2010 September meeting highlights

Location:  Banbury Center
Date:  Sunday September 26, 2010

Organizing Committee:

• Sue B.
• Peggy C.
• Helen & Gus D.
• Marion & Don H.
• Janet & Robert L.
• Sylvia & Norm T.
• Susan & Phil V.

1. At the start of our meeting, Linda and Jim recounted their experience at their first ever Department 56 convention, the “Seasons of Michigan” Gathering, in Livonia, Michigan.  They had nothing but positive feedback regarding the convention and their excitement with the event.  They talked about the many friendly collectors they met and the new items they bought to enhance their display at home.  Cherie also spoke about her experience at the convention.  She commented how well-organized the whole event was and how she thoroughly enjoyed the seminars/presentations she attended.   She was also amazed at the enormous number of door prizes and raffle prizes given out throughout the weekend.  All in all, congratulations to the organizing committee of the “Seasons of Michigan” Gathering for a job well done!
2. Barry did a presentation on how to create smoking effects for your display in 2 ways.   The easiest and most hassle free way for most collectors is to purchase a Department 56 display platform that comes with the smoking effect.   You basically plug in the platform, put your porcelain house on top and voila, see smoke appear in your display in no time.  Then, Barry, for being the creative and ingenious person that he is, demonstrated how “everyone” could create their own smoking effect using a hose, a container, an air pump, some water and a special blowing technique.  Of course, he made this “do-it-yourself” project to appear a lot easier than it probably was! :)
3. Then we played a game of bingo in which participants made their own bingo cards using stickers printed with “bingo numbers.”  These “bingo numbers” were actually the names of Department 56 village houses and Snowbabies items.  How clever!  Since each one of us made the cards in whichever strategy we felt like using, you would have thought that the chances of winning a bingo game should be evenly distributed among all participants.  However, for some reason, luck seemed to be watching over one particular table in the room where each person at that table won 1 or more bingo games.   What is the probability of that?!?!