This was one of our informal quarterly meetings where our members showed off their latest Meccano creations.
At around 2:30pm we had a short committee meeting, followed by the Model Tour in which members were invited to give a short talk about their models — in particular their entries for the Secretary’s Challenge!
The Meccano Magazine Cover Models Secretary’s Challenge
This Challenge celebrated the centenary of the first Meccano Magazine to have a full-colour illustrated cover in May 1924. The first Meccano Magazine was the September/October 1916 edition. It was a very slim publication with just four pages in black and white. It was issued bi-monthly until 1922 when it went to monthly, then with 12 pages, but still black and white with a few illustrations.
Although limited colour was introduced in 1923 (with a full colour Christmas edition that December) it wasn’t until 1924 that the first full-colour covers appeared every month, the first being of a crane in a steelworks. Generally, the cover illustration would tie in to an article inside. During the classic era of the magazine the artwork would feature not just engineering, but wildlife or predictions of the future!
The Challenge, then, was to build a model based on a Meccano Magazine cover — the more unusual the subject the better!