SFPL Pen Meet, Oct 2015

I don’t always post about pen meets even if we hold them every month, but this time I managed to have a bit of time to go around and peek at what people are doing, and take lots of photos.

The meet was held on Saturday, 17 October, at the Tea Party Cafe, which seems to have become our usual pen meeting place. It was sponsored by Fook Hing Trading Co., who contributed both refreshments and sponsored items for a lucky draw and an ink testing station.

I went there a few minutes early with my fellow admins to set up the place and prepare these ink swabs for the ink testing station. Fook Hing Trading Co. has sponsored the entire set of Rohrer & Klingner inks (18 in total) for members to dip and test, or even to take a small sample of, if they really loved the ink. R&K produces a bunch of really nice, saturated inks which are all very vibrant in colour!

Most of the members, however, grouped themselves together to talk about their latest pens, their grail pens, and try out everyone’s pens. The seats filled up really quickly as usual, but members also moved around the tables to make new friends too.

And as usual, our resident ink chief has brought his entire loot of inks to the meet – a splendid spread!

The thing about using fountain pens (at least here in Singapore) is that we do tend to try out some calligraphy skills. Many of our fountain pen lovers are also members of the Calligraphers Singapore group. A good handful of us love and use flex nibs and stubs for writing, and that day, someone even brought a quill!

Since we are on the topic of calligraphy: one of our members (Dorothy) who makes her own dip nib holders also came today. I’ve heard that she recently held a tutorial session on how to make the holders, which I could not join due to other commitments. I hope she holds one more soon. The holders she makes, with the spiral patterns, are so beautiful!

On this day, we even had a film crew coming over to film the pen meet and the members for a local television programme. Knowing how many of the members are usually camera-shy, I thought that this might affect the turnout rate. Surprisingly though, the usual number of people turned up for the meet and didn’t seem affected by the presence of the film crew!

There was also a lucky draw thanks to the generosity of Fook Hing Trading Co., and the items sponsored (and their lucky winners)were:

4th Prize x 2 winners
ONLINE Schreibgeräte Vision SG50 Special Edition Calligraphy Set
3 Interchangeable Stainless Steel Nib Units in 0.8mm, 1.4mm and 1.8mm

3rd Prize
Ferocase Gora Black Pen Storage Box (for 14 Pens)
Brass hinges and lock, tempered glass and soft plush velvet in beige colour

2nd Prize
PILOT Capless Black & Yellow – 18k Gold (Black PVD Coated) STUB Nib

1st Prize
OMAS Ogiva COCKTAIL Limited Edition
Vodka Lemon – 14k Gold (Rhodium Plated) Extra Flexible EF Nib

The meet was a successful one and much less chaotic this time as we have implemented a new process to deal with the attendance and lucky draw eligibility. We the admins will continue to improve on the process to find the best option for us (otherwise we would just be spending all our time managing the attendance with no time to really enjoy the meet).

Looking forward to the next meet!

Here are other pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Maybelline

I am the founder of this website.
Chemist by day, slacker by night, fanatic of stationery all the time.
I write with my left hand, but can also do the same with my right hand – it just won’t look very pretty.

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