Apprentice builder: Five-year-old Goornong primary schooler Eddie Francis in front of a Lego model steam engine built by his mother and a couple of his own creations.
Five-year-old Eddie Francis is living the dream, surrounded by Lego bricks and preparing for his first official Lego competition at Rochester’s Great Northern Show.
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His mother, Jess Payne, has been a member of the Bendigo Lego Users Group (also referred to as Bendigo Bricks) since well before his arrival — seven years in fact.
The family lives at Goornong and will be part of a strong Bendigo contingent that arrives at Rochester Recreation Reserve for the Lego display and competition on Friday and Saturday, February 24 and 25.
Jess fell back in love with the Lego dragons (now a discontinued set) as an adult when she was working as a nanny, having stepped away from her childhood “brick building’’ passion.
She is now a regular with the Bendigo-based organisation and will be a part of its annual Brickvention, held the weekend after Easter.
“I was a Lego person as a kid, but dropped it in my teen years and then picked it back up as an adult,” she said.
Dragons continue to be a passion, along with steam engines and Disney castles, in keeping with the 100th anniversary for the company
The Bendigo Lego group meets on the last Sunday of every month and has a member in waiting in prep student Eddie, who was among the new preps at Goornong primary last week.
Jess said people wanting to enter the Rochester competition just needed a 32x32 base plate, some mini figures and a story idea.
She said Disney, Star Wars and Minecraft were three good subjects for kids to use as inspiration.
“There is also Lego Friends and Lego city,” she said.
A 3.5-metre long and two-metre wide mosaic, made up of 100,000 bricks, depicts the Bendigo tram and will be on display at Rochester.
It was put together by more than 1400 children from across central and northern Victoria during the Easter three-day festival last year in Rosaland Park and took 12 months to design and arrange.
After Rochester the plan is to dismantle the mosaic and started on the next one.
Brick passion: Eddie and his mother Jess Payne with some of the dragons they have worked on together as part of Jess’ involvement with the Bendigo Lego Users Group. The group will bring a 3.5-metre long creation of a Bendigo streetscape to Rochester show on February 24-25.
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