The Moving

Do You like moving? I absolutely hate it! I had to move three times in the last five years and will be moving again this year. And more to it, I got a “bonus” due to work obligations - moving our warehouse! Just so as not to get out of practice … With colleagues we moved the sales department from the Rico facility (yes, that’s the infamous facility where a million of sprues were burned in the fire) to our own facility in Sedlec. And to be honest, I actually enjoyed it! It is not bad to get up out of your chair sometimes and change sitting at the office for a few days of physical work, getting your hands dirty too. Within four days we moved almost the entire department, the truck turned around ten times in total, and the shelves with most of the goods were soon standing in the newly renovated hall. It is about the same size as our former premises in Rico (about 1,400 m2) and the whole new premises offer a total usable area of about 5,500 m2.

The event went smoothly, with virtually no complications, and we were able to resume sales and shipment of goods on schedule. Thanks to this we were also able to prepare the goods in time for the first major modelling event this year, which we attended with our travelling sales stand. Yes, it was the December PanthersCup. And even though I had to move all the boxes to and from the event again, I thoroughly enjoyed this event as well. Indeed, PanthersCup is one of the meetings that is worth a visit every year. And I really appreciate the work of the Panthers club who organize the contest, more so there are not so many such big events in the Czech Republic this year.

The reasons for termination of these events are clear. The overwhelming organizational complexity with all the necessary steps, like premises arrangement, people needed to run the event, appropriate refreshments, prizes for the competition and all the other issues which need to be tackled like registrations, side events and many other things, all require a lot of effort. Although if the enthusiasm of the organizers is usually not lacking at the beginning of such projects, it usually fades with time. If we add to this the usually very demanding Czech modeller,, who as a visitor, with his typical perfectionist attitude, looks for the slightest mistake in order to reveal it on discussion forums or social networks, we cannot be surprised that some exhibitions and competitions are ending. Moreover, youngsters’ interest in our hobby isn't increasing, so we can only hope for a miracle that everything will turn for the best. So, let’s at least think twice, when publicly evaluating these events, that they cost someone a lot of effort and that we should be happy there are still some people with the enthusiasm to organize them.

I hope that the Panthers will again organize their event next year and that this competition will not disappear like other big ones, for instance ModellBrno, Nymburk Kitsaloon or Pilsenkit. This year, as if by chance, the date of PanthersCup clashed with the Euro Model Expo in Lingen, which we participated in the previous two years, and also with the exhibition in Bytom, Poland, which is certainly also worth a visit.

In a week we are going to Prostějov and then, in April, to Mosonmagyarovar. But where to go later this year? If you are organizing a plastic modelling event on a larger scale and you would like to have our stand at the event, write me an email jakub.nademlejnsky@eduard.cz, maybe we could come. And we don’t mind going abroad. In the second half of the year, we have just a trip across the pond to IPMS in San Marcos, then our E-day off course, and the Slovakian “combo” of events in Bratislava and Nitra, which was by the way a pleasant surprise in our schedule of events last year.

All in all, I would love to move our stand for modelling events and so I hope that this year we will find other great places like Nitra and we will have reasons to expand our schedule again. For now, sadly we are rather reducing it ...

Jakub Nademlejnský