Newsletter: 124 for December 2006 Dave openned the evening to 22 of us this evening outlined : Annual Dinner and Shoreham Show – raffle prizes for both events please to Nicky and Martin. Annual Dinner is 7.30pm for 8pm Shoreham Show curtain up is 7.30pm – any more volunteers for stage hands, etc. Nicky has ordered ACES t-shirts for those who wanted them and these will be available on the night to wear. The evening started with the Monthly Challenge between Patrick and Mike whose performances this evening related to “Memory”. Patrick started off by asking for a pack of cards be to cut and Stan and Stuart were asked shuffle and sort their pile out. Patrick then having memorised where each card was, proceeded to name each card from each person in turn finishing with Jokers. Very successful and well done. Mike then showed the audience the Sign of Four book which he claimed to be able to guess any chosen word on any page. Not only did Mike show us his amazing memory skills for the individual word, he was able to tell everyone the whole line chosen completely randomly. Well, tonight’s Challenge was going to be difficult to judge with two good competitors and Dave told members he just knew it was going to be close again. Results shortly ... The main event this evening was the Far Away Competition and there were four competitors. First up was John Holden accompanied by (appropriately enough!) It’s a Kind of Magic by Queen. He performed a flying silk, prepared for dinner with silk to candles, silk to rose and appearing glass. I wonder what he was cooking up for Hazel? He followed this with card manipulations which get better every time we see them (great top hat John!) and a little French number helped by Brenda choosing a yellow silk appearing with a bang in his balloon. Martin especially loved the beret and moustashe so perhaps John’s magicial persona is Monsieur ‘Olden from now on? Mike Pettett followed on with a whole performance around silks. His first effect was the fastest trick in the world, following on with red and yellow silks swapping places all over the place and eventually appearing as a bi-colour silk. He sawed a silk in half which proved silks don’t scream or indeed bleed! A couple more routines and Mike finished with a silk fountain and the production of a huge rabbit silk. Well Mike another brilliant performance. You always bring something out of the bag (well hat!) actually. Peter Benett “Tricks on Sticks” showed us a fascinating routine with 1 rope and 2 ends and 1 centre, followed by 3 ends and 2 centres. The rope was cut in several places but after a magical move, appeared to the audience one piece again. He then went on to perform a lovely rhyming thimble routine about Samuel the Tailor, a fairy tale about the Queen of Hearts and a great sponge ball effect. Well done Pete, good stuff. It appears we have two poets in our midst what with Reg Maskell as well. Steve leapt up as our final competitor and straight away was after Stuart’s money. Well he borrowed 10p anyway. What actually happened with that, I wasn’t quite sure! He then went on to ask various people to choose six random jumbo cards and these were handed back and shuffled into the remainder of the pack. Audience members were asked to think of the colour of their cards and suits and he correctly chose the cards for each person. He finished with 4 black balls and 1 golden ball (not David Beckham!) in a special magical bag. He asked 5 of his friends to choose a ball without looking at it and went on to correctly guess, who had picked the golden one. Excellent standard of competition this evening. The members were asked to vote and again, things were going to be tight in the judging. After Peggy’s lovely coffee, Dave introduced the magic of Martin Lewis and his favourite mind reading sheepdog Spike. With Paula’s help, Spike (who was actually very shy this evening!) told Martin he really wanted a girlfriend for his birthday and after seeing photos of Lucy the Labrador, Sheila the Spaniel and Annie the Alsatian, he successfully sniffed out Suzie the Sheepdog from her picture. Martin then spoke to Sally, Suzie’s sister, who arranged a date for Spike and her the following evening in the park. Well once again ACES spared no expense on asking your President to perform. He makes a decent living doing stuff like that you know. Well the votes for both competitions were passed to Dave who counted them and was delighted to announce that Patrick had won the Challenge for the month and Mike Pettett the Far Away Competition. Huge rounds of applause received by both and well dones from everyone. Steve jumped in quickly with a challenge for December’s meeting of Horror. So we’ll see what happens then. By the time you have read this, the Annual Dinner will have been eaten and digested, Jon Allen will have banked his cheque and we will be looking towards the Shoreham show as our next event so see you there (with raffle prizes please!) and if we don’t see you before, please remember a donation of food for Mike and Brenda’s annual Christmas Party. I, as ever, am looking forward to the musical chairs and pass the parcel! Written by: Nicky Lewis |
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