Ring Report Ring #170 The Bev Bergeron Ring

Craig Fennessey, our lecture chairman and video librarian conducted this September meeting. Jackie Manna filed this report for Secretary Dennis Phillips.

We had one guest, David . David was a member 15 years ago, then moved away, now we welcome him back. We look forward to his performances and added magic to our club.

Bev Bergeron gave a report on the IBM convention Miami which took place the last week of June. Please note: daily details of the convention can be found at Stefan Bartelski's blog site: illusioneer.blogspot.com. Bev MC'ed the opening night show and was hilarious as usual. Tony Dunn came up out of the audience to do a funny rope bit with frazzled Bev. All performances were at the Theatre downtown Miami which was a rich piece of Italian looking architecture whereby the ceiling was a dome giving the illusion that we were outside under the stars. Very appropriate. More of our very own Floridians who performed were Vince Carmen from Sarasota, Terry Ward from Orlando whose Italian character is noted by peers in his profession to be impeccable, Jack Kodel and wife Mary who gave a nice discourse, and John Eaken MC'ed one night.

As of July 1st, our ring is doing a membership campaign chaired by Steve Hart. If a person joins before July 1st he/she gets a $50 coupon. There are incentives for sponsoring someone, too.

We are all reminded that as responsible entertainers we should all have insurance on our business. IBM national has an offer that you can't top: for only $111 (income less than $25,000) you can be insured for $1,000,000. It runs from August to August.

Dan Stapleton will give a fantastic lecture that will impact all entertainers, not just clowns, at the Clown Alley Troop 158.

The 1st annual Carat Conference, put on by Terry and Jim Whaples, was a success and positive impact on teachers and performers who wanted to broaden their creativity.

Our ring members are working. Mark Fitzgerald is doing close-up at several high dollar restaurants, Ravelli is a regular at Celebration, Gaylord Palms, LBV Mariott, Café Tu Tu Tango, and others, Jacki Manna celebrates life at Ian's birthday, Zoe's birthday, Jordan's birthday, Chad's birthday...ok you get the picture, many birthdays every weekend.

Our performer's night was great! Jerry Darky MC’ed the show and introduced Bev Bergeron who did a Karrell Fox trick with 4 imp bottles that would not stay laying down except when Bev touched them. Then he did a floating hanky trick called "Guts" appropriately named because it takes guts to do this trick so close to the volunteer.

Kerry Pierce continued the fun with cool rope tricks: he showed how to tie ropes without letting go of the ends, produced knots on ropes with a snap of the wrist, told the story about his shoe laces and how Mom could double knot them but he could always make the knots disappear, and the made loops that dropped to 3 knots when he took a step forward. Mark Fitzgerald dazzled us with coin productions and vanishes. He took 4 half dollars and a couple of cards for a classic and polished routine: the Matrix . He then did the same effect but with Liberty Silver dollars and without the cards! Coin-tastic!

Steve Hart presented a beautiful silk dollar. He asked, "How much money are you suppose to spend on advertising?" the answer: 20% The question is, where? radio? TV? print? The silk was rolled up in a newspaper and what do you think? It disappeared like our money.

Dan Stapleon called 2 volunteers to help with a very unique card trick. He pointed out that a regular drinking glass is very useful, and in this case, it will find a chosen card! After the 2 chosen cards were shown to the audience, the deck was cut several times and Dan looked through the glass to eliminate groups of cards. I thought he was Captain Jack Sparrow from the movie "Pirates" looking through a magnifying glass on a treasure map. Of course he found the cards. He repeated the procedure but instead of looking through the glass, he "listened" through the glass to "look" for the card. Pay attention or you’ll miss it: the glass disappeared but then he found the glass under the table with the chosen card in it!

The trick of Sight and Sound. Jacki Manna was up next with a riveting stand up routine that introduced her partner in crime, Eddie (who will make a stunning appearance at next month’s meeting, don’t miss it). She was funny, fabulous, and could be famous! Wallace Murphy amazed us with his beautifully polished card routines: he produced the 4 aces and then changed them all to Jacks (he learned the trick in Jacksonville- okay , that was the punchline), and then spread the deck out face down. The only face up card was the ace of diamonds which a volunteer had chosen earlier in the routine. Josh the Great from Daytona Magic was gracious enough to visit our ring and display wonderful products in which many of our members invested. A beautiful 6’ x 6’ silk was auctioned off and Dan Stapleton outbid everyone. Josh demonstrated several tricks and even a ventriloquial puppet that can be used to perform a prediction trick. We really appreciated Josh coming all that way to serve us!

Good things always happening at the FAME ring. But it’s not complete without you! So next month, be here!

Jacki Manna