Adopt an orphan challenge

[ezdays]

Time to talk about orphans and adoptions. We all know the plight of orphans, neglected, ignored, nobody to love them. Just a bunch of ragamuffins with runny noses looking for someone to pay attention to them, just someone willing to adopt them and give them the home that they deserve. Most frequently, we can find these orphans in our own homes and that is so sad, so won’t you please adopt one of these poor orphans?

No, I’m not talking about those little waifs with big eyes and curly hair; I’m talking about those orphaned projects that we all have stacked on or under our benches, in the closet or on a shelf somewhere gathering dust. We all have them; a kit you started and never finished or one that you bought half-finished at a swap meet, ( I have several of those). How about a car you started to paint and decorate that sits naked in a box, just pleading for you to get back to, or just something that you changed your mind about and abandoned. Come on, be honest, isn’t there a spot you cleared on your layout that you never got around to putting anything on? Didn’t you start to rewire for DCC, or redo that tight curve so you can run long trains? Where are your orphans, which ones do you want to adopt and see them through to the point you can be proud of them? We want you to adopt an orphan, most likely one that’s sitting in your train room untouched, or perhaps you know of an orphan that someone else has that you can give new life to it through the process of adoption. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to say, “I’m the proud parent of this orphaned project”? See it through life until it can function on it’s own, just like having kids and seeing them graduate college and get a real job, but this is not nearly as expensive.

So here's the challenge: make a commitment to take a project that either you or someone else has abandoned, and then complete it. Contact a friend or someone here and see if you can trade orphans or just adopt theirs if they have no use for the neglected little one. Resolve to do whatever it is, in three months or less. Post the name and age (how long the project has been an orphan) and, as usual, continue to show progress in a separate thread. At the end of three months, we'll have a vote to see who came closest to completing the adoption process and bringing their orphaned project through to adulthood. Be specific, but keep it simple so that you can keep your commitment. This must be something that has been started in the past, either by you or someone else. We will give you time to talk to others about trading or taking over their project. Also, note that we are allowing you to adopt more than one orphan, just that you must complete the entire adoption process with one (finish one project), before you adopt another one.

Remember, the intent of this challenge is to get us procrastinators to finish something that we started, sometimes years ago, and just plain get it finished as intended. Oh yeah, a special award will go to the one that has the oldest orphan, just be honest when you give us its age.

The Rules:

1. You can enter any orphaned railroad project that you’ve started and abandoned in any stage or one that someone else has started but hasn’t finished. This can be anything from a structure kit, a kitbash, anything scratchbuilt, weathering or rebuilding a car or engine, anything goes. The intent is that you started this project, no matter how long ago, and now you are going to finish it. You have adopted and orphan and you are nurturing it to adulthood where is should not need any more attention (unlike most kids at any age).
   
2. Start a thread in this forum, "Your Screen Name, 2013 adoption challenge," and describe the project you’ve adopted in your first post. A picture would be helpful to see where you stopped before. Also, please tell us how long it’s been since you abandoned the poor thing (estimates are acceptable). This is important since we will use that info for consideration on the special award, or just to gasp in amazement.
   
3. You can open your thread at any time before the official starting date, which gives you enough time to decide on what you want to do or even swap orphans with others. You are also free to enter a project at any time before the end of this challenge but please do not start posting progress reports until the starting date of the challenge.
   
4. Tell us what you intend to do as part of your challenge, in other words, what you’ve adopted, and it would be nice to know what scale you are working in, if that’s appropriate. As usual, provide us with lots of pictures of your progress.
   
5. If, before the end of this challenge, your orphan is no longer dependent on you, feel free to adopt a new one. You will then be judged on your individual projects, just like the last GOYD challenge.
   
6. Because we never give anything of value away, this challenge is open to all registered members of the Big Blue Train Forum, including the staff. Let’s face it, we all need to dust off some of these orphans and complete them as we originally intended, I know I do. Sometimes I can hear these little waifs sobbing from loneliness after the lights go out for the night.
   
7. This challenge is all about your project, you can have help, but you must do a substantial amount of the work yourself. You or someone else can take the photos.

The challenge starts on June 15, and will run until September 15. A poll will open after that date, so that we can pick a winner.

As usual, there are no real prizes, just bragging rights and a certificate from Big Blue showing that you won one of the top three spots. One special certificate goes to the person with the oldest project.

Please post any questions or comments regarding this challenge only in this thread and we will attempt to resolve any issues here before the challenge starts. Do not post your challenges here, please start an individual new thread (see rule #2) for each one that you enter.

BTW, this challenge is a result of feedback from several of our members. Who says we don't listen????? We thank you all for your suggestions.