Photos from our February meeting

Twenty Vancouver Pen Club members (including newcomers Jimmy and Vincent) came to our February meeting at the Terry Salman branch of the VPL on February 19th.

We also had a special guest in attendance--Matthew Parsons, an associate producer at CBC Radio One--who came to listen in on our meeting and interview a few of our members for a feature on CBC Radio One's "North by Northwest" show. The radio segment about our club aired on March 3rd and can be heard here (it starts at the 05:35 mark and ends at the 17:35 mark). I posted a bit more about the radio feature here on our blog .

(all photos by Ricardo ~ click on images to enlarge)

(Above, L-R) VPC co-founder Tim Conklin, Matthew Parsons from CBC Radio, myself (Maja) and new member Jimmy:

VPC members chatting before the start of our meeting. Our meetings usually start at 6:30pm with the topic/theme "show & tell", so there's usually half an hour or so for informal "pen talk" before the meeting starts...

That's new member Vincent in the middle of the photo above. Vincent kindly donated two pens as a door prize draw. Dana won a Wink Pen fountain pen (a cool glass-nibbed pen) and I was lucky enough to win a Noodler's 'Ahab' fountain pen in the clear blue "Hudson Bay Fathom's Blue" colour. Many thanks to Vincent for his generosity!

The topic/theme for our February meeting was "Tips on looking for and buying vintage pens on eBay" and featured a talk by René (wearing the striped shirt). René gave us some very useful tips & advice (and even provided everyone with a handout) and showed us some of his own wonderful vintage pen finds. Many thanks to René for his excellent presentation!

Jimmy (in photo above) attended his first Vancouver Pen Club meeting that night, and brought some amazing fountain pens by Yard-O-Led, Graf von Faber-Castell, Montblanc and Visconti with him...

(Above) Jimmy's beautiful Sterling Silver Yard-O-Led 'Viceroy Grand' Barley fountain pen

(Above) An elegant Graf von Faber-Castell Sterling Silver fountain pen, also owned by Jimmy

Another beautiful Sterling Silver fountain pen owned by Jimmy--a Montblanc 'Meisterstück' "Martelé" fountain pen

Jimmy's Visconti 'Homo Sapiens' Sterling Silver fountain pen

That's Jerred on the far left of the photo above. He always has some very interesting fountain pens to show at each meeting and the one below is no exception...

(Above) Jerred's KACO 'Edge' fountain pen made of Makrolon (the same material used in Lamy 2000s). I'd never heard of this Chinese pen company before the meeting, so I'm glad Jerred brought it to show us. You never know what you'll see at a VPC meeting!

More "pen talk" before the official start of the meeting...

Mindy using her cool new Kaweco 'AC Sport' Carbon fountain pen, made of a combination of aluminum and carbon fiber

Dana and Justin having fun at the meeting...

Dana's bright yellow Jinhao 'Shark' fountain pen fitted with a Pilot calligraphy nib

(Above) Melodie's Pelikan Tortoise (L) and Dana's beloved Pelikan M200 Café Crème Special Edition (R)

(Above) Melodie's beautiful Pelikan M600 Turquoise

(Above) Parker Sonnet fountain pen in the hard-to-find Brown Rubber Lacquer material, also owned by Melodie

Troublemaker inks--"handmade fountain pen inks from the idyllic Philippines" (their website ):

Ricardo's wonderful notebook with illustrations of some of the pens shown at the meeting:

Many thanks to all who attended the February meeting! Special thanks to René for his informative presentation on our topic/theme, Vincent for his door prize donations, Ricardo for taking such great photos during the meeting, and (last but not least) to CBC Radio's Matthew Parsons for doing such a wonderful job with the feature about our club!

Our next meeting is later tonight (Thursday March 21) at the Kitsilano branch of the VPL. All details here. Hope you can make it!