Newsletter: 163 for February 2010 ACES February 2010 Dave welcomed everyone along this evening and offered apologies from Mike and Brenda (snowed in again at home in Bexhill) and a warm welcome to our guests, Pat Moon and Ben Lewis. He thanked members for their support in December for both the shows (at Lynn and Patrick’s and at Thomas A Beckett) and especially thanked Colin for bringing along so many guests! He also reminded members that ACES will not be responsible for damage caused during performances or shows. A suggestion that members will be asked to sign a disclaimer saying they will cover these potential costs will be discussed further at the imminent Committee meeting Dave is organising to be held later this month or early in March. Chairman Dave let everyone know of his exploits during January on a visit to Gambia He visited an orphanage where he spent some time making balloons for the children. Lovely pictures of Dave and the kids on his Facebook page. Martin and Nicky would be going to Blackpool at the end of the month for their Annual Convention and it is hoped that an appropriate cabaret can be found and booked for the Annual Dinner currently provisionally booked for 23 October again at Halland. Tickets should hopefully be available from Nicky after March’s meeting. Stan let everyone know about the Southdowns show being held at Handcross in February and our own Dave “Norman” Croucher will be performing. So it was on to tonight and first up was the monthly Challenge which had been laid down in November on “Cats”. Chairman Dave was up first teaching Colin and Ben and how to create a balloon cat. Very amusing to watch! Dave C. then introduced us to his very rude cat who appeared to have a wind problem! For visitors reading this newsletter, it’s probably best not to ask!!! He asked someone to pick a card and placed the pack inside a paper bag which contained a sealed packet of “Go-Cat”. He threw the cards into the bag, the card was found by the cat and matched a picture of the chosen card on the reverse side of the Go-Cat box. The Close up competition started with Dave Foulser entertaining us (albeit somewhat hidden behind a carrier bag) with his latest purchases from Kamar Magic. Dave C. was up next using invisible dust to appear and disappear a coin. He followed this with magical and disappearing pen. Continuing on was an eye looking after three pens. A nice effect of three signed cards rediscovered in various pockets and finishing with a “trick for a drunk” leaving a three part lady and turning her into a three part horse! Gentleman Stan had decided to use the competition tonight as an introduction into the world of interviews with himself being the interviewer. He completed the tests incorporating memory and observation to establish whether Ben or Dave P. would be appropriate for the job in question. We’re still trying to work out whether they are or not!!! After the break, the Challenge winner was announced and by a short head this was Dave C. who was eventually re-challenged to “Birthdays” by Stan for our March meeting. Martin had been practicing his routines but had decided to perform three new effects for the first time starting with an appearing snooker cue. It is always a gamble and unfortunately one of them didn’t quite come off although the Wayne Dobson Echo routine with Pat Moon was very funny indeed. Mike E. got Ben to help (he’s becoming quite the glamorous assistant these days!) and started with an appearing coin from a clenched fist. Continuing on from this were colour changing poker chips from red to yellow to green. Albert the flea then took the floor doing a key ghost routine. Mike then set fire to a confused business card which then turned into a prediction. His finale was a cup and ball routine with Pat. Good magic tonight but the result came through quickly as there were only three members voting and it was agreed the everyone else would come second and the winner taking over from Martin was Dave C. which was good news. Next month we were supposed to host Lynn Thomas for a lecture but unfortunately Lynn has been very poorly so we have decided to hold the “Puppets Aplenty” night which was postponed from our January meeting. Please bring your puppet friends and puppet routines along for a fun evening. If you haven’t got a puppet just bring something to show or maybe it would be a good opportunity to try something new or ask advice from fellow members. Meeting finished at 10.00pm Post meeting Martin and Nicky had a quick discussion about the newsletter with Chairman Dave and the request by members to make the font bigger on the website is not something Nicky can change. The only alternative is for you all to copy the narrative into a Word document and then make the font text larger on there. There may of course be a way but on reading this we’re sure Mike Elvin will find out for us. There was also a suggestion that perhaps we ought to place time limits on competitions but it was agreed that perhaps we should indicate performances shouldn’t last more than say 10 minutes but that this need not be set in stone. Written by: Nicky Lewis |
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