Some More Rooms are Available at the Penn Harris Hotel

Besides our overflow hotel Comfort Suites, our primary venue, the Penn-Harris, has had some rooms open up just a couple of days ago at the convention rate of $129 including taxes.  Please use the link https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/trademark/camp-hill-pennsylvania/penn-harris-hotel-trademark-collection/rooms-rates?&checkInDate=05/03/2023&checkOutDate=05/08/2023&groupCode=050323AMP to check for availability.  Remember, first come, first served; if none are available, check with our overflow hotel Comfort Suites at  717-857-8800, press “0”, group name: Armor Modeling & Preservation Society AMPS.
 
Online for Comfort Suites - https://www.choicehotels.com/reservations/groups/FU16D3

Help Make This Show a Success

AMPS shows need a lot of people helping out to run successfully. In addition to judging, we need people to staff the RamRod table, runners who carry the models to the display tables after they are judged, and raffle table help. Your assistance for a couple of hours can make things run so much smoother, and ensure that models get judged quickly and the awards ceremony starts on time.

Click this link to see all the available volunteer opportunities, and put your name down for one (or more). It's a lot of fun, and gives you something to do in between the seminars and shopping. 

AMPS Judges' Training Online

David Vickers, AMPS Chief Judge. will be giving the following two hour training seminar for basic field judges via zoom:

• Saturday, April 1st from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM (Eastern Time Zone)
• Tuesday, April 4th from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM  (Eastern Time Zone)

If you would like to attend one of these sessions, please contact Dave by clicking here. You will be signed up for the course and Dave will provide the link to the Zoom meeting one week before the courses.

After this training you should be pretty comfortable with how AMPS judging works and how to be a good field judge in the judging process. Hopefully I will see you at the upcoming 2023 AMPS Convention and you can volunteer for a couple of judging shifts! It takes all of us judging or volunteering to make the shows successful.

Pre-Registration is Now Open

Pre-registering allows you to bypass the registration table, and gives you early access to the vendors on Thursday night.

Remember, you don't have to enter your models as soon as the show starts. There is a long line up to enter models on Thursday evening and Friday morning. Considering leaving your models in your hotel room while you shop, and bring them to the Ram Rod table later in the day on Friday, or even Saturday morning. Don't worry, all models will be judged.

Pre-registering includes admission to the show. To pre-register, click this button:

Click here to pre-register

If you're not entering the competion, but want to purchase your show admission in advance, you can do that by clicking this button:

Click here to purchase show admission

This Year's Show Theme - The Pacific

The AMPS 2023 theme "The Pacific" is open to any model, figure, vignette or diorama that fought in a Pacific campaign from 1940 to 2022.

For the purposes of this theme, we will define "The Pacific" as any theater of conflict from Burma in the west, to Hawaii and the US west coast in the east, and from Australia and New Zealand in the south to the Aleutian Islands in the north.' Examples of conflicts are the entire Pacific Theater, Burma or China in WW2, Korean War, Vietnam, the Cold War in Korea, or other documented conflicts in that region (i.e., the UN peacekeeping action in East Timor (1999 to 2005) and the brief civil wars in Fiji (1994, 2000 and 2006)) from 1940 to 2022.

If there is any question about an entry, the head judge will confer with assistant Judges and make a determination of eligibility. 

Reserved Seating for the How to Do seminars are filling up

Reservations for the How to Do seminars for the 2023 AMPS International Convention in May are at or above 50% reserved.  Act now if you want to reserve one of the remaining seats.   

To reserve a seat in one (or more) of these HTD Seminars, you need to either be pre-registered for the contest, or have pre-purchased admission to the show. To pre-register or purchase admission, scroll up a bit to the pre-registration announcement and click one of the buttons.

To reserve a spot, make sure you are logged into the AMPS website and then click here.   Next to each of the HTD seminars, there is a Sign Up button.  Click on the button to reserve a seat.   

Once reserved, you will receive an email informing you about your reservation.    The first 25 to sign up will reserve a seat.  Reservations for seat number 26 and beyond will have standby seats if space becomes available.  

Seminar Listing for the 2023 Convention

The AMPS membership has spoken.  For the AMPS 2023 International Convention, we have a total of seven seminars lined up.  These include four “How to Do” seminars

1. Soldering Photo Etch (PE) delivered by Rob Riviezzo
2. Weathering Track delivered by Dan Feldman
3. Desert Groundwork delivered Frank Blanton
4. Creating stone / brick / cobblestone with foam board delivered by Jeff Feller  

In addition, we have one informational seminar from Bob Burik on “A Modelers Guide to US Tactical Marking Systems (Iraq, 2003)”.  This topic coincides with the 20th anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.   

We also have two roundtable seminars:  

The first is the Business of Models.  We have assembled a 7 member panel covering the business of models community.  This includes members representing Kit Manufacturers;  Aftermarket Model Products;  Paint and Weathering Products;  Modeling Books;  Model Retailer;  and Advisor to Model Manufacturers.   The panelists will share their perspectives on our hobby and respond to pre-collected questions.   

The second is the Master’s Roundtable.  This roundtable includes 5 AMPS Master level modelers who will discuss their perspectives on our hobby and respond to pre-collected questions.   

If you have a question that you want answered in either the Business of Models or Master’s roundtables, let us know and we’ll add it to the list.  Send your questions to scalesapper@gmail.com.   

Attendance in each of the four How to Do (HTD) seminars is limited to 25 attendees, plus a few standby’s (due to the hands on nature of the seminar).  We will open online sign-up for these seminars later in January.  To sign up for one of these HTD seminars, you must be pre-registered for the convention.   

We are working on the full seminar schedule and hope to announce it later in January.    

AMPS Judging Training is Online

The Armor Modeling and Preservation Society (AMPS) is a fantastic and unique organization for armor modelers. It is based on the idea to make every armor modeler better at their skills and reward well-executed modeling work. AMPS provides recognition and constructive comments for every model judged at a show.  Each model is judged against a set of AMPS criteria, and no other modelers. To do that, all AMPS members are encouraged to become involved in the judging system in some capacity. Our judging system is peer based, so we need many trained judges to ensure consistency and fairness at our many shows. 

Training seminars are held at all International Conventions, and at a many local and regional shows. We have now put the training presentations online so that you can train yourself. Any AMPS member can access this training, and it is encouraged!  Whether you are just starting to build armor models, or you have been building armor for a while, reviewing these lessons are bound to help you be a better modeler and increase your understanding of the AMPS judging system. 

Click here to view the online training sessions.

Training will be provided at this year's International Convention in Newport News, so if you would like instructor led training instead of self-training, be sure to sight up for one of the judging training sessions at the show.

And don't forget. AMPS shows need lots of judges. Please consider signing up for one or more judging sessions (if you participart in at least two sessions, you will get a free AMPS show t-shirt!).  You can sign up for judging and other tasks by clicking here.