Fri. March 26
1150 - After a busy morning at work, I grabbed some lunch before heading to Wilmington. Should be OK that I won't be there until later...
1245 - arrived at Shriner's Auditorium only to find that everyone was there and they had already unloaded the trailer! Seems that the message to meet at 1200 meant be here first, then go for lunch. I thought it was the other way around...
1315 - Matt and Chris arrive, bags of food in hand, wondering why no one was at McDonalds. Whew, I wasn't the only one!
1420 - tables are put together according to plan. I got to roll around underneath the tables with the drill securing bolts.
1645 - I needed to leave for a family event. All of my MOCs are now in place. Should be able to help finish up detailing the layout with minifigs and trees tomorrow morning.

Sat. March 27
0835 - arrived early to help finish setting up. Joe bought donuts - yea!! Helped put out minifigs and got the monorail track finalized, hooked up and tested. Eric did a splendid job planning the monorail for this particular layout! Teddy's mountain tunnel is also in place now, looks great.
0950 - Panic! Only 10 minutes left and we haven't tested any of the trains yet! Need to clear the tracks of boxes and bins so we can get done!!
1000 - Whew, made it! The last boxes were stored and the trains are all running exactly at showtime. That was kinda close...
1200 - crowds have been steady but not crushing, which is good. Unfortunately we already lost one train to the floor - Tom's. It was a spectacular crash, too. Pieces everywhere!
1300 - Took the last lunch shift. Decided to bring my own food for one of the two days to keep things kinda healthy. Does a fluffernutter on whole wheat count?
1330 - Am now in one of the two pits with the train speed regulators. Nice change of pace. Get to interact with the crowd a lot from in here. Folks at this show are very respectful of the layout - it's awesome!
1410 - Gee, how many pictures of the layout that people have taken am I in? Maybe I should always smile...
1500 - Done with the pit. Need a bathroom break anyway.
1600 - Show is done for the day. Taking lots of pictures of the layout after all the people are gone. Not happy with my camera settings; need to find the user's manual and figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Sun. March 28
1150 - arrived late as it's Palm Sunday. Meandering around the layout, answering questions and helping with layout issues as needed.
1230 - time for lunch. Got to eat with Linda and Jon. Mmmm, hamburgers...

1600 - Show is officially over! Went really well. Now need to start packing everything...
1630 - All my MOCs are put away. Packing up all of Jamie's monorail stuff. Might be the last show using his magic box of monorail, as he'd like to try to bring it back with him to Denmark next time he comes to visit...
1700 - Carrying all this stuff outside. Amazing that we can get it all into the club trailer!
1730 - All packed and done! 1.5 hours, not bad. The traditional after show dinner is dwindling in size, only 5 of us are going. Changing venues, trying the Horseshoe Grill vs. the Piccadilly Pub.
1900 - Dinner was very good! Place is really nice; I think we'd definitely go there again. Heading home after a fun but tiring weekend. Thanks, everybody!!

 NELUG, PennLUG and two members of ParLUGment were the clubs who contributed to the AFOL layouts at the first ever LEGO KidsFest run in the USA.  The event was held at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, CT on 20-22 Nov. 2009, and by lunchtime on Saturday maximum capacity was reached for the first time at the newly constructed venue! 

On Saturday September 27, 2008, members of NELUG participated in a fund raising event entitled "Mito Walk and Family Fun Day" for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. The 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 helped by providing three displays; a moonbase, a large castle complex, and an exhibition of several city MOCs. The center of the moonbase display featured Spacely Towers by Teddy Welsh. Two modules (a Sponge-Bob themed Sandy's Greenhouse and a Classic Spaceport) and a moon monorail train were built by Jonathan Dallas, a Robot Museum module showcasing the likes of the Silent Running drones, B9 robot from LIS, Robbie the Robot, Rosie & Uniblab from the Jetsons and Oliver Wendal Jones' Banana PC Jr 6000 from Bloom County was done by Dave Gwon, three modules (Crystal Hotel, Moonbase Cafe Corner, and Market Street Moonbase) created for BrickFair 2008 were displayed by Mike Ripley, and connector modules in classic space and Blacktron colors were built by Linda Dallas. The castle display highlighted a large castle layout by Matt Mann, a castle and dragon scene by Dave Eaton, and a model of the Jabberwock by Jason Wolfson. Dave Gwon also provided two city MOCs, Bill Bourn had a robotics demonstration for the kids, and Steve Doerner provided extra hands to help with setup and tear down. Several NELUG members also walked in the 5K Walk that followed a somewhat damp, swampy and mosquito ridden path around the LEGO complex. A Channel 40 (ABC) news team was present for the grand finale, which featured a ring of people lying on the floor around the giant floor mural featuring the word 'Hope' adorned with - LEGO! As a result of everyone's hard work, over $38,000 was raised. And as a special treat for NELUG, we were given a tour of the new work spaces for the Master Builders in Enfield. It was great to hang out with Erik Varszegi, Dan Steiniger and Steve Witt, and to be invited to participate in the event! To see all the pictures taken at the event, please visit the event picture area in our Media Gallery.

NELUG Participated in the Boston Children's Museum grand reopening gala, entitiled "LEGO of Your Inhibitions," that was used as a fund raising event to show off their recent $47 million rennovation. The black tie event was well attend, providing patrons with a variety of displays, music and food spread across three of its six floors.

NELUG was nestled on the third floor, not far away from numerous 2x3 brick-inspired cakes. Our display was a big hit, the largest affirmation of which came in the form of disappointed patrons when they realized our display was not a permanent exhibit. It was a great night and we had a blast!

We'd like to thank the BCM of the opportunity and to member Jonathan Dallas for putting us all in touch. For more pictures, visit our gallery.