Upcoming Meeting: Feb. 13, 2019

Join us on February 13 for our next Ring 216 meeting featuring a pre-meeting workshop, awards ceremony, raffle, and small group performances.

We hope you can get away from your significant other for a few hours on Wednesday, February 13, and spend it with your family in magic. Here's our agenda:

• Awards ceremony honoring the winners of last year's competitions.
• Small group performances with feedback. Attendees will be divided into groups of 3-4, and then everybody will have the opportunity to perform a short trick, sleight, or script in order to receive constructive feedback from the group. This is the perfect way to get help and ideas from your fellow magicians in a low-stress environment.
• For whatever time remaining, we'll have casual time to catch up and share ideas and thoughts.

This is a great opportunity to re-connect with your friends, honor our award winners, learn something new, and enjoy some fun magic.

Pre-Meeting Workshop
We are thinking about holding an informal, free workshop before our February meeting to discuss a routine we learned at the recent Greg Wilson lecture/workshop. The workshop will run from 6:30–7:15 p.m. on February 13.

If at least 5-6 people will commit to attending, then we will host the workshop. Otherwise, we will schedule a workshop for a future date. Please send an email to let us know if you will attend, and let us know what you would like to discuss.

2019 Annual Message from the Ring 216 President

Dear Ring 216 Members and Friends,

What an amazing year for magic 2018 was! In this annual president's message, I'd like to reflect on what happened last year and look ahead to 2019.

In 2018, we again hosted some amazing lecturers: John Carney in January, Michael Feldman in March, David Gerard in July, and Jon Armstrong in November. In addition, Peter Apel gave a fun and informative mini-lecture about music and magic.

Ring 216 continued a key initiative in 2018 when we offered Michael's lecture to free to all Ring 216 members as another benefit of membership. We also continued our tradition of raffling off free magic items to members.

Of course, we held our annual Flea Market and Auction in June. And as usual, we hosted three competitions: Walk-Around, Close-Up, and Stage/Parlor. We had some new faces and several new winners.

At our officers elections, we had a changing of the guard as John Jones decided to retire as treasurer. We thank John for all the time and effort he put into the club. He is succeeded as treasurer by Tom Collett. We welcomed a new officer: John Mosch as vice president. Gary Goldberg continues as secretary, and Fred Rasmussen and Cal Tong continue on the board as past presidents.

Looking ahead to 2019, we have already hosted an epic workshop and lecture by Gregory Wilson. In addition, several exciting things planned but also lots of room to add new things as they come up.

As for other lectures, right now we have at least two accomplished magicians booked for 2019: Friend of Ring 216 Steve Silverman will lecture on March 13, which will be offered free to members as a gift from Ring 216, continuing the tradition we started two years ago. In April, we'll host the great Nick Lewin. And we are in discussions with Kayla Drescher, cohost of the Shezam podcast and touring member of the Champions of Magic (we're hoping her touring schedule allows for a lecture in the spring or summer). And believe it or not, we're already talking about lecturers for 2020, so if you have suggestions, please let us know.

As the president of Ring 216, I want to say thank you for supporting our club and for helping keeping magic alive in the Silicon Valley. For 2019, I again ask each of you to think about what you would like to see from Ring 216, and share those ideas with the other officers and me. We do this because we enjoy your company and your contributions.

Let’s keep the momentum going into the New Year!

David Martinez
President, I.B.M. Ring 216
president@ring216.org