BAZINGA

Troop 24: Annual meet and greet in Saskatoon 16Nov24 We do a little meet and greet every November and try to combine it with an armor party or general bring whatever you want to work on party. Not a lot of space to move around so not a lot of photos this time. I guess the bigger news out of this one is I volunteered to be the local GEC ( @GilesWoodward is taking a break from the role and I tried everything to change his mind to no avail) so we can have someone in this big province I live in doing this job. In the last couple of months no one was willing to put up their hand to lead it. There are big shoes to fill for sure as Giles did an incredible job. I'll take on a lion's share of that role but since we are so spread out I'm going to be getting some boots-on-the-ground help from our local GML too and we'll also rely on sister clubs for a few tasks as well. Most, if not all, our events are multi-club so we have a tight group to help pull off these appearances. The other groups are well up to the task for support as needed. Should be fun, interesting, exciting and a bit anxious at the same time. I've been in coordination roles before, but never on a province wide scale with everyone so spread out to complicate it. It's good to know I have the support of many going into this. Hey, you look very familiar... End of the day. This was probably the shortest amount of time I've been in my TK. We had so many members coming and going that we only had to take on about 90 minutes each. That was fine this time as there isn't much room to walk around and a lot of breakables in every direction so standing in one spot gets tiring quite quickly. I'm not liking the direction this story is going... We have a year end Christmas troop in about a month and I'm hoping to get to that because it was so much fun last year. Always a weather concern at this time of year for travel. As it was, I just got to the venue for this troop in time when some freezing rain started to really ice up the roads. Thankfully it was short lived, but a reminder that we're in our anything can happen weather mode now for the next 6 months.

Congratulations! Bart

Does anyone sell the black rubber gloves with silicone guards for ANH stunt that would be a decent match for AP Props version? AP no longer sells the silicone guards. I am going to need some new gloves for 2025 and prefer sticking with the rubber and silicone version not an ABS version if possible. A North American source would be ideal. Any ideas or do I need to switch to the ABS version? Thanks. Bart

Hmm, not great to hear that. Bart

I'll take some time to check out alternate products before doing anything further with this one. Bart

I did not attempt the mod. I don't think it would fix anything in my case. The last time it needed to have chips replaced so I am sure that is the same problem again. Bart

I enjoy going for walks too to see if I can attract some attention back to the booth or whatever we happen to be there for. I've been accused of going awol a few times from where I was supposed to be. Bart

Has anyone else experienced repeating failures of their icomm? I had to send mine away before I could even use it for repair and now it appears to have failed again doing the exact same thing. Only ticks. Two batteries have been tried and neither fixes it. I tested the batteries and they are both good. By the time I pay for shipping back and forth for another repair and another long delay I've almost paid for a whole new unit. And, I am not keen on another repair to have it fail a third time or buy a new one and have the same problems. Is there any other better option in North America that can ship to Canada in a timely fashion? I just want the static burst, I don't need fancy extras. Thanks. Bart

Congratulations on number one! Bart

Wow! I'm always jealous of those that can get so many stormtroopers together in the same place at the same time. Best I've got is just three of us! Bart

That is a brave walk on that bridge! Bart

Troop 23: Gas City Expo in Medicine Hat Alberta 26Oct24 I was lucky to be able to arrange myself to get to this one. October is a busy month for me and the original date for this with the 5th. The 26th was a tough one to fit in. It is my second time at this event. We had a few more troopers this time which made it much nicer. The organizers treat us well with private and secure changing areas as well as food and drinks. This is much like a meet and greet although the organizers do have different organizations they support with the entry fee. A highlight from this one was a little boy that was sort of following us two stormtroopers around at a distance. I asked him if he wanted to troop with us and help look for rebels which is was eager to do so he made the rounds between us for a good amount of time. I thought he would get bored and disappear, but nope, he hung on to the end. Sadly none of our people were around to get a photo of it. Photos from various members in attendance. They all got jumbled together. This one was almost like us. At least in terms of the colours... The Klingons were across the aisle from us so did a few things with them. Star Trek has always been my favorite Sci-fi. I have a broken sight guard... hmmm, don't know when that happened but looking back at some photos it was after the July troop. Should be fixed before the next one. This Klingon thought he was being funny... These guys wanted to get into a battle. We had to decline the beating. This Fallout guy usually has the best booth layout at this little expo. The gang's all here. Probably the only bad part of this troop was the cement floor and standing on it all day. We were all pretty tired. It wasn't held in the regular location which had carpet. I don't normally pay much attention to the vendor badges, but it was brought to my attention that TK55810 and myself were on this one. The organizers took the photo last year. If the weather holds I'll be back up in Saskatoon for November 16 for a meet and greet and to hash over some "business". Our local GEC is going to step back from the role at the end of the year and we'd like to ensure we have at least one in the province so the group has to come up with a plan. Or we will have to strong arm him into staying on longer! Bart

Congrats! Bart

Always such fun troops and troop logs! You're managing 3 troops for every 1 I get to! Bart

Congratulations on your first troop! And a solo troop no less? Bart