2009-08 Ring Report Ring #170 The Bev Bergeron Ring

President Craig Fennessy called the Ring to order on July 15th, 2009, and introduced the Ring Officers to the 23 members and guests in attendance. Craig mentioned that Aldo Columbini was doing well at home recovering from knee surgery and that Rachel Wild (Columbini) was looking to assemble a history of Aldo's magic career and requested that if any members had photos or memorabilia that pertained to his years in magic, she would appreciate copies. Over the years and numerous relocations he has lost most of what he had accumulated. The members would oblige if they had anything to contribute to the compilation.

Two members of the Ring, Joe Constantine and Drew Thomas have been doing well on TV's America's Got Talent and had been asked to return for a future performance.

Stefan Bartelski will look into getting either a Twitter or Facebook [Editor's note: it is a Facebook group, see elsewhere in this newsletter for details] account for the Ring.

James Songster and Joe Vecciarelli participated at Disney World in June in a successful effort to get into the Guinness Book of Records for “most people on stilts at any one time (1109) at multiple locations “.

Dan Stapleton recommended that our Ring sponsor a member to enter the close-upand/or stage magic competition at the Florida Magicians Association Conference in Daytona Beach this coming November.

Phil Schwartz presented his Magical History Moment No. 14 when he enlightened the membership with seven (7) examples of Thayer tables that he has in his collection. The Thayer Company had a record of producing 23 different types and included both portable side and center tables. He concluded by showing an example of a Barbinger motion machine that was utilized in jewelry shops as an advertising attention getter.

Phil's presentation was followed by Bev Bergeron doing an impromptu magic teach-in which included Bev demonstrating several entertaining effects with everyday objects such as napkins, crayons, soda straws and pencils.

Mark Fitzgerald emceed the members' performances after the intermission break. Charlie Pfrogner entertained with his Joanne Duck performance. Kerry Pierce performed the Gang of Four card effect and Will Wortman entertained with his 'rubber card'. Dan Knapp read the mind of a member with ESP cards. Phil Schwartz tried his hand at predicting the roll of the dice in a hand-turned dice box and Dan Stapleton closed the meeting and impressed the membership with a Tom Craven effect called Name & Card.

Sheldon Brook, Acting Recording Secretary, E-mail: mrbrook33@ yahoo.com