Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Info about our June meeting

Date: Thursday June 21, 2012
Place: Perks pen store --- 5844 Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC (usual place)
Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm ("early birds" welcome at 6:00pm to chat before the meeting).
Theme: Custom & Handcrafted Pens"--ie. pens *not* made by the big pen companies, including Custom & Handcrafted rollerballs and ballpoints.
Normally, when we say "pens", we mean just fountain pens, but I don't want to be the only one with a pen for our theme :) I will be bringing some lovely fountain pens made by Chris Hughes in Ontario, who sells his custom-made pens on his website Appleman Pen Creations. As always, "New Acquisitions" is our secondary topic.

If you don't have any custom-made or handcrafted pens or new pens/ink/paper to show, don't worry---please come anyways, and see what other members have brought (and no RSVPs needed for meetings held at Perks!)

Hope to see a good turnout!
~Maja

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

More photos from our May meeting...and some thank-you's!

A multitude of thanks to Richard Clarke of Perks pen store (5844 Cambie Street in Vancouver, BC) for hosting our VPC meetups since November 2007 (wow, has it been that long??). The store is a great place for a pen meeting (and an even better place to find some nice writing instruments and accessories!), so many thanks, Richard, for your gracious hospitality over the past five years!
Now, here are a couple of more photos (taken by Richard) from our May 17th meeting.....
Clockwise from top left: Dexter, Mark, Jim (our visitor from the Seattle Pen Club), Charles, Brian, Louise, Norm and May.
Christopher and Louise chatting about pens. Louise is well-known for taking the time to research the history behind all the writing instruments she brings in for our monthly themes (note the ad in her hand!)
Many thanks to every VPC member who has brought in items for our monthly themes; this club wouldn't be what it is without your active participation & enthusiasm...and, of course, many thanks to everyone in our club for making our meetings so much fun! ~ Cheers, Maja

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Some photos from our May meeting

Many thanks to all who came to our May 17th meeting at Perks pen store. Fifteen VPC members and one out-of-town guest (Jim W. from the Seattle Pen Club) showed up to hear about our topic-- "Pens from Exotic Places"-- which was well-represented with pens from Argentina, India, China & Taiwan. Special thanks to Brian for donating this handsome tome for our door prize won by Wai S (speaking of books on pens, this is a very handy reference site on the subject: BooksAboutPens.com website).
Note: Our next meeting will be on Thursday June 21 at our usual venue (Perks pen store, 5844 Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC) and the meeting theme will be "Custom & Handcrafted Pens"--ie. pens *not* made by the big pen companies.
Now, here are some photos I snapped at our May meeting:

Photo above (from Left to Right): Charles, Jim from the Seattle Pen Club, Brian, Norm and May. In the background, Christopher R. is talking to Louise (back to camera). Sorry for the poor picture quality--I'm still learning to keep the camera steady!

Photo above: Dave M. (back to camera) and Bob M. in a deep discussion about fountain pens

We had a nice assortment of pens from exotic places brought in for the 'show & tell', including some lovely fantasty Parker 51 pens and caps made by Ariel Kullock from Argentina, as well as pens made in India by Charter, Guider, Ushat and Wality/Airmail and a few from China and Taiwan. Here are the fountain pens I brought relating to our meeting theme (click on pics to enlarge):

(from L-R: Parker '51' fantasy pen, Wality/Airmail models '71J' (3 pens in this particular model), '71JT', '69TL', '69TS', Guider 'Aja' pen made from 60-year old celluloid nitrate, Guider 'Aruna' model (??), ebonite Guider 'Marala I', ebonite pen by Brahman, and a TWSBI Diamond '530' pen

(from L-R: Laban 'Mento' pens in "Celebration Blue" and "Celebration Red" patterns, Kaigelu '316', MB-style pen with ringed pattern, Baoer '388', Hero '616' Jumbo, Hero '336', Hero '200A', Wing Sung '237', ebonite Long Life button-filler pen, hand-painted Hero '343', and the Jinhao 'Long March' pen (one of my favourite Chinese pens).

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Next meeting ~ Thursday May 17th !

Many thanks to all who attended our April meeting and brought small fountain pens for our monthly theme. Here are the details re: our next meeting:

Date: Thursday May 17, 2012
Place: Perks pen store at 5844 Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC (ie. the usual place)
Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm ("early birds" welcome at 6:00pm to chat before the meeting).

Theme: Pens from Exotic Places! If you have any fountain pens made in exotic places (e.g. India, Argentina, Australia, China, Taiwan, etc), please bring them to the meeting. We had Chinese & Taiwanese pens as our January 2012 theme, but the meeting venue (White Spot) wasn't ideal for a show & tell, so we will redo this theme in May. As usual, "Newest Acquisitions" is our secondary topic, so if you have some cool new pen/ink/paper/accessory to show, please bring it along, too.

Oh, and no RSVPs are necessary for any meetings held at Perks. Hope to see a good turnout!