The Fórum 0937 (portuguese forum to talk about our favourite hobby - LEGO) has blown two candles. It has completed this month two years of intense dinamism and its becoming more and more relevant to the national and international LEGO communities.

To understand better this fantastic forum panorama, the founders have given us their testimony:

“When we launch this project, what we were looking for was a commmunication platform that escaped formalities and that focused in one very important aspect: good constructions. We always worked for that purpose and the well done successive projects proved that there was enough space for the 0937 Community to succeed. Some of the members were so enthusiastic that they gave important qualitative jumps, developing their talents, and today they are a frequent presence in events - we have an “esprit de corps” very strong and many people inside the forum “fight” for what is the best for us without expecting anything in return. Our main goal was to call the attention of the portuguese speakers to the world of LEGO; not only we have achieved that goal (in Portugal and Brazil), but we are also proud that today we have the participation of international creators that haven’t seen the language has an obstacle (thank you Klocki!). Now, our main goal is to obtain even more contents, even more quality and even more visibility for LEGO has an adult hobby - and we will manage to do that, day after day. Pedro Silva (El_Gordo)

“In the summer of 2006, I, Tânia and Pedro “El_Gordo” Silva decided to proceed with a new project. As we already knew each other for more than five years and shared many experiences, it was easy to reach a format that was good for all. The Forum 0937!
After the start, maintaining the interest on the Forum was greatly facilitated by some new members who have proved very active. Other “old” friends support also helped the party giving some experience and the “know how” to the starting project. These members (new and old ones) were crucial to the momentum of the forum and this led to the next step, the creation of a Community (LUG). From there the existence of the Forum can be confused with the Community 0937 existence.
Personally I’m very proud to have been a founder of this project. The Community / Forum has grown beyond expectations, has a solid set of members, held and hold the various setbacks which are surpassed, has a great self-reliance and has interesting projects for the future. All of this makes me believe in the project!” Luís Baixinho (LBaixinho)

“The most grateful experience so far!

Two years making new friendships, learning every time a bit more about community work and development. Exchanging experiences and increasing the interest for the LEGO hobby among the population.
These are the main goals that have being reached and that makes me lots of happy.
The community union and quality work never stops to amaze me and I hope it continues to grow for the amusement of us all.
I’m really proud to be a part of 0937, the felling is very similar to see my child growing and confirm that all the love, cherish, worry and work paid off.” Tânia Baixinho (Lego Ambassador) (tânia)

Besides their testimonies, we also asked them a few questions:

- How many members are there today in Fórum 0937?

- The forum actually has more than 350 registered members. Of course, not all are active. So we have an average around 80 to 90 registered members who are in regular consultation with the forum content. For more statistics we believe that there are some 200 regular lurkers not registered. Active members to post with some regularity are almost 40.

- What “stars” does the community have? What are the most iconic
creations of the community members?

- There are three main MOC references in the Community which are in virtually any public event of the 0937. The Tower of Belem by Luis Baixinho, Demag by Pedro Agnelo and the Heavy Water by Tânia Baixinho. The three have different characteristics and points of interest. Yet the references are to turn up more to the creators than just for the creations, so there is always some curiosity in Technic and Model Team models of Agnelo, in cars by Biczzz, in the medieval constructions by Tânia, in the adventures by Rupi and the humorous creations of Evildead. We can’t forget the other talents that have regularly constructions in the forum and the ones that shows an incredible evolution. All of the creations can be found in this gallery of MOCs.

- Do you get any feedback from the non-AFOl part of Portuguese society?

- The feedback has been great from the non-AFOL Portuguese society, especially on the media.
Our better example is all the buzz around our national LEGO event, TomarLEGO, that had an amazing coverage on national and local media and also the work that’s being done with the media regarding the advertising for the next edition. A few weeks ago 0937 was invited to be on a live and national TV show to talk about the event, goals, to show some MOCs and invite all the population to make this the biggest LEGO event in the country.
Together with the sponsors - LEGO, local McDonalds, local toy store (Casa Martins), Danish Embassy and Tomar City Council we were able to reach almost 10.000 very excited visitors and media interest on the first edition. That resulted of course in a very good highlight to our community work.
We are already working with our partners on the next edition, on a larger space and more LEGO activities to the visitors, hopping not only grow in size but in quality too. For that we rely on the work of the community members that has been quite amazing over the past two years.
The feedback is growing, helping us understanding what do non-AFOLs expect from our LUG and that can start by having a consumer service issue handle to a rescue from the dark ages. They know that regarding the LEGO brand we can sure help by having the knowledge, the experience and the will to develop the hobby.

P.S.:

As an active member of 0937 Community I wish the best of luck to 0937 Fórum and I wanted to thank all the members for their effort and devotion. I feel that we aren’ t only becoming a strong group of AFOLs but also a stronger group of friends. Ricardo Silva (aka Evildead)

Links: Fórum 0937; Portal 0937; BS folder 0937 Community.

It’s all over the news and you probably already heard that - there was a leak and a long list of 2009 sets was posted on one of the Hong-Kong blogs. It seems also the photos got leaked:

So we will get Pirates, farm and construction site. And new parts, among them cows and… plumes! (see this guy next to the cannon?)

The LEGO Group, the manufacturer of our favorite bricks have recently announced it’s financial results for the first half of 2008. Figures are amazing:  20% better than the similar period of 2007. Congratulations LEGO!

Full annoucement at lego.com

This post is to remember and to invite the AFOLs all over the world to visit the next Club Meeting of Comunidade 0937 taking place in 5, 6 and 7 September, 2008.

This event will take place in Viana do Castelo (North of Portugal) in the Youth Hostel of the city. There will be shown the most recent projects of the Community, such as the Modular City 0937, the new Community Castle display, the western display, contests, debates, theme presentations, the 0937 Water Quest (challenge between AFOLs with LEGO water guns ), and many other things. It will be also here that we will know the winners from the contest of the 50 year Brick by the hands of Jan Beyer.

If you are interested, go to the official site of the event where you can find all the information you need.

Finally, the rumours about the 10189 Taj Mahal set found confirmation. Starting today, European AFOLs may pre-order the set on LEGO’s Shop@Home website.

Retail price is 299 Euro (200 GBP) which is quite nice for almost 6000 piece set.

This weekend, a major LEGO event will take place in Museum of Toys and Play in Kielce, Poland. Annual exhibition coordinated by Maciek Drwięga (ovation) and friendly Museum (kudos for Ms. Agnieszka) is getting larger and larger each year. Here are the events scheduled for this year (abstract from longer announcement in Polish):

(Kielce 2007, photo by Ciamek)

Weekend with LEGO, Month with LEGO

• 9-meter diorama of the “Klocki Zdroj” town, with houses, train station, moving trains, park, manor house, parking lot, gas station and stores.
• Custom creations presented by LUGPol members, including giant trucks, diggers, cars, movie scenes including Indiana Jones
• Contest for visitior, with prizes sponsored by LEGO
• Legendary Truck Trial contest
• LEGO-LOGOS workshop
• Play-area for kids
• Almost all models will stay in the Museum for the whole month, so it you can not make it for this weekend, you can see it later.
• Additionally, Museum organized a small exhibition with historical bricks made from stones.

So, if you want to see our models live, pay a homage to Misterzumbi or just chat - feel invited!

Second issue of BrickJournal is out. As cover suggests, this is an Indy issue, packed wit lot interesting stuff about sets, video game and fan-created models. Besides that, you can find interviews with Mark Stafford, Chris Giddens and Mark Sandlin about their design work for LEGO. And more. Go get it!

I’m heading for vacation, so you won’t hear from me for next three weeks. In the meantime, build something nice, OK?

As you remember, almost a week ago we closed the submissions for our Indiana Jones Contest. There were many very interesting creations entered - you can see all of them by clicking these links:

• Indiana Jones and Memorable Scene (36 entries)
• Indiana Jones and Forgotten Adventure (23 entries)
• Indiana Jones and UCS Model (10 entries)

Please, verify if your creation is on the list. Some creations do not fulfill some requirements described in the rules. We have marked them with separate color and described what should be fixed. Most common errors are: too many images in the gallery and too large images. Please, fix it so your creations may take part in the further phases of the contest.

Unfortunately, due to private issues, we are forced to postpone the moment when we announce the 10 best entries from each group. We plan to do it in mid July. We’re very sorry about that. The only advantage of that situation is this, that you have enough time to fix your entries - please be ready by July 13th.

Standing? Take a sit. Eurobrickster svelte corps found this in LEGO image cache: photos of the upcoming 10188 Death Star playset.

Set includes 21 minifigs.

Do you like it?

Almost 100 aplications from 22 countries filed by 52 communities. And here are the results:

New LEGO Ambassador Group!

We’re excited to announce the new group of LEGO Ambassadors who will be representing the AFOL Community to the LEGO Group. We had nearly 100 nominations and the choices were hard. We settled on the following forty participants for this year’s cycle. Please congratulate the following new LEGO Ambassadors.

• John Langrish, Canada - VicLUG
• Milcan Bikics, Hungary - MALUG
• Didier Enjary, France - Railbricks, FreeLUG
• Patrick Begin, Canada - QueLUG
• Verena Schaden, Austria - LGOe
• Svend Erik Saksun, Denmark - Byggepladen
• David Eaton, USA - NELUG
• Mike Crowley, USA - FBTB, NELUG
• Tsang Yiu Keung, China - HKLUG
• Stephan Sander, Germany - 1000steine
• Lluis Gibert, Spain - HispaLUG
• Tim Gould, Australia - Ldraw, LUGNET, The Brothers Brick
• Matjaz Selic, Slovenia - Kocke Klub
• Marcin Danielak, Poland - LUGPol, e-Klocki.com, KMFL
• Paul Wolters, the Netherlands - De Bouwsteen
• Tony Sava, USA - Classic-Castle, TexLUG
• Peer Kreuger, the Netherlands - LowLUG
• Dan Rubin, USA - Classic-Space
• Jean-Marc Nimal, Belgium - BeLUG
• Doug Eaton, USA - ParLUGment
• Fradel Gonzales, USA - MechaHub
• Jordan Schwarz, USA - TN Valley LTC
• Daniala Martyakhin, Russia - DoubleBrick.ru
• Magnus Lauglo, USA - WAMALUG
• Roy Cook, USA - TWINLUG
• Steve Barile, USA - GPLR, ILTCO, BrickFest
• Aaron Andrews, Australia - Classic-Castle, The Builders Lounge, MOCPages, Flickr
• Nannan Zhang, USA - BrickLink, The Builders Lounge, MOCpages, The Brothers Brick
• Sue Ann Barber, Australia - Melbourne LUG (MUG)
• Ildefonso Zanette, Brazil - LUG Brazil
• Tania Baixinho, Portugal - Comunidade 0937
• Alistair Disley, UK - the Brickish Association
• Fernando Correia, Portugal - PLUG
• Matija Puzar, Norway - Brikkelauget
• Mickael Sjöstedt, Sweden - Eurobricks
• Marco Chiappa, Italy - ItLUG
• Andrew Becraft, USA - The Brothers Brick, Flickr, Classic-Castle
• Adrian Florea, Romania - FBTB
• Keith Goldman, USA - MOCPages
• Andrew Bulthaupt, USA - BZPower

Steve Witt, LEGO Community Team

Congratulation to all selected AFOLs. What a team!

PS. The underlined one happens to be me…