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.

During the recent Kielce 2008 event, LUGPol’s AFOLs put together a nice diorama of small city (Klocki-Zdroj). Two blocks of houses, rail station, park, biker’s inn, industrial zone and many more, including even a baloon flying over the rooftops. 

Head over to the project official site to read more about it and see a lot of pictures.

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!

To commemorate the 50 year patent of the LEGO brick, 0937 Community is having a contest in wich you have to build a MOC inspired in the 2×4 brick. This contest will end on September 6, at our exhibit in Viana do Castelo (Portugal)- Club Meeting - 0937 in Viana. The jury will be Jan Beyer.

The rules are:

- The construction must have has in its base a 2×4 brick multiplied by 4. The brick will be 8×16 studs by 4 bricks height. To make it easier, you can add one plate on the base and another one on top of the brick. The studs must be 2×2 round bricks.

- The brick can be “broken” for creative effects. But it always has to be noticed its presence.

- It’s not mandatory that you use the brick laying down like the example.

- The creation may exceed the size of the brick (horizontal and vertical).

- The creations must be entered in the MOCs entry page from 0937.

- Only creations with LEGO parts are allowed.

- Digital creations are not allowed (LDD, etc).

- Everyone may enter the contest, but be aware that you need to bring your creation to 0937 in Viana (don’t forget to register here if you’re coming!) for the selection of the best one. If you want to build a creation for this theme and don’t want to participate in the contest, that’s ok, just present it in the Moc entry Page from 0937.

-Every situation not predicted will be solved by the Forum 0937 Moderators. (myself included)

• If you have any doubt you can post them here.
• Here are some of the entries for the contest.

The 1st Tomar Lego is an Lego exhibition that will take place in Tomar (beautiful city in Portugal) between 31st of May and 1st of June. This event is organized by Câmara Municipal de Tomar, 0937 Community, Casa Martins and Rial. Come see it and have fun!

More info in the oficial page.

One month ago, we’ve informed you that the Truck Trial season in Warsaw was open. Horrible weather didn’t discourage the contestants, and on the nearest Saturday, May 17th, they are gathering for a second race - time is 11:30 AM, and the place as usual: Szczesliwicki Park, near the bridge at Usypiskowa street. Just like before, we invite everyone who wants to see the most sophisticated model of trucks being tested on various obstacles. This time, this event will be special to us too - the Klocki staff, represented by my humble person, will participate the race “behind the steering wheel” of a brand new model of Star 266.

Keep your fingers crossed for us, or even better - come to support us!

This edition of LEGO Ambassador program will have a different selection stage that the previus ones. Yesterday LEGo abbounced the new rules:

Hello LEGO Enthusiasts,

You may have noticed already that the selection process for the LEGO Ambassador Program will be slightly different this year. In the past we’ve selected LEGO Ambassadors based on individual applications, which meant that the program was built on a very individual basis. Now we would like to make the process more broad reaching and transparent for all members of the AFOL community. Therefore the selection of LEGO Ambassadors will be based on nominations from your clubs. In this way we give more people an opportunity to have a say in who’s name gets put in the pot for the selection process.

Who’s allowed to nominate?

• Any AFOL Community Group (online or on the map) will have the opportunity to submit nominations from their group (up to 3 people if they so choose). Not everyone can be selected for the program as we’ll still only have around 30 people when all is said and done. Each club can only have one person selected from that club.
• If you choose to submit a nomination it does not mean that your candidate will be chosen, but it does mean that your group will have just as much an opportunity to get involved in having a direct representative in the LEGO Ambassador Program. We will try to get a diverse group of people who are able to represent the whole AFOL community as good as possible.
• Groups can certainly nominate someone already in the Ambassador Program, but from now on the program will have a two term limit in order to have more room for people to be involved. After a term out of the program, a previous Ambassador can be re-nominated.
• A group that submits a nomination for the LEGO Ambassador program should be established and known within the LEGO Community.

What should a nomination have in it?

• Name and age of the nominee.
• Where is the nominee from?
• Which Group does this nominee represent?
• Does this person consent to being nominated (Please do not submit a nomination on behalf of someone you have not discussed with beforehand).
• Explanation of who the nominees are, what their activities are, and why they would be a good representative of their community (at least 3 testimonials from members of nominating group are required)
• Key interests of the nominee (themes, building styles, and some examples of their building)

When is the Nomination Due?

May 24, 2008 by midnight GMT. If a nomination is received after this time it will be automatically rejected.

Who Should the Nominations be sent too?

nominations@LEGO.com

What might a LEGO Ambassador be committing too?

• In depth discussion with other like minded LEGO Fans.
• An opportunity to speak with LEGO Group representatives on what is important to the AFOL communitiy.
• Occasional opportunities to give feedback on upcoming ideas for different parts of the LEGO Group (require NDA).
• A chance to submit their own ideas and ideas from the communities they represent on what they would like to see from the LEGO Group.
• Participation in projects which support the community like helping rebuild LEGOfan.org and many other community related projects.

From the 2008/09 cycle, LEGO Ambassadors will not be required to sign an NDA to join the program, but in the interest of the community, LEGO Ambassadors will be invited to give feedback on development projects which will require signing of an NDA. Discussions related to development projects will happen in a separate “top secret forum” for those who decide to sign an NDA. All discussions in the general LEGO Ambassador forum can and should be shared with the community. The decision on whether or not to take part in secret projects is up to the individual Ambassadors.

Another new aspect in the process will be that starting with this next cycle Ambassadors will only be able to serve for two consecutive terms. Current Ambassadors will not have their previous terms counted against them, and if chosen by their communities to apply for the program can serve for two more terms.

This next session of the Ambassador Program will last approximately one year.

Thank you all. Your nominations are very valuable for helping the LEGO Community Team choose the next round of LEGO Ambassadors.

Tormod, Jan, Steve The LEGO Community Team

… and scorching desert, which turned out to be sort of cold, actually, the Truck Trial maniacs participated first GP Mazovia race yesterday. Seven contestants plus two additional vehicles sum up to a very good attendance. The winner was the beautiful and technically sophisticated Oshkosh MTVR by Duke, with Smyk’s Man and Aro_kal’s Star 844 right behind.

From Left - Lomero, Pietruch, Smyk, Duke, Aro_kal, Richard i Pixel

We have fought against moisture, cold and sand through five sections, which was a really hard beginning for all the vehicles. What are our conclusions? First - the heaviest, nearly 3.5 kg heavy model has won, which means that being heavy can be used as an advantage. Second - the victorious model was powered by two PF XL motors, but it barely won against two other, RC-powered trucks. Apparently RC motors are not so useless agains the Power Functions motors, and well designed RC-powered models are still quite dangerous. Third - it seems that bigger wheels don’t mean better outcome. The winner had wheels with radius over 9 cm, but right behind him was a truck with seemingly useless 8880 wheels, and the other big-wheeler won fourth position.

All these conclusions may be confirmed, or not, by the next edition of the race, which is planned for May 17th.

A harsh life of a shivering editor

Saturday, April 19th, is when the Truck Trial season opens in Warsaw. In the Szczesliwicki Park at Ochota, the first edition of GP Mazovia is about to begin at 11:30 AM, at Usypiskowa street. At least six crews are expected to participate the race, so if you happen to be around, feel invited to join us and see one of the most sophisticated Technic models in Poland.

Wooo-hoo! If you are reading this, you probably realized then Klocki moved from blox.pl to our own domain and server: e-klocki.com. Welcome!

With a new platform, we got a lot of new exciting feature for you, let me name a few:

• We are now fully bilingual. So bilingual, that you won’t notice at all! No more scrolling to see english part of the post. Everything is translated: posts, links, RSS feeds, static pages. Even comments can be translated, but this is up to you. Read more about our language features here.
• We now can have multiple categories for a post (we’re still working hard to re-tag old posts, it just takes time)
• We support user avatars, via gravatar.com (sign up there, we will show your avatar next to your comment)
• We have weekly polls, new layout and logo, WYSIWG commenting system and more. Explore the blog and see for yourself (and please report if something does not work yet…)

We hope the new platform will allow us to provide much better experience for users and maybe attract some more readers. By the way, if you are new to Klocki, head over to our new About section and meet the team!

I would like to thank beta testers for their help and apologize for the lack of new post lately, now you know what we were doing…