MEETING MINUTES
March 21, 2000
OFFICERS
Eric Wanner, President
Ron E. Seward Jr., Vice-President
Harry Schumann, Treasurer
Ed Rock, Secretary
Anthony White, Sergeant-at-Arms
ATTENDANCE: Jess Cone, Derek Hauser, Ron Nelson, Eric Wanner, Ed Rock, Brandon Johnson, Anthony White, Don & Inabelle Lujan, Jim Davis, Chris Huddleston, Quentin Smith, Bob Bowden, Derrick Welling, Annette Cretsinger, Len & Thalia Swinyer, Ron Seward, Derek Hauser, Dian Thomas, Ron Wright, Cheryl Smith, Steve Simbeck
MEETING MINUTES:
The topic for this month's meeting was
“Pick-a-Trick Performance Night Challenge.” To encourage
participation, Showplace Magic offered gift certificate awards for
first, second, and third prize. During our previous meeting, members
who wanted to participate in the contest selected a trick from our
IBM library. They were then given a month to practice the effect and
come up with an original presentation. There were quite a variety of
tricks to choose from, most of which were reasonably easy to perform
and didn't require extensive sleight-of-hand skills. The biggest
challenge facing most of the performers was how to come up with an
original and entertaining method to present these basic tricks.
To make matters even more interesting, Peter Rosen, a reporter from a local TV news station, came to our meeting to do a feature story our IBM ring. The news crew filmed our performances and even interviewed several of our members.
Five of our members decided to take the challenge and compete in the contest. The first to perform was Anthony White. Anthony performed a trick with a Genie Tube. One by one, Anthony stuffed a red, a white, and a blue silk into the tube. He explained how difficult it was for Betsy Ross to make our country's flag. Suddenly, with just a wave of his hand, the three silks vanished and reappeared from the tube as an American flag. Our second performer was Jim Davis. Jim performed the mystic ring. He must have spent considerable time preparing his presentation, which was a mixture of magic and cowboy poetry. Chris Huddleston was our third performer. Due to some unforeseeable problems with the trick he had initially selected, Chris decided to select another trick from the library at the last minute with very little time to prepare. He did a ball vase routine. Our fourth performer was Steve Simbeck from Showplace Magic. The trick Steve selected was the “Hindu Beads.” However, due to the poor condition of the Hindu Beads, Steve took the basic idea of the trick and came up with a new one. He magically made some green and blue balls appear and amazed us all with some ball manipulation. He threaded the blue balls on a string and pulled the string through a box. Then he threaded a green ball on the string. Somehow, the green ball was pulled from one end of the string, through the box, and out to the other end of the string without disturbing the blue balls. Finally, the string was tied around the box only to magically pass right through the solid box. Our final performer, Eric Wanner performed the “Hydro Glass.” Eric filled a glass with water and then tipped the glass upside down. The water magically stayed in the glass. He then turned the glass right side up, took a drink from the glass, and poured out the water. Eric did a wonderful job of taking a very basic magic prop and making it entertaining through clever presentation. Overall, all of our performers did a wonderful job. Unfortunately, we only had three prizes and five performers. Steve Simbeck won first place, Jim Davis came in second place, and Eric Wanner took third place in the competition. Thanks to everyone who was brave enough to compete in the “Pick-a-Trick Performance Night Challenge.” It was great to see how all of our performers were able to take a rather basic trick and make it entertaining and magical with original presentation.
After the “Pick-a-Trick” contest, the remainder of the evening was opened up to the rest of the members for open performances. Ron Seward did an interesting transposition with two decks of cards. Derrick Welling did a card trick involving some ladies and some aces, followed by a coin & purse routine. Cheryl Smith vanished a quarter in a handkerchief. Don Lujan vanished some silks from a box that he built himself. The silks magically reappeared in his assistant's pocket. Jess Cone performed “Jazz Aces”. Brandon Johnson did a card stab routine. Even Peter Rosen, the local TV reporter, joined in the fun and did a jumping paper clip trick (not too bad for a news reporter). Jim Davis performed a card trick. Ed Rock performed “The Lie Detector.” Finally, Chris Huddleston finished off our evening by performing “Phoenix Split.”
