posted 5/20/08
Attention
IOOK!
The
27th Annual “Gathering Of The Faithful” is rapidly approaching!
It will occur on Friday, May 16th starting at
I
am sitting on pins and needles. I
have yet to receive my HamVention packet with the Flea Market tickets, etc.
I have placed several calls, to which I am still waiting on a reply –
of course the latest one was just made a few minutes ago so no one has had a
chance to respond yet.
We
shall assume
that our Flea market
spaces (N 39 49.373’ W 084 15.451) are
the same as the last few years: 3347,
3348, and 3349 and Tom, W5KUB, and the rest of the Tennessee/Arkansas gang will
be next door….again! Tom plans to
have live streaming video during their travels Wednesday and during the flea
market through HamVention! If you
can’t make the hamfest, at least you can say hi to us and see what is going on
at the booth! http://w5kub.com
We
have reservations for the all-you-can-eat buffet at Rob’s in Brookville
scheduled for Saturday evening at
In the next e-mail I will send a copy of the HamVention week so you can plan your weekend.
We
hope to B C N U soon! Many thanks!
Best
73, Zed W. Jay and the IOOK.
=====
IOOK
HamVention Week 2008
Thursday
8:00 AM Breakfast
at
California
Garden
Tennessee/Arkansas gang in the flea market
to set the floors and the van storage unit
Rt
48 in
7:30 PM Trip to flea market to set up booth and
dump
stuff
into the van
Friday
Saturday
Brookville
See ZWJ 4 maps
(N 39 50.588' W 084 25.499')
Sunday
5:30 PM Pizza
Dinner at Marion's Piazza -
Rt 40 in the
=====
ZWJ and KXM meet KUB and his gang in the flea market to begin set up
As the day progresses, folks start to arrive at the Farley Flophouse
Below right you can see Hoss and his new pickup truck - "Clyde 2"
Before we know it is time to head to the Toll House Tavern
As always, a fun time was had by all and as Big Al always says, "We left there all fed up!"
After leaving the Toll House, a bunch of us went to the flea market to set up the canopy, however, with all the rain, we failed to take any photographs of this part of the set up session.
At breakfast at the California Garden N8DRM presents WA8ZWJ with a lighter for cigars and a rain gauge for...well, seeing how much rain falls this weekend!
On to the flea market and set up continues! Soon thereafter sales begin! Yee haw!
Now it's time for The 27th Annual Gathering Of The Faithful!
=====
Here are a couple of sample awards that were given out at the "Gathering Of The Faithful"
Now here are some more shots taken while the awards were being handed out
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We were all enjoying our visiting with each other so much that no one took any dinner pictures!
=====
The early birds were back at the California Garden for breakfast Sunday morning. N8DRM made another presentation to WA8ZWJ - this was found during his father-in-law's yard sale - a very old bottle of Beam's Choice that has never been opened! Later fun and frivolity made things spew forth from some noses. Nancy, our waitress got to laughing so hard she she almost dropped the coffee pots. She also took the great group shot! Thanks to Nancy and the California Garden!
Flea market sales were slow on Sunday - but they usually are. N0BIX digitally captured the peanut shells on the carpet.
After the last sale was made it was time to tear apart the booth. We did this while the ticket team was inside listening for our numbers.
The ticket team paid off again. N5AAA and N0BIX's nephew won prizes that otherwise would have gone unclaimed by them.
N5JFQ sent this special shot of W5JCS. I guess he was plum tuckered out!
Another HamVention has come and gone. As always, it was a fun and fast weekend. Thanks to everyone for making this one another special event for the IOOK. Without your support, we would just be another non club group!
=====
A big thank you goes out to those who contributed photos for this presentation! This was a tough job as I had nearly 500 snap shots to choose from. They are: K3CRF, KD8BXK, N0BIX, N5AAA, N5JFQ, W5JCS & WA8ZWJ
=====
Howdy IOOK!
Wow! How lucky can we be? The weather cooperated far better than the weather forecast indicated!
For that I am sure we are all grateful!
First off, between the donations and the income from the hamfest sales percentage we met our booth and lunch expenses at a break even place.
Such a deal! Thanks to all who donated towards the expenses.
Also, the Flower Fund is once again solvent. Thanks to all who donated to the Flower Fund.
If you didn't get the opportunity to donate, feel free to drop $10 in the mail and I will add it to the Flower Fund.
I guess money matters are at the top of the list because I have spent the time since breakfast counting and sorting money.
:-) Some of you will get checks from recent sales in the near future.
To summarize the hamfest, I felt that the Friday sales were probably the best followed closely by Saturday sales.
Sunday sales were sparse, but, a fun time was had. A lot of new toys were sported about but somehow I neglected to make note of them, so, I will just say that a lot of you were separated from your money for new toys.
:-) As always, it was fun having Tom, W5KUB and his gang next door! Yes, I agree that attendance was down as well as there were more empty spaces inside and in the flea market.
This is a sad trend I believe Ham Radio is experiencing - not just HamVention.
I heard through the grapevine that HamVention authorities reported selling 32,000 tickets but those in the arena who were watching our tickets during the final draw yesterday afternoon reported that the largest ticket number they heard called was in the 18,000 range.
For many folks HamVention is just another hamfest, but for the IOOK it is truly a fun social event with opportunities to see and visit with friends from all over the country and Mexico!
A special thanks go to John, N5AAA and Loyd, K8EI for their stepping up to the "plate" and taking care of "Lunch Chef" duties.
Also, a special thank you goes out to Fast Eddie, W8ED, for the beer! I would really be remiss if I didn't mention all the effort that Lou, N8KXM takes to make our booth full of the creature comforts that makes HamVention a special event for all of us!
Finally, thanks to Marian, WD8CJD for all her efforts!
We spent time last night sharing pictures from the weekend. I will soon be working on organizing the update for the History Page on the web site.
N0BIXie will also begin the task of making the HamVention 2008 DVD - a collection of snap shots and short videos of the HamVention experience.
If you are interested in having one of these DVD's you can send Bob $7 (to cover minimum expenses) for your personal copy.
Bob Fisher
616 West Adams Street
O'Fallon, IL
62269
If you have pictures that should be included in the web site and/or DVD, please send them to me via e-mail ASAP.
If you have a large amount, please let me know and I will give you an alternate e-mail address where you can send them.
Thanks to all of you who made the trip and helped make this another fantastic HamVention!
It was great seeing you! For those of you who didn't make the trip, it is now time to start making plans for your trip to the 2009 HamVention!
It is never too early to start planning for HamVention.
Best 73 to all!
Keith
=====
P.S. - Here are a few items that were left out of the summary:
1) Dave, K3CRF is celebrating 50 years as a ham this year.
2) N5AAA won a Kenwood TM-D710A transceiver and N0BIXies nephew won a handheld radio.
3) KBob's birthday is May 22nd.
