Back to NSA Club #3 2000-2001 Season
See also Photos of the event
As posted to the cgp and nsaclub3 mailing lists...
Twenty-six years ago a group of Scrabble players braved a Canadian February to found what is now the National Scrabble Association's oldest Scrabble club, NSA Club #3. On Wednesday, February 28th, 2001, forty-nine of us gathered to celebrate at our playing room at the Earl Bales Community Centre in Toronto. As usual, the players ranged the gamut from founding members (Shirley Drucker, Norma and Ron Manson, and Lynda Wise) to first-timers and were evenly distributed across a thousand points in the rating system.
At registration, players purchased their scoreslips (specially coloured and decorated for the evening, but the regular $2 for three games, $1 for seniors, free for out-of-towners), received a copy of the annually updated club phone list (edited by Lisa Deift), signed the club birthday card (designed by Kate Doe) and strolled over to admire the birthday cake (designed by Lynda Wise), the special prizes for the evening (one wrapped prize for each letter of the alphabet or year of the club's operation, organized by Lisa Kessler with help from Kate Doe, Kristen and myself) and archivist Libero Paolella's selected display from the club archives. Lynda had also arranged for bowls of munchies at each table, including alphabet cereal, alphabet pretzels and "M+M" candies. (Half of the "M"s were actually upside-down "W"s to spell Mike Wise's initials.)
If it sounds as though a lot of people were involved in organizing the party, it's true, and typical of the way our club runs. I would be remiss in not mentioning telephone committee chair Donna Wyonch who made sure everyone knew about our party, Mad Palazzo who has taken over from Shirley Drucker as club cashier, newcomer greeter Tim Anglin, and pairings group leaders Lisa Deift, Lisa Kessler, Kristen Chew and Gary Sagara.
Before the first round began, I announced the way the prizes would work this evening. Each week we hand out one-dollar prizes, one in each of three divisions and in two categories, and on anniversary night we like to do something special. Last year it was $0.25 on the spot to anyone who made a play scoring exactly twenty-five points. This year, the first person to play a bingo beginning with any given letter of the alphabet received one of our fabulous prizes. After the first round, I relaxed that first to "a bingo containing a given letter" and then "any word beginning with a given letter". Here's what was awarded to whom and for what:
Alarm clock AMREETA Sinnadurai Vijayakumar Bungee cords BERATES Jillian Bathgate Calculator COURSED Donna Wyonch Duck magnet DICTATE Libero Paolella Etch-a-Sketch ETERNAL Ron Manson Fan UNFOILED Zev Kaufman Games (chess etc.) GLACIERS Gary Sagara Heart (windup) HONEST Neil Naft Ice scraper ADORING Gene Rawlins J Cloths JUVENAL Shaun Goatcher Keychain (Scrabble) TAGLIKE Tim Anglin Lock LATTICES Kate Doe Memo pad MARRIAGE Gene Tyszka Notebook NESTLES Hy Francis Orange (chocolate) OVERCOAT Stuart Levinsky Peanuts PACIFIES Jeff Kesner Q Tips QUEEN Vivienne Muhling Rubber bands RECLAIM Sal Desiato Scissors SANDIER Norma Manson Tape (measuring) THRUSTED Lloyd Mills Utility knife UNVESTED* Brenda Megannety VHS tape VARYING Ani Migirdicyan Whisk TWINKLER Ruth Simpson X (knickknack) XU Trevor Sealy Yellow highlighters YA Tim Knowles Zinc lozenges TEAZLES Evan Berofsky
We received greetings from former club members who have moved away, and Vivienne Muhling brought back greetings from that other large club, in Jerusalem.
After the first round we took a break for cake and a group photo, and still managed to finish our evening before the community centre closed at eleven.
Thank you all for coming to our party, I'm looking forward to next year's already. It looks like I have some photos of the event in my mailbox already from Gene Rawlins, I'll put those up at the club web site soon, along with my own as soon as they get developed and transferred.
John
-- John J. Chew, III * poslfit@gmail.com * +1 416 876 7675 Director, Toronto SCRABBLE(R) Club (National SCRABBLE(R) Association Club #3) http://www.poslarchive.com/math/scrabble/club3/