Idaho LUG Blog

As usual we had a big turnout for our December meeting. Our gift exchange had 32 gifts and many great LEGO sets to open and steal. After the gift exchange we shared many wonderful treats that people brought to share.

We are still working on the calendar for next year which will be posted soon. Meetings will continue to be on the third Thursday of each month at Bricks & Minifigs.

Our first event of 2025 will be the BSU Engineering & Science Festival on Saturday February 22nd from 10AM - 3PM. We usually get some help from BSU students for the event but we will need several volunteers from the LUG as well. 

We will also be attending many STEM events at various elementary schools around the Treasure Valley. Last year we were at 10 different STEM nights. We will be conducting training at our January meeting on our STEM kits so everyone can help out. 

We will be adding some more content to our meetings in 2025. The plan is to have our regular meeting with announcements, show and tell and discussion of events and activites we attended. We will then provide a class or activity for anyone who wants to participate. Some of our ideas include GBC workshop, LEGO Motion workshop and using Stud.IO design studio. If you have any ideas on classes or activities you would like to attend or present please contact Chris, Shawn or Greg. 

Show and Tell

Daniel has been working on sculpting some custom minifigure heads for Star Trek The Next Generation and for the Animaniacs. 

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We look forward to seeing everyone at our next meeting on January 16th at 7PM.

As an official LEGO User Group we get a support package from LEGO every year. Some of these sets are given out as prizes to the public at our various events. We also give some of these sets to our members based on their volunteer time. This is one of our biggest meetings of the year and it is a lot of fun.

Announcements

Festival of Trees is November 27th - December 1st, we will be loading in sets beginning on Monday November 25th. Anyone who has some winter/holiday themed MOCs that they want to display at the event are welcome. We are also providing LEGO free play and a Make-and-Take set for sale. All proceeds from the Make-and-Take go back to the Saint Lukes Foundation. Any members who want to volunteer to assist during the event are also welcome.

Bricks and Minifigs will have a brick sorting event on Tuesday December 3rd from 3PM - 7PM. You can earn some free bulk as well as discounts in the store.

Our annual Christmas Party will be on December 19th. Please bring your favorite treats to share. If you would like to participate in our Dirty Brickster gift exchange bring an official LEGO set valued at at least $20. We will provide all of the rules for the gift exchange during the meeting.

Show and Tell

Austin- 53 Buick Skylark	Austin - "Red Thunder" Helo
Logan - Winter Scene	Shawn - Rainbow Idaho

Looking forward to 2025

Once again a big Thank You to everyone that volunteered in 2024! We have many more opportunities to volunteer next year.

We have started a LEGO game night where we bring in LEGO board games to play. We will be starting a D&D campaign as well.

Have a safe and wonderful Holiday season and we look forward to seeing everyone at our December party.

Our October meeting featured many Halloween builds and attendees voted on their favorites. The top three builds are shown below. The rest of the builds are shown below.

Members Top Voted Halloween MOCs

Zach - A Star Wars Halloween	Ethan - Necromancer's Castle	Tim & Holly - Castle and Pumpkin Patch

Halloween MOCs

Ashley - Jack & Sally	Austin - My Little Pony Changling	Chris - Haunted Farm
Connie - Firehouse	Daniel - Custom Minifigs	Emmanuel - Graveyard
Luka - Remote Controlled Car	Luna - Portal II Scene	Meredith - Scary Tree
Shawn - Chainmail	Luna - Portal II Scene	Shawn - Monster Fighters Sets

Announcements

Several members brought builds out to Witches Night Out at the Village on Wednesday 16 October. It was a bit wet but there was a good crowd and it was a fun event. Looking forward to participating again next year.

Saint Lukes Festival Of Trees begins on 27 November 2025. We are looking for lots of holiday builds to display up in the kids area. We will be loading in on Monday November 25th. There are many opportunities to volunteer to help with our make-and-take, free build area as well as talking to visitors about the Idaho LUG and the builds. There is a SignUp Genius link on our facebook group as on the homepage for logged in members.

Our upcoming meetings will be very busy. November is our member appreciation night and final prep for Festival of Trees. December is our annual holiday party with a gift exchange and treats. To participate in the gift exchange bring an official LEGO product worth at least $15. All the rules will be covered before the gift exchange begins.

Still looking for feedback on our Game Night proposal. We would like to do an additional monthly meeting to play games if we get enough interest. Our initial plan is to have members bring games in like Chess or Ludo to share with others who would like to participate. If we get enough interest I would like to run an AD&D campaign based on the LEGO Dungeons & Dragons set.

Our next meeting will be at 7PM on November 21st at Bricks & Minifigs, looking forward to see you there. 

Our September meeting was well attended, we saw some great MOCs and had donated bulk LEGO available for purchase. 

Events

We have been invited to display MOCs at Witches Night Out at the Village at Meridian. We have been asked to bring Halloween themed MOCs to be displayed in front of the LEGO Store on Wednesday October 16th from 6PM - 9PM. You can register your MOCs on this site which will help us determine the amount of table space we will need. More information about the event can be found here.

Our next meeting will be on 17 October 2024. We are asking everyone to bring their Halloween MOCs to our meeting for a show and tell. Greg has promised some prizes and we are looking forward to seeing some great builds.

Festival of Trees will be November 27th - December 2nd at the Boise Center on the Grove. We will once again be displaying MOCs in the Kids area. We will also be providing some activities during the event. We need lots of volunteers to assist with the activities as well as monitoring the area. Volunteer sign-ups will be available soon.

Show and Tell

Austin - 1966 T-Bird	Austin - AquaZone Vehicle	Austin - Christmas Truck
Ashley - Tree	Daniel - TMNT Diorama	Luca - RC Car
Jake - Millennium Falcon Coffee Table	Thad - Broadsword

Other Items

We are considering doing a game night once a month at ABU Games. This would be an additional monthly event for members of the LUG. The plan is to start a Dungeon's and Dragons campaign based on the new Dungeon's and Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale Set. We will also have a variety of LEGO board games. If you have a LEGO board game feel free to bring it along. Dates will be announced soon.

A new LEGO series Rebuild the Galaxy is available on Disney+. Greg recommended the series, let us know what you think.

We hope to see you all at Witches Night Out and at our next meeting!

Our August meeting was full of announcements and events. STEM day at the Western Idaho Fair was the day after our meeting. Brickslopes and the Boise Comic Arts Festival were the weekend after our meeting. Bricks and Minifigs is having a carnival and need some help with builds. We are also starting planning for our fall events which include a Haunted Builds contest in October, Festival of Trees and of course our November member appreciation meeting.

STEM Day at the Western Idaho Fair

Every year the first day of the fair includes a STEM event and this year we setup two tables for tower builds. We had over 200 towers built during the event. Many thanks to Shawn and Jerry for working the entire day!

Events

Brickslopes is finally here! We will be carpooling down starting on Thursday August 22nd. Several of our LUG members will be displaying MOCs and appreciation tiles are available. If you are attending Brickslopes Chris has tiles for you to place on your favorite builds. We also have the opportunity to vote for our favorite build as a LUG. We have our exclusive "One Hot Potato" award. We will be getting together on Friday night to decide on our winner.

The Boise Comic Arts Festival is August 24th and 25th at the Boise Center on the Grove. LUG members are encouraged to bring their builds to the event. Loading can begin at 10AM on Friday the 23rd. Thad and Greg are leading this effort and more information is available on our Facebook Page.

There is another opportunity to help out Bricks and Minifigures with their carnival attraction builds. Helping out will earn you a free small tub of bulk. This will be on Thursday August 29th from 4pm - 9pm.

The Village at Meridian has asked us to display Halloween Themed MOCs on October 16th. More details to come.

It's not too early to think about Festival of Trees. Once again we will be displaying winter themed MOCs up in the children's area. We will also have several free build tables as well as a build that can be purchased. 

Show and Tell

Peter - LEGO Store	Austin - Mazda Miata	Austin - Bird

Upcoming Meetings

For our September meeting we will be sorting bulk brick that was donated to the LUG. You will have an opportunity to purchase bricks for your collection. Proceeds from this sale will go towards supporting the LUG.

Bring your "Haunted Builds" to our October meeting. We would like to see your best Halloween and Scary MOCs during this meeting. We may be providing some prizes to the best haunted builds.

Many thanks to everyone who attended the August meeting our next meeting will be on September 19th at 7PM!

So many announcements for our "Summer Fun" meeting. Several events are coming up fast as well as many opportunities for creative ideas.

Events

We are having Brunch and Bricks on July 27th from 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM. We will be cooking breakfast food, sign up to bring something. Come for a swap meet, minifigure trade or just to hang out with fellow LUG members. We will be sharing the location details on our Facebook group.

We have an opportunity to volunteer at the annual STEM day at the Western Idaho Fair this year. Friday August 16th - 12pm-8pm. If we participate we would be doing the tower build challenge as part of the larger STEM activities tents. We would be outside but under shade. Entrance passes would be provided to volunteers.

Thursday August 1st Bricks and Minifigs is having a Building Carnival. Come and help rebuild or build new attractions for the annual Boise Bricks and Minifigs Carnival. Participants will receive a free small tub of bulk. The building carnival will be from 5PM - 8PM.

Brickslopes is quickly approaching. There is still time to sign-up and use the ILUG discount code but you need to hurry. Contact Greg if you need the discount code. Shawn has also reserved an AirBnB for the group. Lodging and travel arrangements are being coordinated on the ILUG discord group. We still need input on a slogan for our Brickslopes t-shirts. If you have an idea please let us know.

We need your Ideas

Brickslopes has invited ILUG to create a trophy that our group will award to one of the builds at the show. We would need to design and supply a custom trophy that fits on a 6x12 base that they will provide. They will custom print a phrase on a brick in the base. The idea is that this is an ILUG themed trophy (ULUg printed brick is "ulug sees u". Lug Vegas is "chaa-ching") We are looking for designs and slogans for this opportunity. We need to submit the slogan this week and can bring the trophy to the show.

We need a t-shirt design for MOCFEST! 2025. The theme for next year's show is Locomotion. We are hoping to have t-shirts as an option for one of the builder swag packages and we need help creating a good design.

We are looking for designs for this year's make-and-take activity at the Festival of Trees. We will be submitting ideas to the foundation and they will pick the project they would like to fund. This should be a fun holiday-themed build that can be done in a dozen or so steps and have a parts cost of around $10 range. In the past, we have done ornaments, a micro gingerbread house and a micro nativity.

Show and Tell

Thad - Swords with Belt	Lori - Flower Frame	Peter - Color Palettes
Daniel - Muppets Stage	LEGO Ideas Contest Trophy

Many thanks to everyone who came to the meeting. If you attended but did not record your attendance online you can click here. Looking forward to seeing everyone at Brunch and Bricks on July 27th. Our next meeting will be on August 15th 7PM at Bricks and Minifigs.