Sunday, January 20, 2013

January 2013 meeting at Perks pen store

We had another meeting with excellent turnout---24 members were in attendance, including two newcomers! (Rustem and Wallace). The topic of "Demonstrator Fountain Pens" was well-represented, with both old (Sheaffer Snorkel & Parker 51 Special aerometric) and new examples (Noodler's 'Ahab', Pilot 'Crystal', Reform 'Skywalker', TWSBI 530s, 540s, a Vac 700 & two 'Minis', Pilot 'Petit1' pens, as well as some really nice demonstrators by Visconti, OMAS, CONID & Sailor).

The evening also saw two (unexpected) door prize draws! The vintage desk set (lever-filler fountain pen and base), generously donated by Dave M, was won by Graham, and the bottle of modern Sheaffer ink (courtesy of Perks) was won by Mark H. Many thanks to Dave and Richard for their donations, and congratulations to the winners!

The meeting was also notable because one of our long-time members (Michael A.) is moving away this month. We will all miss his knowledge and enthusiasm a great deal; Michael did two wonderful talks on famous industrial designers who also designed writing instruments, and always had something interesting to contribute to our meeting themes/topics. His talks on pen designers were very educational, well-researched, and gave us a much greater appreciation of writing instrument designs (you can see the list of pens Michael talked about here ).Thank you, Michael, for entertaining and enlightening us with this interesting pen-related topic! We wish you all the best in Toronto, and hope that you will enjoy being part of the Toronto-area pen club :)

The next Vancouver Pen Club meeting will be held on Thursday February 21, 2013 at Perks pen store (the usual place---5844 Cambie Street in Vancouver, B.C) from 6:30pm to about 8:30pm or so. Our topic will be "Lamy Writing Instruments", and will include the full range----fountain pens, rollerballs, ballpoints, propelling pencils and multisystem pens. Hope to see you there!

Now, here are some photos taken by Richard at the January 17th meeting...
From L-R: Graham, Dexter, Michael, Rustem, Glenn C, Bruce (with his back to the camera), Christopher, Joe and David S.

Michael sharing a laugh with (from L-R) Maja, David S and Brian P, while Dave M looks on in the right foreground....
That's Ian peeking out from the left foreground, along with Derek, Greg (partially hidden), Graham, Dexter, Michael, Rustem, Glenn C and Bruce.

The Perks store also carries a wide variety of (non-pen related :) gift items, and our club is fortunate to have such a nice space for our meetings...

My apologies for forgetting to take close-ups of the demonstrator pens, but it was a bit of a whirlwind of an evening!