Several members of NELUG are displaying some exciting LEGO creations as part of &quot;It's a Snap! Community LEGO Art&quot; 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 <a href="http://www.wenhwmmuseum.org">http://www.wenhwmmuseum.org</a>; and a news article on the event can be found at <a href="http://www.salemnews.com/lifestyle/x2076994584/Together-with-Legos">http://www.salemnews.com/lifestyle/x2076994584/Together-with-Legos</a>;

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&amp;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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/riplego/6862346673/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/riplego/6862346673/</a>; or search Flickr for &quot;MR730 Event&quot;.

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.

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.

After nearly two and a half years of effort, NELUG is very pleased to announce the completion of the Millyard Project! On Wednesday, November 29, 2006 approximately 100 people attended the official dedication of the LEGO Millyard Project at the SEE Science Center in Manchester, NH.  VIPs in attendance included the two main benefactors of the project, Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and founder of the SEE Science Center, and Kjeld Kristiansen, owner of The LEGO Company, who flew all the way from Denmark just for the ceremony.  The ceremony, hosted by SEE’s Douglas Heuser, started with short speeches from our two good friends, LEGO Master Designers, Steve Gerling and Erik Varszegi along with our own Joe Comeau.  In addition to speeches from Dean and Kjeld, both the Governor of New Hampshire and the Mayor of Manchester also said a few words. There were about 20 NELUG members present who Kjeld readily greeted upon his arrival.

Everyone in attendance, including many long time TLC employees and Kjeld himself, were truly excited and amazed at the size, complexity and sophistication of the models in the display.

There was an incredible amount of effort put in over the last two and a half years, but nothing as intense as the five days preceding the ceremony. Erik and Steve worked virtually non-stop along with 10 NELUGers who burned more than the midnight oil to help out.  Working 16 hour days, the team completed an amazing amount of building to bring the LEGO Millyard to life.  The Kennard and Old Courthouse were finally brought to the deck and Pine Island Park was assembled which included a Ferris Wheel, roller coaster, carousel, swan boats, roller skating rink, bathhouse and so much more. The magnificent Notre Dame Bridge was also erected and extends right off the main deck right near the amazing cut-a-way of the Jefferson Mill, complete with a vast array of textile equipment. In addition to all of this, hundreds of carts and thousands of mini figs were placed throughout the nearly 2200 square foot display to give it the vibrancy of a bustling city.

Please visit our media gallery to see pictures of this amazing display by clicking on the photo accompanying this story and feel free to visit the SEE Science Center to see the real thing - even after seeing the pictures you will be amazed!

<a href="http://www.nelug.org/images/articles/20060211215207301_1_original.jpg" title="View unscaled image"><img width="113" height="150" align="left" src="http://www.nelug.org/images/articles/20060211215207301_1.jpg" alt=""></a> The Executive Committee is pleased to announce the release of NELUG's first Annual Report. Part traditional annual report, part yearbook, NELUG's 2005 Annual Report contains information on it's membership, the changes that occurred to the club over the year, its financial information, many highlights on the events and projects in 2005 as well as a recap on media spots. We hope you will find this information useful as well as fun not just now, but also in the future.

Moving forward, we very much would like to involve interested members in the creation of the annual report. There will be a post in the forums with this very same announcement in order to silicit comments and feedback - all of which are welcome. While we fell short of our February 1 goal this year, that will be the target moving forward.

Thank you to everyone for making 2005 so good!


The 2005/2006 Executive Committee,
Tom Duggan
Eric Kingsley
Joe Comeau
Dave Eaton
Mike Ripley
Jamie Berard

The Annual report may be downloaded here: <a href="http://www.nelug.org/annualreport/NELUG%20Annual%20Report%202005.pdf">http://www.nelug.org/annualreport/NELUG%20Annual%20Report%202005.pdf</a>; (8 MB)

At BrickFest 2005, Jake and Mark dropped a bombshell that so surprized everyone that the normally vocal crowd sat in stunned amazement...