BeLUG at FACTS Spring Edition 2017

Past weekend, the first of april, BeLUG was once more present at the FACTS convention in Flanders Expo Ghent.

A returning tradition, I couldn`t be present this time myself, as I was on route to La Douce France, but I could count on our lovely members to provide a lot of picture material.

Now unfortunaly, I can`t write down a whole convention report as such, but the bits and pieces I picked up it was once again a big and busy convention, and the team was "led" by Matthieu this time round, as Kris had other obligations on sunday.

I want to thank all present for the lovely picture material they've send me, and I`m placing them here in random order, together with some comments in between from my "sit behind the computer point of view" :-)

 This great accordeon was made by Amazings, from our own LEGO Certified Professional Dirk Denoyelle

 She looks ready to take command of Maxim's ship.

 The BeLUG booth in all it`s glory

 Our promo girl point the way to Brick Mania Wetteren next week!

 Yep, that`s the Flying Dutchman that reached the 10k support on Ideas

 Amanda Tapping was the headliner guest of this edition

 Captain Jack is impressed, even though his Pearl wasn`t there

 Maybe we should bring along an Elves display next time!

And there we have it, all the eye candy of our expedition to FACTS Spring this year, and hopefully we see you join along next time!

Club Project: Supersized Superheroes

Hey all to the second club project BeLUG is launching for 2017-18 event season.

Mind you, dutch and french translations will follow as soon as possible (aka, when I get it back from the resident translator) and then I`ll update it on the club projects page as well in one go.

Now as you know, we always try to run two or three club projects at the same time, to give people some variety AND to prevent from arriving at "point zero" when nothing is done or everything is finished at once.

We had for example the partial overlap between the Time Traveller and LEGO My Hobby last year and a half, and now that Time Traveller has ended, it is replaced by the Micro Island.  Which also meant we have to look slowly towards a follow up for the My Hobby project.

Ideas have been bounced around, and then we came to a theme that is rather "hot" at the moment, namely Superheroes.  With the steady stream of Marvel and DC movies, and of course the excellent The LEGO Batman Movie, this came out as a clear winner.  But we also wanted to make it original and not "just another superhero lay-out".

Now, during the meeting about this we where thinking what would contrast nicely with the tiny scale of the Micro Island builds, when Wilfried mentioned we had received a box of DUPLO bricks for the kid's corner at Brick Mania's... Hold on... DUPLO, don`t they have a superhero line as well???

Well, yes they do, and being the largest scale LEGO currently has, what more could contrast with the tiny scale of the Micro Island, and we reached the conclusion.  The second club lay-out we are going to start will be Supersized Superheroes.

The rough idea we have so far is to ask all that participate to make some fairground like attraction based around the figures from the DUPLO superhero sets.  We won`t be working with a set rule on baseplating, but averaging between 16x16 and 32x32 for an "entry" would seem like a reasonable size, taking into account the large bricks that are used in the range.

More details will follow when the "rules" are worked out more in depth, so let's see where this ship will sail to!

Charleroi LEGO AFOL meeting

The past saturday, french speaking AFOL's gathered in Charleroi for a casual meeting.  Pulled by BeLUG effective member Christian, it turned out to be a very cosy afternoon for all present, and here we can present a small overview.

Christian's text is in french, and underneath I did my best to provide you readers with the english translation ;-)

La première rencontre rencontre des passionné de Lego de la région de Charleroi a eu lieu hier à la brasserie. Une quinzaine de personnes étaient présente, la plus part des membres Belug venant de Liège Bruxelles entre autres.

Tous on émis le souhait de poursuivre ces rencontres hors expo et de nombreux projet ont été proposé.

Par exemple :

Passer une journée a plusieurs à une expo Multi modélisme ou au shop Lego a Lille.

Projet de construire un monument représentant la Wallonie (Ascenseur de Strepy Thuien avec peniche ou le perron a Liége.
Ce projet pourrait être présenter lors d’événement hors lego par exemple.

Participation a l'expo Multi modélisme d'enghien début août.

Organiser une journée d’échange Lego ouvert a tous.

Et pour couronner la journée, 2 nouveaux membres ce sont inscrit a Belug.

Une expo Lego sera organisé le 13 et 14 mai sur Mouscron et Lille c'est juste à coté.

a bientôt et merci de votre participation

The first get together of the LEGO fans of the Charleroi region and beyond took place yesterday at the Brasserie.  About fifteen people where present, mostly BeLUG member from the Liege and Brussels regions amongst others.

They will keep continuing organising these little get togethers outside of conventions, and multiple projects have been proposed.

For example:

Spend a day together at a scale modelling event or the LEGO store in Lille.

A big project representing a typically Walloon landmark (the "Ascenseur de Strepy Thuien" or the Liege train station).
That project could also be displayed at events not LEGO orientated.

Participation at the scale modelling event in Enghien in the beginning of august.

Organise a LEGO exchange day open for everyone.

And as a jewel to the crown for the day, two new members have joined our BeLUG family.

A LEGO exposition will be organised the 13th and 14th of May in the Mouscron region, right next to Lille.

Thanks for attending and until next time!



So that`s the small report, thanks a lot Christian for providing it as I couldn`t come over, being tied up in a meeting past saturday.
Our walloon friends are doing a great job in my opinion with these local get-togethers, which bond them all together in their passion for LEGO and I hope I`ll be able to attend the next time myself.