Louisville Convention A Success
By Brian Pitman, September 2010
If you weren’t at the ICGA Annual Convention this past July, you really missed something good. Well over 100 members attended the convention and banquet and over 200 people were in the audience for the John & Ruth Phillips Collection Auction that brought in more than $300,000. Ruth smiled as her fantastic Farmyard Bowl went for $19,000 and the ICGA Board of Directors smiled as we saw more of our members in one convention than had attended in more than a decade. To the many of you who were in Louisville, thank you very much! You made my year!!
A big thanks to John and Ruth for giving us such a fabulous auction, and to Jim and Jan Seeck for not only being a ton of fun at the convention, but for doing an excellent job of selling the auction. The conditions at the hotel were adverse on occasion, but these two can roll with the punches and keep genuine smiles on their faces at the same time!
Our program this year was brilliant. Ron Britt truly educated everyone in the room when he deftly illustrated the many differences between all the variations of Peacock and Urn (and I mean MANY). Tom Mordini gave the display room seminar, which covered all the bases with peacock patterns, but also created several smiles with some humorous pictures. Stacy and Des Wills had a roomful of tears when their banquet speech was done, as they not only shared a great deal of their personal history and some beautiful green glass with us, they gave a wonderful tribute to many collectors who are no longer with us (including Dale Matheny, who passed away on the Friday morning of the convention.) You all did a fantastic job bringing us the foundation of a great carnival glass convention, and we thank you for that!
Ted Meeker organized the display room, bringing dozens and dozens of his own pieces as well, with setup help from Roger Dunham and Don Chamberlain.) Lee Markley was joined by Eunice Booker, Barb Chamberlain and Linda Dunham to man our very busy registration desk (in Lee’s hotel room, as it should be.) Fred Stone organized our Silent Auction. You guys are the workhorses of the convention, and your efforts are literally appreciated by everyone who attends. Thank you very much for giving up part of your convention time to take care of so many.
Ron and Bert Doubler ran this year’s hospitality room. And boy did they! Many at the convention would have their lunch and dinner in the hospitality room, and these two (with help from Pattie Harris and so many others) made sure that there was plenty of food and drink to go around (and a nice place to sit and enjoy!) The entire hospitality crew is one of the most loved groups at any ICGA convention, and that was no different this year. Thanks to all of you!!
And finally, I want to thank the ICGA Board of Directors and Officers for putting in a great deal of effort to execute one of the most successful conventions for ICGA. But even moreso, I want to thank them for working overtime to put together the 2011 Annual Convention already!! Yep, 2011 is set, and I am going to share those details with you now!
The ICGA 2011 Annual Convention will take place at the Crowne Plaza in St. Louis on July 13-16, 2011. It will feature the Auction of the GORGEOUS Darlene Grogan collection! That’s right, we will be having some of the best California carnival glass to hit the auction circuit in many years. For those of you who know what Darlene has, you know that you need to make your plans now. For those of you who don’t know, you are gonna be SO blown away when you do see it! Jim Seeck has done another fantastic job landing us a high caliber auction!
Our display room for next year will be Advertising Pieces in which the advertising is in the mold. Don Chamberlain will be coordinating the display room, and he has already unearthed some pretty big surprises to show all of you. Our banquet seminar will be Bob and Sherry Cyza, whose collection is an eclectic mix of awesome! Dave Drabing will also be doing a seminar on candlesticks that can’t be missed (because, as you know, Dave is Mr. Candlestick.)
Now of course, there are many surprises left to be revealed (mwuhahahaha!), but this will at least give you the basic reasons to attend. Will we see you in St. Louis??