Michael Adler (ISM 001) who founded the International Society of Meccanoman in 1989, has generously donated a sum of money to fund a Prize, which will be offered in competition each year and awarded in recognition of excellence in the use of the Meccano construction system (expressed in terms of a mechanism or a scale model or construct of the imagination) so as to give delight and inspiration.

The prize will take the form of a plaque presented to and retained by the prizewinner in each year that the prize is awarded.

The Society is grateful to Michael Adler for his generous gesture in providing the necessary funds to found the Prize. We hope that the members will be stimulated to ever-greater heights of imaginative Meccano constructions.

To enter for the Prize, you will need an Entry Form, which you can obtain from the Chairman, Philip Webb.
A submission for the current year's Founder's Prize must be made by the 1st of September

Attention... clicking on a photo of the winners below, will open a new photo page for a better look. Close the photo page and you will be back on this webpage.

(For clarity and brevity, the prize will be referred to in the following paragraphs as the Founder’s Prize. In all cases, the masculine terms ‘he’, ‘Chairman’, and so on include the feminine.)

1 The Founder’s Prize shall be made in recognition of excellence in the use of the Meccano construction system (expressed in terms of a mechanism or a scale model or construct of the imagination) so as to give delight and inspiration. That excellence is to be judged by reference to a single Meccano construction, or to a documented body of work on a theme that is represented by a single Meccano construction which, apart from the inclusion of “Standard Constructions,” is the entrant’s own design and work.

2 The Founder’s Prize is open to all members of the International Society of Meccanomen (ISM), and to Meccanomen who are not members of ISM provided that a non-member’s entry is sponsored by at least three ISM members.

3 The Founder’s Prize shall be in the form of a plate inscribed with the name of the winner and the year of the Prize, and shall be presented to the prizewinner to be kept by him.

4 Entries for the Founder’s Prize shall be considered annually. No more than one Founder’s Prize shall be made each year. If no entry is put forward that, in the opinion of the jury, deserves the Prize, no Prize shall be awarded in that year.

5 An entry for the Founder’s Prize must be made by 1 September of the year for which the Prize is open to competition; any entry after that date will be deemed to be an entry for the following year. If the construction that forms the basis of the entry is not known to any of the jury members or to anyone whom the jury consults as to the construction’s existence and qualities, the entrant must be prepared to make the construction available for inspection, between 1 September and 31 December of the year of entry, to an agent appointed by the jury.

6 An entry that does not win the Founder’s Prize in one year may be entered in future years.

7 The nature of the entry shall be a typed description of a construction, accompanied by such model plans, photographs, videos and other aids as the candidate considers helpful in representing that his entry satisfies the requirements expressed in Provision 1.

8 Each year, the Chairman of ISM shall invite a member of ISM to be Chairman of the Founder’s Prize jury. The Jury Chairman shall then invite four other ISM members to join the jury. On the jury’s behalf, the Jury Chairman may invite a Meccanoman to inspect a construction entered for the Prize and report on it to the jury, so as to assure the jury that the actual construction meets the claims made for it in the entry-documentation. The identity of the jury members shall remain confidential until the Prize Winner is announced, when their names shall also be made known.

9 The use of parts other than parts within the Meccano construction system shall not disqualify an entry, provided that the proportion of non-Meccano parts or their importance in the model’s construction is not so great as to make the entry ineligible, in the judgement of the Founder’s Prize jury.

10 By entering for the Founder’s Prize, entrants agree that International Meccanoman and the ISM WebSite may publish details of the prizewinning construction and background documentation.

The Michael Adler Founder's Prize