Minutes
July 8, 2023
There's a popular cliché, “The show must go on.” Well, it did! The National Depression Glass Association Convention and Show was held in Lee's Summit, MO. on July 8-9. Our GPHC July meeting was held there also. (Lee's Summit is a Kansas City suburb so we had to share the hotels, restaurants, and roads with Taylor Swift and her 'swifties' who were in town for concerts.)
We had 21 club members in attendance and they arrived early to shop for Heisey treasures. There were 16 booths offering wares from many glass and china companies.
Tom and I staffed a Heisey table with information about our favorite glass & museum – and we signed up two new members. We continued this year's HCA convention theme, “The Colors of Heisey.” We also displayed a few Heisey pieces that were one-offs or patterns with limited number of pieces, e.g. the Innovation candle lamp and the Military cap ash tray.
Bucky Will and Jennifer Bragg teamed up to feed us very well prior to the meeting. We had wonderful temptations of cheese, crackers, summer sausage, veggies, fruits, and melon – plus Bucky's delicious brownies and pecan bars – all together it was just right and put us in a happy mood. Thank you for that catering feat, not easy to do on the stage of a glass show.
President John Mock called our meeting to order at 1 p.m. The minutes of our May, 2023 meeting were approved and Tom's financial report was given. Under new business, our club members voted to support acquisition of a new point-of-sale system for the Museum.
We congratulated Trudy Mock for a super successful table display area at convention. It was a real highlight for everyone to view with 'oohs & aahs' and we thanked Trudy for all her efforts. John, Jennifer, and Kelly also deserve recognition as the support and back-up crew. The Great Plains club had 9 members who prepared displays (there were 17 in total) and $836 of votes was raised for the Museum. President John reported 25 members of our club attended the convention – about 25% of the registrations. We send our congratulations to the new Board members and to our club member Caleb Files who was selected to join the Executive Committee as Treasurer.
Our meeting time was limited by space and Show constraints but we managed to have an abbreviated Show and Tell. We enjoyed seeing a Horseshoe cream/sugar/vase combo in Sahara, several Heisey stems with cuttings, a Plain Band butter dish, a National soda with Berne cutting, and a Doe Head bookend.
Our 50/50 fundraising auction was a lively event as usual. The top seller was a complete pattern 395 #5 condiment set donated by Pat & Rex.
Our Club's program director, Eric Tankesley-Clarke presented a seminar to further illustrate the many Heisey colors. Eric had a full table of examples plus an impressive slide show on a very large screen. (Even the show dealers could enjoy the presentation from their booths.) We all learned from Eric's program about colors, new color attempts, color variations, and the years of production for the colors. The display really emphasized what Heisey offered to please the public's desire for variety. Thank you, Eric, for another great lesson and for sharing your Heisey knowledge with others at the show.
Our next meeting will be in September -- date and location to be announced soon. Meanwhile, visit our up-to-date website maintained by Gregg Cameron greatplainsheiseyclub.org