Here it is - the finalised details are finally final! (That's quite a mouthful!)

THEME: Presentation and Misdirection

WHEN
3 February 2007
1730 - 2100 (You can stay till 2 am if you like though)

WHERE:
Toa Payoh Entertainment Centre (Opposite COURTS)
Mac Donald's Level 2 (24 HOURS BABY!)

** CONFIRMED **.

PAYMENT:
No overt cost, but you need to purchase 1 MEAL.

Programme

1700 - 1715: Arrival and mingling

1715 - 1730: Introduction by MC (Our very own Axl) and ice breaking (Brr...)

1730 - 1800: Uncle Bob Presents: Thoughts on Presenting and Misdirection

1800 - 1830: DINNER! Gorge yourselves on Mac Donalds! Supersized!

1830 - 1845: Performance by Uncle Bob.

1845 - 1915: Breakout into groups for informal sessions facilitated by MODs

1915 - 1940: Informal performances

1940 - LATE: Free and Easy Jam!
_________________________________________________

Axl's TOP 4 Reasons to attend this gathering:

I think we can all agree that they're VERY VERY good reasons. :)

Remember guys, this is a rare opportunity - Uncle Bob's a FULL TIME working performer. He is one of the most successful working magicians in Singapore. You can learn a thing or two just by spending a few minutes talking with him. He is truly a tome of magic wisdom. For those of you who missed the chalet, don't miss him now - you'll see for yourselves first-hand that he lives up to his rep.

He has very graciously agreed to spend the entire afternoon with us after his show at Toa Payoh Library that afternoon.

So see yall there!

Things to Note:
To encourage everyone to take home something valuable with them, the mods have decided to adopt a theme and focus for the gathering. This will help us to retain and learn something as opposed to the usual plain jam and scram type of session. Half the time you really don't learn anything at those sessions. So the first half of the session is designed to be focused.

The second half is less formal and more interactive - we mingle and do learn more. But don't come expecting to learn NEW effects. We are here to REFINE your current work. So DO come prepared with an effect that you're already competent at and plan to improve or refine. That will guarantee that you get maximum value for your time spent at this gathering! :D

SHADE
PS: For those of you who've been at our gatherings before, we look forward to seeing you guys again!

Those of you who've not been to any gatherings as yet and are simply lurking in the shadows, I have this to say:

TAKE A CHANCE - COME DOWN TO THIS MEETING.

BE A MAN! (Add Hongkie accent here)

Seriously, come on down. We don't bite! :)
.
.
.
.
.
And you get to see NING! *wink*

Just to start the ball rolling... :D

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL

Come one, come all! B)

And if you have emailed me about becoming a forumite with free email, then come for this one and you will get your account.

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)

Anyone mind if a 12-year-old come? I may not, but if possible, anyone *doesn't* want to laugh at me?

(won't be performing or anything, don't wanna embarrass myself)

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong) LOLZ!! ;)

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight... Miss Ning as bait, and none of the mods told me in advance or even gave me a hint of a warning, thank you very much arh <_< Anyways! I'll bring Magic Babe along too, so how's that for extra bait? *wiggle eyebrows* Well, can't wait to see you guys then! :lol:

Cheers,
Ning

Ok I'm sold. :lol:

Just kidding. :P I was of course referring to being sold on Axl's Top 4 reasons + seeing the S&M Duo plus Uncle Bob!

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong)
8. AdrianLee (trying my very best to rearrange my schedule to make it for this!)

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong)
8. AdrianLee (trying my very best to rearrange my schedule to make it for this!)
9. Ade :g:

I think i will be there! :lol: But i may not be able to stay for so long..

VERY tempting.

Maybe I'll drop by and say "Hi!" if I can make it.

Got other committements *sigh*

Can't help it, family man.

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong)
8. AdrianLee (trying my very best to rearrange my schedule to make it for this!)
9. Ade
10. Fume

:D Looking forward to it!

Wow, Just when i moved to east, we have gatherings at the north!!! "-.-

Okie, I going for this one. LOL!!

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong)
8. AdrianLee (trying my very best to rearrange my schedule to make it for this!)
9. Ade
10. Fume
11. Larry

I got work (magic, balloon sculpturing and fire-eating) from 6.30pm-7.30pm, might even be recall by camp...but if possible I'll try to make it after work (with my equip of coz!), hope to see you guys and gals there! Maybe will be performing a trick or two...

-Alan-

No way we'd laugh at you, we've pretty young magicians here too. =D

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong)
8. AdrianLee (trying my very best to rearrange my schedule to make it for this!)
9. Ade
10. Fume
11. Larry
12. Gordon

So far so good! Thanks to everyone for showing great support for this event. I hope Macs will get back to me on the confirmation soon.

Anyway, a few of you indicated your interest but have not added your names. Please post if you're planning to come - it will help us tons in the logistics! :D

If you're still hesitating as to whether you SHOULD come - hesitate no more! NING has confirmed her attendance! You MUST come.

SHADE

If you still have doubts after that... try the text hypnosis to help you make up your mind.
*********************************************************
LOOK CAREFULLY INTO THE TEXT BELOW:

ANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIW
EENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOS
IWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOY
RINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHE
EENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOS
ANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIW
THERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGA
ISGATHERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTH
RINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHE
ANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIW
EENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOS
IWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOY
RINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHE
EENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOS
ANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHERINGBECAUSEIW
THERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGA
ISGATHERINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTH
RINGBECAUSEIWANTTOSEENINGANDALOYIWILLCOMETOTHISGATHE

Just something you might want to consider. Is Mcdonald playing card friendly? Will they chase you out if you're using your cards?

Already told them it's a magic club meeting and that some of us would be using cards. They'll be cordoning off the area for us once confirmation is through.

It's the first thing we considered actually. ;)

SHADE

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong)
8. AdrianLee (trying my very best to rearrange my schedule to make it for this!)
9. Ade
10. Fume
11. Larry
12. Gordon
13. Zi An

Mac Donald's is confirmed. We have free reign of a section of the top level for 3 hours. I have informed the management that we're having a magic club meeting, and that we might be toying with cards and stuff. We won't be disturbed within that time. If they get difficult after the 3 hours, we can always move off someplace else; the venue would have served its purpose. :)

I've made some adjustments to the programme. Do take a look!

I'll also post my mobile number (and Aloy's and Jerome's and Axl's) sometime midweek so any lost sheep can reach us.

SHADE

Aiyah. I've got two shows on that day, starting from 6, till about 9plus 10. So cannot go before, cannot go after. Sigh. UNLESS my second show kena cancelled... (i'm sure you've never seen anyone happy about getting a show cancelled right? lol...)

How long will you guys be hanging out there? Since bo pian I'll miss uncle bob's lecture, I might as well go down just to see shade in action again... :) And shade, I've successfully incorporated mucking into my card to pocket routine. Check it out at http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...eoid=1796496528

lemme know what you think, boss.

Jack

I'm glad that there're people like you around then! Hope to see you there!

I think you must have put quite a bit of work into it - it looks very good!

Personally though, I'm of the mind that such material should not be exposed in a direct manner and I feel that any gambling routine should not be a direct exposure of any gambling sleight. Whenever I demonstrate a gambling routine, I will 'expose' the exhibition method (the weak variant - one that the audience would think is impossible to pull off even though the explaination is plausible) but employ what Marlo calls the 'master method' in the actual work. The audience will never see the 'master method' overtly explained or used. If I don't have a weaker variant, I will not expose the move at all. Alternatively, use a different method to achieve what you claim is the actual method but setting up the audience (and doing it well enough) that the audience has NO Choice but to conclude you did exactly what you claimed to do.

For instance, to demonstrate a card switch, you could just have sold it as easily with a DL (assuming one has a deceptive DL) and then just feint the actual switch. There's no need to actually expose a card muck for something so direct. (Check out Uncle Bob's Rub-a-Dub vanish... it's hilariously great). You could also use a simple Ace Assembly to demonstrate card mucking with a little creative presentation, but with absolutely no heat at all.

However, all this is WAY OFF TOPIC. LOL. This thread is about our GATHERING! YAY! It's going to happen soon guys and gals (or maybe one or two gals). See you guys/gals there!

SHADE

Great video bro. Seeing myself inside the video was so surreal haha... Your hard work on the muck really paid off. It looked really good. Thanks for inviting me to your demo shoot again. It was really fun seeing how you blew everyone away ^_^

As for how long we'll be there next Saturday, I'll definitely be there with Shade, Gordon, Uncle Bob and probably a few others till late. Maybe not at Macdonalds anymore because we only have the place for 3 hours but no worries you can still down. I'll let you know our whereabouts that day. It'll be great we can all sit down have some coffee and discuss about magic. Just like Marlo getting together with his guys, David Solomon, Jon Racherbaumer etc at Schulien's and reminese on magic. Shade can be the Singapore edition of Marlo. Ain't that be cool haha... :lol:

Lol... k man, see you guys there! And shade, we'll talk more when we meet up. Thanks for the comments! :)

Jack

I should be popping by to get to know some of you guys.

It seems that I will be missing the gathering again as I will be having a dinner that evening. I could only make it to Uncle Bob's magic show at 3:30pm. Hopefully I could still see some of you there.... :)

Jack Seet? Oh, THAT muscular-than-me, friend-of-Jerome Jack?

Nice seeing you here. You can post a performance video with your top off, I am sure that will help in eh.. publicity. Hehe...

On the other hand, I think not. I'll have to change my nick.

Great news guys!

After some persuasion (actually we bullied him into it), Uncle Bob agreed to demonstrate his Dominoes Effect at this gathering!

Ning's description:
"4 dominoes visually trade places thru an entertaining series of delightful magical transpositions."

This is one of the most visually stunning effects you can do with Dominoes! This is an exclusive effect that Uncle Bob created and manufactured for himself many years ago. Few people in the world are privy to it - if you come for this gathering, you will be able to witness this effect first hand!

He has agreed to bring whatever sets of his dominoes he has left (less than 20 definitely) after more harrasing by yours truly (Dry_gin and me of course... hahaha) to this gathering. If you're interested in owning an EXCLUSIVE set, you can get one from him.

Believe me; this isn't like some crappy Ellusionist ad where they promise you an exclusive special deck and then release a new deck after a few months. Uncle Bob's Dominoes are EXCLUSIVE. You won't find them anywhere else in the world.

SHADE

PS: If you're interested in a set, do let him know on that day. He might be too shy to show it off as he wasn't planning to sell his Dominoes in the first place. Heh heh. My Bad. ;P

Uncle Bob's Chinese Connection really rocks. It's magic with dominoes and its a brilliant effect, with good written instructions included (even if I do say so myself... heh) ;) Limited sets, so get them from him this weekend... if you're nice, he might even autogrpah them for you. Wuahahahhaha :lol:

Those who have stuff to pick up from TLMS for the Jan orders, you can get them from me on Sat, at the START of the event... no late comers please, as it will disrupt the session.

Thanks much ^_^
Ning

For those of us who just *might* have trouble finding our way to the gathering, I have a link to the map at Street Directory below.

Venue:
Mac Donald's Level 2, Toa Payoh Entertainment Centre
MAP

It's about 5 minutes walk from the Toa Payoh MRT station. You shouldn't have any trouble finding it.

In the even that you get REALLY lost, just contact any of us.

Aloysius (Mr SMC) - 90619741
Jerome (Mr Fangs) - 97882598
Axl (Without the 'e') - 98762014

Or you can just call me @ 94314170

SHADE

***
We'd really appreciate it if everyone makes the effort to arrive in time. Please don't be late - come by at about 4:50pm OR earlier if possible!
:)

***

Woa! I am free that day, honoured to be there.

Hi guys, I would really appreciate that those coming would all put your name on the list and post it here. Easy for logistics.

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong)
8. AdrianLee (trying my very best to rearrange my schedule to make it for this!)
9. Ade
10. Fume
11. Larry
12. Gordon
13. Zi An
14. Joel Tay

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong)
8. AdrianLee (trying my very best to rearrange my schedule to make it for this!)
9. Ade
10. Fume
11. Larry
12. Gordon
13. Zi An (i would like to bring a friend. He is currently studying in UK and is back on holiday. Like me, he has started magic not long ago only. But apparently he is very active in the london magic circle. so..can bring??)
14. Joel Tay

This is an open invitation to everyone. You're welcome to bring him along, just add his name to the post. :-)

How about friend that know nothing about magic??

Okie to attend the gathering?

Hmm... That might not be such a good idea. The purpose of the gathering is to give magicians a chance at fellowship and help refine existing routines if possible. It'd'll be awkward for somebody who doesn't know or do magic to attend this right off. And it would also be very hard to avoid exposure when we converse; it might make some magicians uncomfortable talking about stuff.

We will SURELY have free and easy gatherings that do not include 'lectures' that would be more suitable for laypeople who're interested in magic.

Unless he's VERY VERY interested, he should not be just a 'tag-along'.

;P~

SHADE

I never say the person is a he.. LOL!!

Anyway, I know what you mean, I take note of it.

Oh well, exception can always be made if she looks like Scarlet Johanssen. But then again, we already have Ning... might just cause some bloodshed...

Scarlet Johanssen? haha is she your favourite star??

1. ALOY
2. NING (HAHAHA... she must be there... she's the bait!)
3. SHADE
4. JEROME
5. AXL
6. JOEL! =)
7. insomanic (provided i can rush for the last ferry from Tekong)
8. AdrianLee (trying my very best to rearrange my schedule to make it for this!)
9. Ade
10. Fume
11. Larry
12. Gordon
13. Zi An
14. Joel Tay
15. Sherwin (my friend)