Pen Enthusiasts Unite!

Somewhere In Seattle — A Pen Club? Oh Yes! The Seattle Pen Club is a gathering of fountain pen enthusiasts. We love and collect fountain pens, roller-balls and even mechanical pencils. A collection of connoisseurs of writing instruments. A group of garrulous groupies of the stylus. We meet every third Saturday of the month at 11am in the Friends Meeting Room at Third Place Commons in Lake Forest Park. If you have an interest in pens, come on over and join us. We are made up of old and young, new to pen collecting, veterans of the trade and just those that enjoy the history of pens and penmenship.

The SEPTEMBER Meeting is on Saturday, September 18th at the usual place, the Friends Meeting Room at Third Place Commons with the usual 11:00 AM formal start time and the usual early gathering of coffee sippers at 10:00. Yet again there are 2 or 3 new names on the distribution list, so we may see some more new faces on Saturday. Michele Bullock is working on a possible future theme involving some special name tags that may help new folks figure out who the heck all these people are. :)

The OCTOBER Meeting will be in Bellingham. Not sure of the day yet. The third Saturday is the 16th , which is the day of the Husky’s homecoming game with Oregon State, but hey, that’s why they invented DVRs. Likely, at the Bellingham Public Market once again. Still, we may have a special venue for this meeting and the potential hosts will have a big say in scheduling. Make sure you are on the mailing list for the most up to date information.

DOOR PRIZES: This is about the occasional pens or related ephemera that are given to the club. A couple of large donations by Sue Silberman are a good example (thank you Sue). Such items will be fairly offered to all attending members via door prize drawings.

We don't often update the website but we do meet regularly every third Saturday. Our President George sends out an email reminder every month. To get yourself on this list, email George at seattlepenclub dot com. We often take photos of the meetings and share them via email as well

The May Meeting on Saturday, May 15th 2010 was held at the Bellingham Public Market. We had two themes for this meeting. First, demonstrators - clear or nearly clear pens, those with widows to their souls. Second, favorite daily user, the pen that seems to find itself into your pocket or purse most often.

Not counting spouses and spices, there were about 8 attending from Seattle, 5 from Bellingham, and 3 from Canada. Though the themes seemed to get lost in the shuffle and buzz, there were a few nice modern demonstrators displayed. Many thanks to Ann and Aarvin for bringing an interesting display of Chilton pens and ephemera. Some early birds arrived even before 9:30, I believe, and I don’t think we fully left the building until after 2:00 PM. Even with some competing events there was enough room for us.

The February 2010 Meeting was themed for Love and New Acquisitions. Many members showed off the pens that their loved ones gave them. This February meeting roughly marks the 6th anniversary of the Seattle Pen Club. February 7, 2004 was the date of our first gathering. That first year saw our attendance set records for lowest (3 in July) and highest (15 in December). We set a new record this meeting, with 19 members.

At the February meeting, we also had door prizes to give away. A small sample of paper and inks given to our club by Karen Doherty, VP of Marketing for Exaclair. Thank you, Karen.