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16 August 2009
Hello everyone
What a beautiful day we had for
the last meeting at Maurice and Carissa’s out at Freeman’s Reach. The
weather was perfect, some wonderful glass, and I was most appreciative of
everyone’s support for my first meeting. There were a few hiccups, but
I’m sure it will be plain sailing from now on.
Preparations are under way for
the Association’s exhibition at Linnwood House, and Lesley has more to
say about that in her report. However, I would urge everyone to visit
this gracious historic house at Guildford on Sunday 8 November. Even if
you can’t be directly involved in the exhibition, it would be great to
see as many members as possible (and your friends and family) visiting on
the day.
One of the reasons for the
exhibition is to increase the profile of the Association and encourage
new members. I saw an interesting article on this in The Collectors Weekly of 10 July 2009. Dave Margulius said that collector clubs need to take bold
action to remain sustainable and viable. Concerns from clubs included
members getting older, how to get young people involved, and dropping
attendances at shows. Most clubs today serve two main purposes:
camaraderie and friendship; and sharing information about the hobby. Most
clubs are very good on the first, but not so good on the second. He
argued that too much information is locked away behind ‘castle walls’ and
only available to members. He said that we should put all our newsletters
on-line, free and indexable by Google. This
proposal generated lots of comment on the on-line message boards about
what should be freely available and what should be available only to
members.
Brian Pitman in the www.cga
carnival glass mailing list in May said that the way to get more people
interested in carnival glass is to open our homes and collections to
people who don’t collect, to show them the sheer beauty and magnitude of
a collection of carnival glass. He said that the thing to do is to dazzle
people with a great display, to sweep them off their feet.
Later on in the mailing list
Diane Fry responded to some concerns for new collectors. She said the
bottom line is this – if a collector is not partial to a piece of glass,
it really does not matter the value placed on it by others. True
collectors have reasons beyond ‘price’ and a ‘value’ placed by others on
the glass. Using this standard, there is ample carnival glass to suit
every taste. I’m sure there’s food for thought in all these statements.
Like many other members (all
fellow carnivalistas), I enjoy visiting antique
stores, auction houses and second-hand shops as part of the hunt for
those elusive pieces of carnival glass. There are not usually many finds
in op shops, but I have had several recently. The first find was not one,
but two marigold Swan master bowls in perfect condition. Of course, op
shops are big business these days too, so the bowls were appropriately,
though still very reasonably priced. The nice woman who served me was
quite shocked at how much they were. My second find (in a different op
shop) was an Imperial Grape wine decanter (but missing its stopper), also
very reasonably priced. The third find was an attractive carnival
decanter in the Sydney Antiques Centre, which was the cheapest of all! Of
course, shopping in charity-run stores raises the ethical dilemma of what
to do if you find a valuable item with a very low marked price.
The next meeting at Lesley and
Bob’s is our last for the year, and so our Christmas party. I well
remember the happy time we had out at Orange at Vicki and Mark’s home
last year. As well as the usual raffle, we will also be having a ‘Kris Kringle’ (Secret Santa), so remember to bring a
suitably festive Kris Kringle gift as well to
add to the occasion.
Happy and safe hunting and I
look forward to seeing many of you at both the Linnwood exhibition and
the next meeting.
Andrew Mitchell
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Some of the beautiful carnival glass
on display at our last meeting
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Club members enjoying the convivial
atmosphere at the last meeting
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Back to Last
Meeting Report
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