Attendees: Diane (host), Laura K., Byron & Tina, Rich & Stephanie, Susan T., Laura D., Marcy, Toni, Kathy D., new member Julie K.

New member Julie and the group mutually introduced themselves.

The minutes were approved as written.

Marcy gave the Treasurer’s report. As of the statement ending 2/28, we had a balance of $1,540.40.

Byron commented upon recent ICG activity. The Board is now in recess until Costume-Con. The “Gunther” character (who makes costumes) from the Luann comic strip has been nominated as an honorary ICG member. Pierre said we could amend the Standing Rules to create a category of “Honorary Associate”. The ICG averted the demise of the Oklahoma chapter. They don’t have to keep a minimum of 6 members; a group needs six members or more to form a chapter. This will be Byron’s last meeting as Prez; the office reverts to Dora shortly after Costume-Con is over.

Toni, Susan, Byron & Tina are working on creation of a new Pups flyer, as well as business and membership cards, to have by the time C-C starts.

Lunacon: Attendance seems to have been damaged by the economy and lousy publicity, as well as selection of GoHs who are not a big draw. It was asked how long Mr. Shirt will be controlling Lunacon. Someone said that he made a deal with the Lunarians to run it (with his wife alternating as Con Chair) for 5 years. There were some comments as to whether the con would still be viable after his period of control. Tina complained that there were only 4 autograph sessions scheduled at the con. Byron pointed out that the Programming head was only on the job about a month before the con, and was new to the position. Laura said that some of her anime friends who attended liked the relaxed atmosphere, as opposed to the frenetic pace of anime cons.

Philcon: abysmal publicity – they don’t even bother putting a listing in the con lists in Asimov’s and Analog. However, it was felt that their siting of the gaming area in the pre-function space is brilliant, as it lets the gamers interact with the rest of the con, instead of being tucked away in a back room. Art show “how to” programming was also good. Toni commented that art shows at conventions are all starting to look the same these days.

Balticon (Ben Bova): Diane said everyone should go.

Shore Leave: Rich said that Sally Kellerman & John DeLancie are expected.

Steampunk World’s Fair: Julie said this will be in Somerset, NJ around mid-May, and that it’s not just steam punk any more, there are other variants, such as diesel punk.

Haunters Convention: next weekend. They expect to have someone from “Face Off” there. Ricky and Marty are working on the con.

Upcoming WorldCons: 2011 is Reno, 2012 will be Chicago, 2013 San Antonio, the London Docklands is bidding for 2014, 2015 is presently open, and there are bids for Kansas City and Yokohama for 2016. Byron said that he had heard rumors about Toronto.

Karen has accepted a bid for Toronto for Costume-Con in 2013.

Costume-Con 29 (impending):

Byron said that he has three entries for the Historical in hand at present. His judges will be Marty, Kevin and Cathy Swope, Gordon Rose will be MC. Diane and Toni both agreed that he has a gorgeous voice. Byron: Marty judged the Historical at CC 1. Gordon will announce “our first judge, and I do mean the first…” Diane said that one learns a lot as a Historical judge – the documentation is wonderful.

Diane said that Laura is going to be one of the judges for the SF competition.

We discussed two Pups activities planned for CC, the Pups-sponsored breakfast on Friday, and the Pups fan table. Byron asked all Pups to try to be at the con suite between 8 - 10 for breakfast, to support the con suite staff and represent the Pups. The Wedding starts at 1 p.m. London time, and airs here at 7 a.m. We will need the Spaz sign for the fan table, and Pups to sit there and rotate turns. Byron passed around samples of possible flyer formats. Most of the text was by Toni, with Byron & Tina filing the edges a trifle. There were some suggestions for making the format more readable and eye-catching, which will be done for the final version for the con.

Diane has prepared maps and directions for getting in to the City and back, for those who want to shop or do tourist activities. She has some items for door prizes for the Social here; she will drop them off at the con on Thursday when she comes to pick up people for the NYC trip.

New production of Pups patches: Marcy has a friend with an embroidery machine. It takes about an hour each to do a patch (she showed a sample, made using a digitized copy of a previous Spaz patch). Do we want to have some made up for the Pups who may want one? The cost would be $2 each, plus the cost of the fabric and thread. After a brief discussion, it was authorized to spend $70 (plus the cost of materials) for 35 patches.

Susan saw Jane Eyre. The costumes were beautiful, the script was true to the book, and they used real houses. Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides is being used as the inspiration for the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Diane: She has seen the first episode of The Borgias. Costumes were “so beautiful” but only sort-of accurate. Boring, though. The new TV show Camelot (leaving aside her devotion to Merlin) has lots of sex and violence, full frontal nudity both male & female. The actors playing Morgan, Lot & Kay are terrific, Merlin is creepy, and Arthur is dreadful (she hopes he gets better). Costumes are interesting, but not historically accurate. Filmed in Ireland.

Game of Thrones: The HBO store in NYC has costumes on display @ 42^nd & 6^th, near Bryant Park. Free. They will be on display as long as the show is playing on TV.

Harry Potter Exhibit: At the Discovery Store, Times Square. The admission is pricey, at $25.

Diane went to a quilt show in March. She was in and out in two hours, including shopping time.

Martin Freeman has been cast as Bilbo for the filming of The Hobbit in New Zealand.

Sherlock is now available on DVD. Most of us who saw it on TV loved it; Toni hated it.

Museums:

The Morris Museum has a hat exhibit.

Byron: The Philly Museum of Art has The Peacock Male (including vintage Mummers costumes) and Tailoring in Philadelphia, which includes film loops in the background. Tina took lots of photos.

Toni: The NY Museum of Folk Art had a red-on-white quilt exhibit in March.

Upcoming meetings:

The next meeting will be on June 11^th, again at Diane’s house.

An August meeting date was set, for 8/6. Byron & Tina will host, at a suites hotel in the Morristown area (exact location TBA).

Following the group meeting, there was a workshop on creating a dressmaker’s dummy using craft paper tape. This was a trial workshop, to see if it would work out well if given at Costume-Con.

We wrapped Marcy (who volunteered) in several layers of tape. It took approx. 2 hours from start to finish. Once the wrap had been removed the end result was quite firm and did not need any significant reinforcement, just some tidying up at the edges. Photos were taken throughout the process.