BAZINGA

Always enjoy seeing and reading your troops and Happy Birthday! Bart

Yup! There has not been a bad one yet! Bart

Congratulations on those first troop! Looks like you had a great time and the photos are great too! Bart

Troop 20: Humboldt "Boldt Con" June 29, 2024 / another meet and greet and raised funds for the Pattison Children's Hospital. This was our first troop at this small town event and furthest I've travelled yet to one. It was our Canada Day long weekend so we were short on staff however we usually make it work and three of us had fun doing it! The organizer was very happy we were there and told us that the presents of the 501st at his event has given their little collectable con legitimacy. One of our members (Mara Jade among others) showed up this day as someone else completely from another genre and in another area of the con. A turncoat or just some kind of different and po'd Sith happening here? She had a great costume though either way! Photo by Douglas Brecht (our local Ben Kenobi) All photos below by @GilesWoodward. Trying to do my best impersonation of the trooper on the banner... I do think I am better looking... Nasty creatures those Jawa. Let go of it! Me drawn as Han Solo during his transformation to a TK. I had a blast talking with the artist during this. She said she has never done a stormtrooper before. It has given me an idea for a future project. Sure it may be considered contraband to some but it's still what I grew up with and love. Next troop is July 20 and that is the local one for me! WooHoo, a five minute drive! Bart

What Nairy said. The stormtrooper gets a lot of love. Lot's of people want photos, "just with the stormtrooper" and they always like to interact with the TK. Being a TK you always look cool no matter what you are doing and you can get away with doing a lot of things! Bart

Congratulations! Bart

Troop 19: Collectimania Meet and Greet. 15Jun24. These photos from Eric Sali one of our members in the Mando Merchs. Third time for this little event. We did it as a meet and greet as we try again to recruit members in the capital city of the province. There are currently no members and we could really use the help on the ground there! The venue this time was in a mall and we are 99% sure there was no A/C going. It was a tad warm even without the armor on. I think the first time ever the sweat was running down the inside of my shoulder bells! Come for the collecting, stay for the mania! I thought the droid would be bigger.... My partner in good (and bad) deeds. @GilesWoodward Always on the look out for some suitable off-duty clothing. A jersey. Maybe a hint for @jsilvius and @revlimiter perhaps... No wild stories for the most part in this one. I did have a lady grab my arm and yank me closer for a photo. Almost pulled me off my feet since I wasn't expecting it! Also got one or two leg hugs from some kids. Just as we were packing up we spent a good amount of time in conversation with a guy who seemed quite enthralled with the idea of the 501st so we are hoping that on a follow up contact with him maybe he will be that new member we've been looking for. We are going to try and recruit handlers too so we can lead them into joining up later on. We'll get then one way or another! Two weeks to the next troop. It will be a new one for some of us and the furthest yet I will travel at about 4.5 hours away. There may be a parade involved for added fun! Bart

Would never catch me on that bridge!! Bart

Congrats! Bart

I have an AP kit and helmet and I have to wear glasses in the bucket too. So between the battery and the fans and glasses it is a bit of a performance to get it on and off however I manage it. I had to add padding in all sorts of places to keep my nose from rubbing against the inside and I had to adjust the top padding to get it to sit fairly decent on my head and let me see out the best I could. It's not pretty inside, but it will works and it is totally okay to go that route of padding in and out to get the fit feeling good. Bart

Congrats on your first troop and then ending up on the big screen! I know you had a blast! Bart

Troop 17 and 18: Saskatoon Fan Expo supporting Make-A-Wish. May 4 and 5, 2024. This is my first anniversary troop! A lot has happened in the last year with more troops than I ever thought I could get to in a year. A year ago at this expo I was terrified to get into that costume and troop around in public. Even standing in the photobooth was intimidating. Now I regularly wear it for 3+ hours in a stretch, walk around in crowds without a handler and generally am reminded by officers that, "I'm not at my post." (which isn't true, I'm always where I should be when I said I would be). I can actually see quite well wearing the bucket even with my bad left eye. I could stand to have the bucket a bit lower, but my glasses don't fit as well if I drop it too much. I did have a kid hugging my leg at this expo who I couldn't see at all. We made a proposal to the Expo organizers about what we could do for them and they loved it! When it was all over they said we were a highlight of the weekend. They gave us a large space on the main drag of the vendor area plus a separate change area. We spent most of the day before setting up plus the two full expo days plus the tear-down the evening of the last day. It was an exhausting three days however we had fun and did deliver everything we said we would do. This photobooth shift was a lot of fun. Not only could I interact with the Jawas and their sticky fingers I could also interact with the people getting their photos by warning them to watch their wallets and purses. It was also the shift slot where I received a major burn from a 11 year old kid who told me my pose was just, "Basic." :-( The three of us ran with that line the rest of the time in the booth time slot trying to see who could come up with the best insults. This guy came around our booth a couple different times. He was very interested in the costumes and the clubs. I made a point of going to his booth for a photo and to further encourage him to join. Our local numbers are still small so we are always in recruit mode. I really like this photo that @wook1138 shot. @GilesWoodward is the other TK. @GilesWoodward and I spent some droid hunting time together at this expo. He's usually pretty busy in command but this time we had some shifts we could both troop together. We shook down the citizens looking for those droids and issuing warnings about repercussions for having possession of stolen droids. Yeah, we took some lip from a few people who thought they were Jedis but we quickly suppressed that kind of nonsense. Needless to say we had a blast in the droid hunt and I think it is safe to say we will be out together again doing more of the same. Finally, after many years, I got a photo of my friend and I. He was another inspiration in getting me to join up. He's been in the 501st for maybe 5 years now but hasn't trooped much. I convinced him to come out for the expo. He's also a droid builder. That is his R2 unit. Here is it troopers! It's proof of our abilities! We started to experiment with a nerf shooting gallery as another revenue stream for the charity. We called it, "Pew Pew Trooper Training". If I was on a patrol shift I would swing by now and again to challenge cocky citizens to a head-to-head battle. The player would get 8 darts and have to make 6 shots for a raffle ticket. In most battles I gave them the two darts THAT I DIDN'T NEED so they could have a better chance of hitting all the buckets. Yes, a crack shot stormtrooper. Many bruised egos and comments from people behind such as, "So there is a stormtrooper that can actually hit the target." Well duh. That was a lot of fun. I made sure everyone in our clubs knew about it too! haha We don't usually do a buckets off photo so when they decided we should I had to quickly un-screw my head, which is a performance in itself, but I got it off in time for the photo. We're missing four people here that couldn't be around for day 2. It's about 3/4rds of our Saskatchewan crew that came out for the expo. So much fun with this group! Some media that has come up: https://www.facebook.com/reel/376837368038015 Starting at at 3:25: There is a bit of dry spell for troops again now. Likely not going to have more until June unless something pops up suddenly. Bart

Troop 16: "The Empire Strikes Back" movie night supporting the Schizophrenia Society of Saskatchewan . May 2, 2024. I missed this one last year when they played 'A New Hope" I was still struggling with the vision after the eye surgery. I was able to tie it in this year with the Fan Expo a couple of days later. One of my friends recently had their adult son diagnosed with Schizophrenia so this was a good way to support them as well. The friend is currently working on a Rebel Trooper costume so perhaps next year he will be involved too. I'm a bit disappointed he didn't fall in line with the empire, but will welcome the additional target friend/trooper at the events. Not much to do at this one. We had a major weather shift the night previous so my sinuses were screaming bloody murder the entire time. An hour is what was required and that's what we did. I would have liked to stick around to see the movie however we would have missed the first 20 minutes getting changed out of costume and some of us hadn't had a chance to eat yet so we went for food instead. They had us on the stage and the crowd could come up for photos and conversation if they so desired. There wasn't enough room in the lobby for all of us and not create a traffic problem with photo taking. It was kinda cool just with the black stage as a backdrop and because our change area was backstage we could hear the beginning of the movie real well when it started! @GilesWoodward was a spy this night. He wore his newly approved pilot costume. He gleaned important information on the rebellion from the two on the right... Bart

6 for 6 would probably not be in the cards for me. I don't think my back and feet would take it. Good on you for pulling that off! Enjoy the hockey! Bart

So tired! Did my first 3 troops in 4 days this past weekend which also included setting up and tearing down our largest booth ever for the Expo two day troop. Totally get the tired part and I didn't have any "units" in me to make it worse! :-; Bart