April meeting (on a Saturday afternoon!) mini-report

Our club usually meets on the third Thursday of each month, but our April meeting was held on Saturday the 20th at the Champlain Heights branch of the Vancouver Public Library from 1:00pm to 3:30pm. Twenty-five VPC members showed up to chat about all things pen-related, and among them were six newcomers--Angela, Colin, David J., Dominique, Keith, and Nance!

I snapped a few photos during the meeting, as did Marzieh and Sherman, so without further ado, here they are...

(photos by Maja, except where noted ~ please click on images to enlarge ~ )

We'd never used this particular VPL Branch Meeting Room before, but it was spacious and private. I've added full captions to the rest of the photos, but I wanted to point out a couple of members in the above photo who aren't in the rest of the pics---brand-new member Dominique (center of photo, facing camera) and Luc (standing by Dominique), who came all the way from Whistler to attend our meeting!

That's me (in the middle) with Marzieh (who used to work at the Perks pen store in North Van) and Bill Kempton, one of our club's co-founders. I last saw Bill at our November 2023 meeting, but I hadn't seen Marzieh since the end of 2020. In the background, you can see our youngest member (Emilio) and his father Chris (photo courtesy of Bill ~ photo taken by Phil)

Bill brought along a few notebooks from his school days in England; the one above was his first, started when he was eight years old.

The two notebooks above are a bit newer; by then, Bill had become a big fan of comedy legend Spike Mulligan.

Above: The first of Sherman's selfies! This one is with fellow VPCer Steve, who very generously gave out mystery door prizes (ie. the pens in the envelopes above) to everyone who came to the meeting. Everyone who attended was also given a complimentary bottle of Steve's fountain pen flush (which Sherman is holding), INKOUT.

INKOUT fountain pen flush is a liquid concentrate -- for manual cleaning of fountain pens, mix 3 parts water with 1 part pen flush; for cleaning pens in an ultrasonic cleaner, use 2 parts water to 1 part pen flush (photo courtesy of Sherman).

...And this is what Sherman won---a lime-green Hero '616 Plus' fountain pen! Many thanks to Steve for all the free stuff he gave out 😃! (photo courtesy of Sherman)

As you can see, the meeting was a beehive of activity, with members circulating freely around the room. Several members brought inks to trade, but as we didn't have a formal "show & tell" this month, the meeting was more of a casual get-together.

Photo above: That's new member Colin (center of pic) chatting with Steve, while Chris (blue t-shirt) tries out the clear demonstrator piston-filler he got in Steve's door prize giveaway. Seated in the far background are (L-R): new member Keith, Melanie (who attended her first meeting in Oct 2023) and new member David J . Standing next to them are Collin and myself. At the table in the near background are (L to R): Paul (standing), Bill, Phil, Amy, newcomer Nance, and Marzieh.

Above: Jessica (standing closest to Sherman) brought along an assortment of wonderful fountain pens to sell... and she also gave out some free pens! Thank you, Jessica, for your generosity, and the gorgeous Penlux 'Grande Masterpiece' "Blue Swirl" fountain pen I bought from you! 😃 In the foreground are brand-new member Angela (blue-striped sweater), Asifa (pink-striped top, talking to Jerred), David C. (black leather jacket) and Rene (wearing a bright blue Pokémon Psyduck tee).

(Left to right) Amy talking to David C, Steve and I conversing, and Trevor chatting with Angela (photo courtesy of Marzieh).

Bill (inspecting a pen), with Jerred and Sherman (photo courtesy of Marzieh)

Above: Sherman snapped a photo of the pens (mostly short/pocket pens) he brought to the meeting to show-- (left to right): Stipula 'Passaporto', three Kaweco 'Classic Sport' "Transparent" pens, a Kaweco 'Student' in "60's Swing" colour, a purple Retro 51 'Tornado' fountain pen, three Kaweco 'Lilliput' pens and an orange Campo Marzio fountain pen (on the far right is Sherman's "prize pen", the Hero '616 Plus'). Sherman mentioned to me that he was surprised that no one noticed the Kaweco 'Sport Classic" Transparent pens. Sherman's have gold-plated steel nibs, but (after doing some research for this blog post) I later found out that this model came with a 14K gold nib option!

We also saw several vintage writing instruments during the meeting, like this handsome vintage Wahl-Eversharp 'Skyline' fountain pen and mechanical pencil set belonging to Phil.

I brought along a few new (and old) acquisitions, in a pen roll made for me by my talented mother-in-law :)

My pens (Left to right): Two Pelikans (M200 "Orange Delight" & M200 "Copper Rose Gold"), two Lamys ('Safari' "Violet Blackberry" & AL-star "Fiery"), a Magna Carta 'Sapphire Grand "Brown Demonstrator" (bought with Christmas money from my in-laws), Majohn 'P138' (a Montblanc lookalike), Eureka 'Symmetry' PEEK fountain pen, Visconti 'Breeze'"Lemon", a handmade pen by Ontario-based Tangent Pens, and my Pelikan 'Ineo' "Fiery Red".

It's fitting that I end this blog post with a book about handwriting! It was borrowed by Paul (from the VPL) on the recommendation of our club's other co-founder, Tim. The book is "Marcel's Letters' by Carolyn Porter, an award-winning account of her real-life search for information about the fate of the author of a bundle of WWII-era letters that she came across. The letters were written (in French) in a beautiful cursive script that eventually became the P22 "Marcel" font. Paul was raving about the book, so if it sounds interesting to you, look for it at your local public library!

Many thanks to everyone who came to our April meeting (whether you stayed until the end or not -- we're very casual!), to Marzieh & Sherman for sharing their photos, and to the Vancouver Public Library's Champlain Heights branch for hosting our very first weekend (and our first daytime) meeting.

Please note: Our May meeting won't be held on a weekend, but rather our usual third Thursday evening of the month. Details (including meeting location) about the May meeting will be announced here sometime next week, after our venue booking is confirmed (update: May meeting information posted here!)

(~Blog post by Maja~)