you have a place like Boston - easy to fly to - but traffic worse than LA.

It's a real balancing act.

[Roger Pellett]

Kurt,

 

Although I only met him once, I enjoyed Steve’s many articles in the NRJ that described his innovative solutions to model building; Things that will have real lasting value to future readers of the Journal.

 

Grumbling aside, if it is safe to travel,  my wife and I will probably attend the 2021 CA Conference.  We BOTH enjoyed 2015 in Mystic and 2019 in New Bedford, and I have to admit, once you get there, the California Coast north of LA is a beautiful area.

 

BTW, is you have a few minutes, google Kitchi Gammi Club.  A great venue for a conference.  Maybe we could hold a virtual (nonexistent) 2020 conference there!

 

If you decide to have 2022 in Toledo, pay attention to the University of Michigan football schedule.  Lodging can be crazy in the region when there is a home game. As a native of Ohio prior to moving to Duluth, I might suggest exploring options for holding the meeting further east towards the Sandusky, Port Clinton, Marblehead area with an excursion to the Toledo Museum.  This area might be more appealing to spouses not excited about maritime history.  Visitors to Northern Ohio in October will see the region at its best.

 

I hope all is well with you and that you have fully recovered from your recent procedure.

 

Roger

[6ohiocav]

Roger,

 

Great suggestion for Toledo and good point about University of Michigan football. They are playing at home on Oct 15, 2022 and away on Oct 22, 2022. It is about 55 miles from Toledo to Ann Arbor.

 

As a current Buckeye, and member of the Shipwrights of Central Ohio, I applaud consideration of Toledo as a potential site for the 2022 NRG Convention. Great town and fantastic Museum. Can't agree more that Sandusky and the Lake Erie Islands offer wonderful venues as well.

[Chuck Seiler]

18 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

to those of small town folk Los Angeles traffic is a real pain

To those of BIG town folk Los Angeles is a real pain.

 

Been to Ohio.  Never been to Minnesota.  Why not Duluth?

[kurtvd19]

Chuck:

We constantly hear from E & W coast members that a mandatory element of a NRG conf has to include salt water.

Here by the Great Lakes we like to say that Doctors are always saying to cut out salt.  Also, our waters are guaranteed to be free of sharks!

Not that you would be likely to swim in Lake Superior - it makes the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans feel like kiddie pools temperature wise.

Duluth is also one of the busiest ports in the US.

[Roger Pellett]

As the speaker on the last day of the 2015 NRG Mystic Conference was getting into his talk about Black Sea shipwrecks I saw my wife coming into the conference room.  It seemed that my daughter in New York City was having difficulty delivering her daughter and they had decided on caesarian (sp?) delivery.

 

We immediately checked out of the hotel and prepared to drive to New York.  By the time that we were ready to go my son-in-law called with the news that the operation was over and mother and daughter were doing fine.

 

As our trip suddenly became less urgent we decided to stop at the nearby McDonalds before getting on the highway.  In the next booth was a lady working on some needlepoint.  My wife’s comments about her beautiful work resulted in a nice conversation.

 

She was from California and working on her needlepoint while her husband attended the conference.  The discussion led to where we were from and to my desire for a conference to be held in Duluth.  She thought that Duluth would be a wonderful place to hold a conference especially as she had little or no knowledge of the Great Lakes.

 

There has been considerable interest on the forum about non-saltwater vessels, and a freshwater venue would allow members to broaden their interests.  Otherwise, based on the models built or imagined by forum members, the most logical place to hold it would be in Portsmouth (UK)!!

 

Realistically, I have to admit that NW Ohio is a better midwestern compromise location as it is a not unreasonable drive from either Chicago or the East Coast, and weather is probably more manageable in late October.

 

We made it to New York that evening in time to hold our new gradddaughter who will start Kindergarten this fall if the NYC schools can figure things out.

 

Roger

[Roger Pellett]

Darrell,  I’ve actually been to Zoar, Ohio.  I remember it as an interesting place.  Once a planned, or religious community?

 

Roger

[md1400cs]

 

 

Good news. Excellent smaller maritime museum located in a nice small town north of Los Angeles. Ed Marple also has his, arguably the best scratch built Sovereign of the Seas on permanent display within. Looking forward to attending as well.

 

Regards,

[Chuck Seiler]

4 hours ago, kurtvd19 said:

We constantly hear from E & W coast members that a mandatory element of a NRG conf has to include salt water.

I can go with fresh.  Both of the models I have actually completed are fresh water vessels.

[Matt D]

4 hours ago, kurtvd19 said:

Not that you would be likely to swim in Lake Superior - it makes the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans feel like kiddie pools temperature wise.

 

I have to post this, Kurt.  This is me swimming in Lake Superior earlier today!  And I’m still alive.  It was cold by a lot of people’s standards. 

[6ohiocav]

You are correct Roger. Zoar was established by a group of German Seperatists that fled Europe in 1817 and Napoleon’s conscription practices. They landed in Pennsylvania and secured a large chunk of the Ohio frontier from the Shakers that they befriended. They formed a communal society in order to survive the harsh conditions in the Tuscarawas River Valley and caught a huge break when the Ohio-Erie Canal company hired the Zoarites to dig (by hand) 7 miles of the canal along the river. The money they earned and the riparian connection to the country they gained sustained this communal experiment for 80 years. 8 full blocks of the original village has been preserved. It is a wonderful community and if you are interested in canal boats a destination about 2 hours from Toledo. 

[Dziadeczek]

I uploaded a handful of pics from that museum, I took during my last visit there in May 2019. They are here:

 

[Roger Pellett]

Thanks for posting these.  Ed Marples appears to have been in the August Crabtree league!  Hopefully Covid19 will subside to the point where it is again safe to travel to see these.

 

Roger

[MEDDO]

I was really looking forward to the 2020 conference and after seeing those picture for the museum am looking forward even more to 2021

[Cathead]

On the California accessibility issue, I'd just like to point out that California has excellent train service from LA up the coast. Many trains a day with stops in small towns all along the way, essentially European-style commuter rail. The last time we visited the Channel Islands, that's what we did, arrived in LA but didn't rent a car until we got off the train in Ventura. It's not difficult and traffic becomes a non-issue; just expand your mind from assuming cars are the only way to get around. We were planning to do the same thing this year before 2020 did its best Vasa impression and tentatively hope to do so in 2021.

 

As as plains/midwestern resident, I'd like to suggest that the saltwater folks expand their horizons and be open to learning something new once a decade. A dark horse candidate would be Kansas City, much easier to get to than Toledo or Duluth (bigger airport), which has a world-class steamboat museum downtown (and another one a few hours upriver near Omaha, perfect for a day trip) and a lot of affordable convention/lodging options. There are plenty of us in the midwest and a lot of good models would show up at such a central location that's within a long day's drive of everything from Denver to MSP to Chicago to Memphis to Dallas. A special conference theme could be freshwater maritime history, not just of the interior US but all over the world. There's also a lot of access to less-well-known Civil War and American frontier history (including Lewis & Clark) that would complement the broader historical interests most of us have.

[Cathead]

As long as I'm tilting at this windmill, I'll add in the amazing National WWI Museum, also in central Kansas City, which is a must for anyone even remotely interested in history. Can't believe I forgot it in my initial post.

[kurtvd19]

How about the Nat'l Museum of Toys and Miniatures in KC?  The collection they have of miniature tools, tool boxes, etc. is someplace I am going when I go to see the Arabia Museum again.

[Cathead]

Haven't been there, but definitely fits within the broader scope of attendee interests.

[Roger Pellett]

I used to travel to Kansas City on business.  A nice city, centrally located for driving too.  In my case, I would only want to exhibit a model if I could drive.  I don’t even want to think about handling one through an airport.  I’d go to a conference in Kansas City.

 

Toledo’s accessibility is based on the fact that it’s less than 50 miles from the Detroit airport, one of Delta’s hubs.

 

Roger

[highlanderburial]

Great thread!

 

I wouldn't mind Toledo. I have never been to their museum and it has been quite some time since I have been there. The Detroit Maritime museum would be a good second choice in this area but ironically the airport is far closer to Toledo than Detroit!

 

TW

[Roger Pellett]

I visited the Dossin Museum in Detroit years ago.  Unless it has been renovated in the past several years, I found little of interest there.

 

For those of us who routinely travel with our spouses, it’s not worth going if they are going to be unhappy.  Many of us are older and our spouses are too.  If the conference is held in an urban area, they will be too intimidated to venture out on their own, and it increases stress on those of us attending if they do.  In this regard Mystic and New Bedford were good choices and I assume that Oxnard, CA will be too.

[Roger Pellett]

The first NRG Conference that I attended took place in the historic town of Marietta, Ohio, population 16,000 and 100 miles from any sizable city.  My wife and I were living there and I read about the upcoming conference in our local small town newspaper.  I had never heard of the Guild prior to this.

 

Attendees included Harold Hahn, Bob Bruckshaw, Jack Kerzow, and Merrit Edson, all regular NRJ contributors and master modelers.

 

I joined up immediately and have been a member ever since (45 years this October).