Attendees: Diane (host), Byron & Tina, Rich & Stephanie, Susan T., Marcy. Marcy said that Dora probably couldn’t make it because she’s been having to work a very erratic schedule, including nights, on very little sleep.

The minutes of the June 11^th meeting were verbally summarized, as Tina had forgotten to bring along the hard copies for review and approval. Tina will give the electronic copy to Susan to post on the Pups web site.

Marcy gave the Treasurer’s report. As of the statement at the end of July, we had a balance of $1,267.70. She has not been sending membership cards to paid-up members. One new paid member from Florida, Nova Serafino (she’s b-a-a-a-c-k!). Dora has had to cover excess CC 29 expenses, out of her pocket.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: McQueen Exhibit: Diane went to see it earlier this week, and also saw Sharon Landrum & Faith Baker there. She found some aspects of McQueen’s designs disturbing, and there were considerable problems with flow - there were bottlenecks in a lot of the corners. The Met (and other museums) need to learn from Disney how to handle flow smoothly. She also checked out the Franz Hals exhibit; the Met has the largest collection of his work outside of Holland.

Byron noted that the Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute in Utica is having an exhibit of 200 years of wedding dresses, through mid-September.

It was commented that tolls to NYC are expected to go up.

Diane just got back from touring in Europe (she went over for the filming of Merlin). She went to Compiègne, which had lots of Napoleonic memorabilia, Bruges, which she said was very walkable, but also rather expensive. She took a Viking river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest. The boat itself was very plain. They took off the sundeck due to the many low bridges, and wi-fi didn’t work. They only did one port a day, and travel was very slow and boring, due to the many (62!) locks between Amsterdam & Budapest. Among the stops were Durnstein, where Richard I was imprisoned, and Nuremberg. Budapest was lovely. She said that she would recommend the leg between Passau & Budapest – no more locks! She also recapped her upcoming comments (see June minutes) re: the Oasis of the Seas cruise and DragonCon.

Marcy is studying computerized bookkeeping programs. The school’s “job placement” board appears to be straight off of Craigslist.

Byron and Tina plan to attend Archon in St Louis at the end of September; Spider Robinson is the featured guest. En route, they will be stopping at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for a few days, and visiting a variety of museums in the course of their trip.

Renovation (WorldCon): is coming up next. Byron said that at present the Masquerade has 14 entries pre-registered, with 45 people. Richard Man will be doing the official photography. It looks like we may get stuck with a “Green Hallway” again. He said, of the Hugo nominees, that he felt that none of the nominated Hugo novels were really of Hugo quality.

Shore Leave (2012): Stephanie said that Shore Leave will be moving its dates next year, because Comic Con is moving to later in July. Otherwise, Shore Leave wouldn’t be able to get any guest actors.

Albacon (10/21-23): Byron said that the con only has 28 paid members so far. (Note: the con was subsequently canceled for this year, due to insufficient membership; it is expected to return in 2012.)

NY Comic Con (week before Albacon): Diane said that Laura and her dance group were invited to appear.

Dress U: Coming up in 2012 in the Philly area. Diane felt that their core group was rather “exclusive” and unresponsive, but are reputed to be very good at historical costuming.

Susan: the Game of Thrones costumes for Season 2 should be on display @ the HBO store (near Bryant Park) shortly before the next season starts. She said that the store manager said that they typically do exhibits just before openings as promo. The Season 1 costumes are no longer on display.

Upcoming meetings:

After some discussion as to various conflicts (cons, trips, Halloween, etc.) it was decided that the best next meeting date will be Sunday, November 6^th, at Diane’s. The following meeting will be held on Saturday, January 21^st, also @ Diane’s.

Discussion of possible meeting workshops/demos:

Diane will do a seaming techniques workshop at the November 6 meeting.

Machine feet (Susan: and other parts) at the January meeting

Tina said that she would like to see a workshop or demo sometime on “how to use a serger.” She said that she was willing to do a demo of the “sewing velvet using spray adhesive” technique she found in Threads magazine, and used with considerable success herself.

Susan suggested one on tailoring techniques (padding, interfacings, etc.).