Reading this thread was like
I mean, people found time for eleventy billion posts about SWRandall… this is time sensitive, and BLOCKS is British (they don’t celebrate the same things we do), so yeah, I figured a signal boosting second post after 30 hours (and still before the holiday weekend officially started) was merited.
Seriously tho, I think this is great. Are there specific questions you want help with? Maybe post what you have so far and we can add to it/ridicule it/look for grammatical errors.
OK, here goes (including previous responses; my answers in italics.) I’d like to send a final set of answers to Chris by tomorrow (Tuesday 28th) evening, so if you have comments, please weigh in by then!
What’s the LUG called?
Steel City UltraLUG
Steel City LUG
Where is it based?
Pittsburgh aka The Steel City
A secret bunker in the South Hills (hint: look for the brick lamp)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA – affectionately known as The Steel City
How many members are in the LUG?
30ish active
We have about 175 registered members on our website. Of those, about 40 are currently active.
Who is the ambassador?
Josh? Matt? Both? Neither?
Matt Redfield
[Come now, Josh is a Workgroup Leader… everyone knows this!]
How and when was it formed?
2012 as we prepared for the end of the world. Seems the Mayans were off on that doomsday thing, but we got a LUG, so that’s cool.
Five years ago in the kitchen of our glorious leader.
In 2012, Josh Hall was building MOCs on his own, but he didn’t know about LUGs. He made some contacts from PennLUG (now our cross-state rivals), learned a lot about forming and running a LUG, and decided to see if there were other AFOLs in the Pittsburgh area, since PennLUG’s meetings are typically in or near Philadelphia, which is a 5-6 hour drive. He found several folks and reached out to see if they had interest in helping him create a LUG. In August, 2012, five intrepid builders met in Josh’s kitchen, reached an accord, and the rest is history!
How often do you meet?
As a body, 4 times a year. As hands, head feet, et cetera, about every month.
Quarterly
We hold quarterly LUG business meetings, and always infuse them with some fun! We also encourage smaller gatherings any time members want – including building sessions for upcoming displays and events (or just for fun), parts drafts, etc. A lot of time is spent together staffing our displays and events, as well!
What do your meetings involve?
Chanting the LUG oath, general business discussions, brutal gladitorial-esque build challenges, and brick distribution.
Food, fun, fellowship, Lego, and Food.
At our main meetings, we review the State of the LUG, discuss recent events/displays for successes and lessons learned, talk through upcoming events and ideas, and field questions as needed. Then, we have some fun with build challenges, distribution of bricks from LUG supplies, food, and general mayhem!
Are you involved with any local shows?
Many! Train shows, children’s festivals, Maker’s Faire, trolley shows, and many more!
Many.
We have several mainstay events in our annual rotation, as well as a few one-off events each year. Some annual highlights include:
– An interactive presence at the International Children’s Festival in downtown Pittsburgh (the kids can build their own cars and race them down a wooden track)
– The PA Trolley Museum
– The Ligonier Valley Railroad Museum’s Model Railroad Home Tour (a Saturday when about 30 folks open their homes to allow visitors to see their train displays, and they also have a fire hall with portable displays – including ours!)
– Greenberg’s Train & Toy Show (a traveling event that comes through town three times a year.)
We love doing a big Christmas/Winter display for Greenberg and the Trolley Museum each November & December! We also have good relationships with several local libraries and do installation displays (usually tied in with each year’s summer reading theme), as well as build challenge days for kids.
Some of the one-off highlights have included:
– A September 2013 gallery installation in downtown Pittsburgh, which shattered the gallery’s attendance records by bringing in over 2700 guests in one Friday evening! Admittedly, the numbers were helped by a gallery crawl through the Cultural District and a Giant Rubber Duck in the nearby Allegheny River, but we still got people’s attention enough to get them in the door!
– An evolving display at S.W. Randall’s, an old school toy store in downtown Pittsburgh. We started with space explorers landing on a newly discovered planet, and changed the display every few weeks as the minifigs worked to explore and colonize the planet.
What’s your favourite thing about being part of the LUG?
Hanging out with other LUGnuts!
Seeing creations by people building ideas that I would never come up with myself. Being able to collaborate with others to make creations greater than I could achieve myself.
Being part of any community is wonderful. When it’s a community of passionate individuals, amazing things can happen. Being a part of this LUG has challenged me creatively, has built many friendships, and has given me opportunities to travel – this September’s trip to Billund to see the LEGO House and also visit Skaerbaek Fan Weekend was a definite highlight!
Has the LUG reached any milestones or done anything you’re particularly proud of? For instance, group trips, large collaborative builds, shows organised directly by the LUG etc.
A local toy store allows us to fill a display case for 3 months. We’ve built evolving displays that have totally changed 5 times in those 3 months now going on two years. It’s been an awesome creativity storm.
Five year anniversary. Our collaborative builds (Dig Into Reading, SW Randall) have been well received.
I’m always proud of our collaborative efforts. From our first display at a local library – building a section of The Great Wall of China – to the evolving space display, we’ve done some amazing things when members put their heads together. We also have fantastically talented individual builders who garner blog posts like they were squirrels gathering nuts for winter. And reaching our 5th anniversary as a club is of course a milestone, as well!
What are the benefits of joining a LUG like yours? Are there any costs involved for members?
Hanging out, brick is available, fun group activities, and the occasional pizza!
Being around other creative people and being inspired by it. Plus free brick!
We have thus far avoided having annual dues or membership fees. As long as the LUG is solvent (through certain events where our participation receives compensation), we prefer to keep membership open. Participation is therefore at will, and encouraged through the opportunities to work and display together, to tap into the LUG’s brick supplies to catalyze one’s MOC building, and to participate in fun events – whether that’s just a LUG gathering, a convention, or one of the more unique displays or events mentioned above! The mutual inspiration and the opportunities to learn new techniques from each other are also benefits.
Are you a member of any other LUGs? If so, which ones and why?
Not currently
I’m not personally, but a few members are involved in online LUGs. (right, @hacim? Want to weigh in so I can mention anything?)
What plans do you have for future events?
More monorail!
Most of our aforementioned main events will be repeated in 2018 – with new builds, of course! We’ll have to find out what the 2018 Summer Reading theme is soon; that’s typically something that builds steam during the winter months as we recover from the busy holiday display season and start getting excited about new creations. I also hope to encourage members to think about attending Skaerbaek Fan Weekend in 2018 or 2019 – it takes some planning and saving up of money to get there from the USA, but with the ability to also visit Billund for LEGOLAND, Ole Kirk’s house, and the new LEGO House, it’s even more lucrative now!
What’s the best show you’ve ever been to?
Philly Brick Fest!
Tough call; Philly BrickFest is always a lot of fun and brings AFOLs from up and down the East Coast, as does BrickFair Virginia… but the opportunity to meet so many international AFOLs and enjoy their creations – as well as the ability to network with the high concentration of TLG employees – at Skaerbaek Fan Weekend this past September is hard to ignore, so I may have to go with that.
What’s your personal favourite LEGO theme/set? (Would the LUG generally agree?)
Space! Trains! Spacetrains!! Curved tunnels! 6ft Tree mountains!! Fragile Ravines with exploding bridges!!!
I personally love Legoland Space, but Pirate and Castle are close seconds. My favorite set is tough, but probably is Fort Legoredo.
I always loved Space and Pirates growing up, but I think Space wins out in the end… it may be somewhat irrational to love Unitron as much as I do, but 1789 – Star Hawk II and 6991 – Monorail Transport Base (the set I longed to acquire for years, and finally got when my grandpa found it at a garage sale) are my sentimental favorites. Oh, and 1785 – Crater Critters was super fun as a kid, too!
Our LUG has incredibly diverse interests, but I do think an affinity for Space is shared by a large contingent. Our biggest events tend to be train-themed, but LEGO allows us to blend all our interests into the displays, so you’ll typically see Town/Train, Harry Potter, some Castle if we can swing it, and a big Space/Monorail section. Ice Planet is a good way to transition into Space from the other sections of our winter and holiday displays. Also, one of our builders recently finished an amazing Space Train, which looked awesome under a blacklight canopy at our Greenberg display in November!
