BrickFair is a gathering of Adult Fans of LEGO from around the country and it is coming to New England for the first time. Of course, NELUG will be there. We will have a train layout, but if you have seen one of our train layouts and wondered what other cool stuff can be done with LEGO, now is the time to find out. There will be creations great and small, silly and sublime. We will be attempting to set a new world record for longest LEGO Monorail track. Have you ever seen a Great Ball Contraption at work? You really should. You will be sorry if you miss it. Along with all the amazing creations, there will be vendors and games and prizes.

BrickFair takes place at the Expo Center of New Hampshire in Manchester NH on May 11 and 12. Public hours are 11:00 to 4:00 both days.

Ever get the feeling that you're being watched? Ever have the sense that something isn't quite right? Ever wonder why your friends keep disappearing one at a time? There could be something a little off in our fair town. Come on by to see what it may be.

 

We'll be displaying at Greenberg's Train & Toy Show on March 23rd and 24th from 10:00am to 4:00pm each day. For more information, including admission fees, please visit http://www.greenbergshows.com/index.html.

 

We hope to see you there!

NELUG and the AFOL community lost a great friend and amazingly talented builder this week with the passing of our own Mike Crowley. Two wonderful tributes on FBTB and The Brothers Brick have been posted that capture Mike's life and contributions to the AFOL community. We'd like to capture here photos of Mike that we have in our personal libraries and individual stories about Mike as we remember him - the good-natured, sometimes goofy individual who enriched our lives and inspired our building as a member of NELUG. Please follow the 'read more' link below to read stories about Mike that members of NELUG have written (more will be posted as they are gathered).

Several members of NELUG are displaying some exciting LEGO creations as part of "It's a Snap! Community LEGO Art" at the Wenham Museum now through October 21st. Feel free to stop by the museum, located at 132 Main St. in Wenham, MA, to see the display. More information can be found at http://www.wenhwmmuseum.org and a news article on the event can be found at http://www.salemnews.com/lifestyle/x2076994584/Together-with-Legos

Why not come see a train show? NELUG will have a display at the Concord Model Railroad Club's annual show on Sunday, August 19th. The show is at the Everett Arena from 10:00 to 3:30. Hope to see you there!

On 11&12 Feb 2012 the New England LEGO Users Group (NELUG) set a new world record for the longest contiguous LEGO monorail track at 730 feet (222.5 meters). The event, dubbed the MR730 Event, was held at the Wenham Museum in Wenham, MA. The two day show featured a layout divided into 4 themes; space, city, carnival and forest/castle, with monorail track running throughout. Highlights included two amazing structures that held 11 levels of monorail track, working carnival rides, and 5 custom monorail trains. A video of the MR730 Event can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/riplego/6862346673/ or search Flickr for "MR730 Event".

It started off simply enough. Eric Kingsley saw a video of a LEGO moon base display by the Ontario Brick Builders which featured over 250 feet of monorail track. As far as we could discover, that was the longest monorail track that had been publicly displayed. Eric thought that as a club we could best that and start a friendly little monorail competition among the Lego User Groups.

The next step was to see how much monorail track we could gather together. Quite a bit as it turns out. So then we needed to figure out where and when we could create a display. One of our favorite shows every year is the Wenham Museum in Wenham Massachusetts and they were willing to let us try something a little different this year. We now had a venue, but one that presented a challenge. How many linear feet of track can fit into about 280 square feet of display space? Well the answer is that if you are willing to go vertical, very vertical, you can fit in over 700 feet of monorail.

Come by the museum on February 11th or 12th to see if all our planning and building will pay off with a new LEGO monorail record. In addition to some rather impressive towers which support up to eleven levels of looping track, the display will feature a city, moon base, castle, and carnival. It should be pretty special.

 October and November have been very busy months for the members of NELUG!

On Saturday Oct. 3 NELUG celebrated it's 10th anniversary at the SEE Science Center in Manchester, NH (home of the LEGO Millyard display).  Members of NELUG and their families participated in an afternoon of events that included a pizza party, a MOC judging competition, playing a floor-sized version of Carcassone made in a pirate theme on 16x16 baseplates, and a giant raffle of LEGO!  Over 50 people participated in the event and a fun time was had by all.

On Saturday Oct. 10 NELUG participated in the second annual  "Mito Walk and Family Fun Day" for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation.  Like last year, this fund raising event was held at LEGO Systems, Inc. headquarters in Enfield, CT, and featured a 5K Walk, LEGO raffle, a skateboard demonstration, LEGO displays, a free build area, and a huge floor mural. NELUG's participation this year included a moonbase display, a Great Ball Contraption (GBC), a train and town display, and several MOCs.  Ten members of NELUG participated in helping with this worthy cause.

On Columbus Day (Oct. 12) NELUG member Teddy Welsh hosted a meeting of "NELUG West" aka western MA/CT/VT. Members from that part of New England gathered to build moonbase terrain to be used at LEGO KidsFest (see below).  Several members attended and were treated to dinner as well as an evening of 'moonscaping'.

We then held our monthly meeting on Thurs. Oct. 29 at the Burlington Mall following the usual routine of meeting at the LEGO Store at followed by dinner at Uno's. Turnout was excellent and in addition to the multiple LEGO purchases, food and drink, several members brought MOCs to show to the group (and the restaurant employees, who are now big fans!).

Then on Sat. Nov. 7 about 10 members gathered at the SEE Science Center to participate in a video taping session of experiences surrounding NELUG's participation in the building of the LEGO Millyard display.  NELUG and the SEE Science Center are collaborating on the project, which will hopefully be ready by 2010!

Our November monthly meeting was held on Thurs. Nov. 12 at the Natick Collection aka the Natick Mall.  Members gathered at 6pm at the LEGO Store and were treated to lots of great purchases.  Dinner followed at John Harvard's in Shoppers World, where final discussions were held about our participation in...

LEGO KidsFest was held at the CT Convention Center in Hartford, CT Nov. 20-22.  NELUG participated in a big way, providing a large train and town display, the Boston Skyline mosaic, a moonbase display, multiple Steampunk MOCs, the floor-sized version of Carcassone, and lots of airplane and dinosaur MOCs.  Pictures of the event can be found in the Flickr pool "LEGO KidsFest 2009" and a more complete write-up of this event will be posted shortly.

While the lack of current articles on our website about club events and activities may be an indication that NELUG is not that active, there is actually another more pragmatic explanation for this phenomenon – we actually love to build, but don’t really like to write about building. So with apologies, here is a belated account of our participation in the National Train Show (NTS) hosted by the National Model Railroaders Association (NMRA) at the Hartford Convention Center in July, 2009.

IT WAS GREAT!! The club pulled out all the stops and put together the biggest, best layout we’ve ever done, thanks to the tireless effort of many of our club members! The member participation level was super, and several new members got to display for the first time. In addition, NELUG was one of 5 LUGs who participated in the show this year, organized under the sponsorship of Trains ‘n’ Town (TnT) and the International LEGO Train Clubs Organization (ILTCO).

A full description of the event will hopefully be published soon in BrickJournal, so if/when that happens we will post the news. Pictures of the event can be found in the NELUG Media Gallery, the event's Flickr group "ILTCO NMRA Train Show 2009", and on the TnT and RailBricks web sites:
http://www.nelug.org/mediagallery/album.php?aid=411&page=1
http://www.flickr.com/groups/iltco2009/pool/
http://www.trains-n-town.com/
http://www.railbricks.com/

And speaking of writing about building, please check out the article in the current issue of BrickJournal (#7) about our 2 ½ year endeavor to help build one of the largest minifig scale displays in the world, the LEGO Millyard, at the SEE Science Center in Manchester, NH. And then go see the display for yourself - you won’t be disappointed!

NELUG had a few firsts over the weekend at the Great Train Expo in Hartford, CT. This was our first show of the year, as well as being our first time showing in Connecticut. This was also the first train show for a couple of our members, as well as first showings for some of our new buildings and trains. Member turn out was great, averaging somewhere between seven to ten members at any given time. The crowd was enthusiastic, including some of the more "serious" model railroaders, who found our attention to detail to be almost more than they could imagine.

Some of the more notable scenes of the weekend included a rooftop concert by Spinal Tap, some credit-card loving vikings, and a somewhat embarrassed Batman. Not to be outdone by their modern film counterparts, the crew of the silent movie "Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life" were on hand to re-enact the famous woman-tied-to-the-tracks scene. Thomas the Tank Engine, who was a big hit with the kids, could be seen circling the track with some other famous locomotives, including a CSX, a Vermont Railways, and a Santa Fe. We also had an appearance of one of LEGO's new battery powered trains, which was a lot of fun for members to play with.

Photos of the show can be found in our Media Gallery.