Toshi, I know you like a good story. Some years back there was a Group Build here that went on for years, reinventing itself every year. A group of several dozen guys became quite close friends through it. In the end, in gratitude to our long time and long suffering leader Darren, we bought a Tamiya Spitfire and took turns working on it. Basically everyone got a bage of the instructions, and it got shipped from modeler to modeler, literally around the world!
It was presented to Darren as a surprise gift.
You can read about it here:
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/29/t/75307.aspx?sort=ASC&pi240=1