Message from the President June 2021
Finally, That Day Has Come!
I hope this issue of the Pump dinds you in a good place, ready to enjoy this summer and even more ready to join us for the ICGA Annual Convention. This message is being written just an hour after the CDC came out and said if you are fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask indoors or outdoors, and you can be in as large a crowd as you can dind and not worry about COVID-19. Over the past eighteen months, I started to worry that we would never hear that declaration. But thank God, we are dinally here. Freedom to be with friends and family (and to beat each other up at an auction) has returned!
So our convention kicks off as it should: with a pie reception on Wednesday night. Our hotel, the Das Essenhaus Restaurant and Inn, has some of the best pies imaginable (because they are made by the Amish). The thought of seeing all of you AND having butterscotch pie is causing me to shake a little.
Thursday brings a full day of carnival fun. Our display room this year features glass you found during the pandemic. Hey, you haven’t been able to show off your glass for a long time, so now is your chance. Bring the best stuff you were able to dig up during the pandemic and put it in the display (and even tell the rest of us about it!). After the setup of the room, the ICGA Pre-sident is buying everyone lunch (and if you haven’t eaten at Das Essenhaus, you don’t know what you are missing!). No idea why he agreed to buy everyone lunch, but let’s all get there and enjoy it on his dime!
We have two educational seminars on Thursday. The dirst is from our very own auctioneers, Jim and Jan Seeck, and they are going to show you how to wrap and pack glass good enough for shipping. As you can imagine, the Seecks have probably seen the best carnival glass totally destroyed in the mail as someone would ship them something that wasn’t adequately wrapped. This seminar is a must, even if you are only wrapping your glass to keep packed up in your home.
The second seminar comes from Tony & M.J. DeMichael, who recently moved to Texas. They have a great collection of carnival, but also have a huge collection of contem-porary, especially Levay Glass. They were great friends of the Levi family who owned Levay, and they will share memories of some of their beautiful contemporary glass during dinner. And then, once they are done, Jim Seeck will be selling it all via a Hibid live/online auction (sniping a piece of glass from someone sitting next to you is very fuldilling, even as they have no idea you were the one who did it.) Join us for this fun!
On Friday, we will have our Display Room Show & Tell where you can share that glass you found during the pandemic. We will have our Business Meeting Lunch on Friday and then on Friday night the auction glass will open for preview, as well as our banquet dinner. Gary Lickver will be our banquet speaker this year and share some of his amazing stories and glass he has been enjoying for decades. Every time I see Gary, he is showing some other fantastic piece that he has owned for years that no one knew about. This banquet semi-nar may unveil even more surprises.
And then finally on Saturday, Jim and Jan Seeck will be selling the Cheek Collection, which features a lot of beautiful glass (and a ton of punch sets!). I simply can-not wait!
Registration and hotel reservation information is in this issue of the Pump, and I can tell you that here in early May (when this is being written), we already have a bunch of rooms dilled. Everyone is just itching to be there, so let’s make sure you are one of them too!
Finally, that day in which we can all be together again has come. Hallelujah!!!
Brian
