The Invercargill chapter of the International Plastic Modellers Society is hosting a special showcase at the Invercargill Workingmen’s Club. The theme for this year is “Water In, On, Under” and will feature scale replicas of ships, submarines, sea planes and more. Chapter president Greg Braddock was feeling nervous but said he had a strong team around him. “There’s a lot on the shoulders to try and pull off an event, but overall pretty good. I’ve got a good team of lieutenants to help out and everyone seems to be pitching in to help out,” Mr Braddock said. He has been president for three years and oversees 29 members of the Southernmost branch of the club. “There’s a need for hobbies for blokes; it keeps them off the streets and offers a bit more stability mental-health-wise.” He described building models as “self counselling” and said he often entered a meditative state and would lose track of time. There was a lot that went into modelling as a hobby, including building, painting and “thinking in three dimensions”, he said. Club secretary Brent Davidson said there was also a lot of research regarding the history of the models they were building. “That’s the other side of it as well … you end up learning a bit about the history of some of these models.” Mr Davidson said. “It’s quite satisfying because you’re putting together something quite complicated and then you see an end result, you paint them up and make them as realistic as possible.” This year’s event is a model expo and competition, primarily for club members but it also takes outsiders. “Modelling is a very solitary hobby, you look yourself away in a room … To have a club or society where people who are like-minded can come together and discuss around how to do things is important,” said Mr Braddock. The competition was not members trying to best each other, it was about the sense of community and learning from each other. “You’ll see something that you’ve never thought of doing yourself — boom, that’s another string to your bow when it comes to building your own models.” There was a drop in popularity for a while, but there had been a major resurgence during Covid-19 which had caused a large uptake in manufacturing, he said. “There’s been a whole lot of new stuff coming out because there’s a demand all of a sudden.” Modelling as a hobby had a wide reach, including things like RC cars, model trains and even Lego, which could be a great entry point for modelling, Mr Braddock said. The expo will be taking place on July 25 and 26, 10am till 4pm at the Invercargill Workingmen’s Club. tayler.mutton@alliedmedia.co.nz
