Convention 2006 - Sept 30 and Oct 1
Although
attendance was very disappointing, our sixth convention, which for the
second year was held at the Comfort Hotel near
Heathrow, was enjoyed by all the delegates.
The declining numbers prompted a renewed debate about having two levels
of membership in the Chapter. It was decided during a discussion session
that this could be achieved by forming a UK
Branch within the Chapter. Branch members would be eligible
for all UK activities, newsletters etc but not those in the US (Perfume
Bottle Quarterly and access to the US convention amongst others). They
would however pay much smaller annual dues and we all strongly believe
that we would be able to increase our membership quite easilly with this
arrangement. (Update: following our request for this
arrangement to be considered, the Board will discuss it at their meeting
on 4 November)
The Convention was opened by our Chair, Angie Holmes who welcomed delegates
and also commented on the disappointing response from
the perfume industry to both the convention and
our members generally. Phyllis Dohanian welcomed everybody on behalf
of the IPBA and Gerda Marshal, International Vice President
told the group about her efforts to promote the IPBA amongst European
collecting groups and showed several magazines produced by them.
Our
guest speaker, Janine Roxborough-Bunce gave an entertaining
presentation about the work of the Foundation in the UK and described the
background and history of the annual FiFi awards.
Around 1,500 voters take
part in the judging process and these cover all aspects of the perfume industry.
Because IPBA members have a particular interest in the design of bottles
and marketing materials, Janine raised the possibility of members taking
part in the FiFi voting process - an exciting development for the UK Chapter.
Janine gave
delegates copies of the voting booklet and the glossy programme for the
awards ceremony which was held at the Dorchester Hotel in London in March. Janine's enthusiasm for perfume was
obvious throughout her talk and the discussion ended much later
than intended!
There
were two slide presentations, both of which were originally presented to
the IPBA convention in Reston, Washington DC earlier this year. Terry read
a script prepared by Pauline Fitzsimmons and Marilyn Schnormeier of
a fascinating presentation on figural and novelty bottles. A slideshow
of around 90 slides coverered a very wide range of bottles.
Later,
Gerda showed her presentation to the US convention. She talked about
the development of miniatures and showed many beautiful
slides of hundreds
of minis.
On Sunday, the all-day sale was disappointing: there were fewer dealers
than previously and not nearly as many buyers, both members and public. Only
seven UK dealers attended (unfortunately Jan Burke was unable to come at
the last minute through illness) and there were no European dealers this
year. It is likely that travel and security restrictions
played a big part in the low numbers of both dealers and members. In spite of
that, everybody enjoyed the occasion and at least some bottles were snapped
up.
The raffle was once again a popular event, almost £200 was raised from
about 20 items. The top prizes were won by Paul Fairburn (24 Karat Jivago)
and Penny Emmony (Mischka). Both of these prizes were very generously donated
by Phyllis Dohanian - thank you Phyllis! Thank you also to everybody else
who donated items for the raffle - the money raised offset some
of the losses which we incurred due to fewer people.
We
also drew the winning number in the raffle for the limited edition "Copia"
bottle donated by Annette Martin at last year's convention. The bottle was
won by Heather David. We raised almost £100 for club funds - many thanks
to Annette for her generosity.
See Photographs »
