The Winter Meeting of the Delaware Valley Paperweight Collectors Association, our first meeting in the Y2K year, was held at Williamson Restaurant, 500 Blair Mill Road, Horsham, PA on Saturday, February 5, 2000, with 39 members present.

The Morning Program featured Jim Lefever’s vast and varied display of 100 pansy paperweights from his own collection. It was styled as “A Walk Through The Pansy Patch” and offered our members a chance to test their knowledge of the glass artists who create, or previously created, pansy flower paperweights. To this end, members spent the morning hour from 11AM to noon with paper and pencil completing the game sheets that had been distributed.

Guest Dealer William Pitt, from Fairhaven, MA presented two tables of weights and books available for sale. Sometime during the meeting, a number of members took advantage of his display to add to their paperweight collections. On the Members’ Table, Stan Kruger exhibited a number of colorful traditional paperweights, advertising weights and crystal animals; Boyd England offered several of his own crimped rose weights for sale; Ken Brown showed his latest paperweight efforts (and sold one or two); and several other members added their creations to the Members’ Table with mixed results.

After lunch, President Kruger called the meeting to order by stating that he had a long list of “bad news” to bring to the membership. Arthur Greenblatt had a heart attack, stemming from emphysema that went into pneumonia, in November, 1999 that hospitalized him for about three weeks. He has sustained permanent damage to his lungs, for, even though he quit smoking 25 years ago, he had been a smoker for 50 years before that and that is when the damage was done. His problem is now primarily pulmonary so he must be on oxygen constantly and is connected to a tank through long tubes at all times. This condition will make his and Theresa’s attendance at future meetings well nigh impossible. NOTE: Should any member wish to send a card, their address is PO Box 277, Lambertville, NJ 08530. Their telephone number is 609-397-1177; their email address is AandTG@aol.com. A discussion was held about this extremely “bad news.” Members noted the many contributions of time, expertise and artifacts that Theresa and Arthur Greenblatt had extended to our group. Then Leonard Kornit made a Motion that the chapter offer the Greenblatts Honorary Life Membership in DVPCA. The Motion was seconded by John Zecca and adopted unanimously.

Next, the President announced that Greg Held, a senior artist at Orient & Flume in Chico, CA, had died on November 14, 1999 of a heart attack while working in his yard. He was only in his mid-forties and it was a great loss to lose such an accomplished glass artist at such a young age. The President then expressed his opinion that Ann Miller was no longer operating George Kamm Paperweights and would probably not appear at future DVPCA meetings. This leaves the group without a resident dealer and explains the presence of William Pitt, who is a PCA-registered dealer. Indeed, the President hoped that Bill would be willing to return to future meetings, and urged members to do their part in depleting Bill’s stock.

Elections will be held in October, 2000. The President and the Vice President, Lee Kvalnes, are willing to stand for a third term, as permitted by the By-Laws; however, (more “bad news”) Secretary Dottie Shaddinger and Treasurer Andy Dohan are not. The latter two will have been in their positions for eight years in October, and want to go on to other things. Sue Sutton has agreed to run for Secretary but a Treasurer candidate is still needed. Leonard Kornit was appointed to chair a Nominating Committee, so that a full slate can be determined before Elections are held.

The President noted that today was DVPCA’s 29th meeting since the inaugural session on October 10, 1992, not a bad record for a group only in its eighth year. He welcomed new members Teresa and Jack Sullivan. Next, Stan made three announcements concerning an exhibit of Dale Taylor’s paperweight collection at Gloucester County College on Sunday, February 27, 2000; the formation of the William Manson Collectors Club in Perth, Scotland; and the appearance as keynote speaker of John MacChesney, inventor of two of the world’s major technologies for making communications optical fiber, at Glass Break 2000 on April 27, 2000 at Wheaton Village. After the winners of the Silent Auction items were announced, thirteen Today’s Raffle Prizes were awarded with several lucky members winning more than once.

The afternoon program began with Jim Lefever revealing the makers of each of the 100 pansy weights, while delivering insightful comments on a number of the pansys. It took Jim some time to get through them all, and at the end of his presentation, Ken Brown was the contest winner with 59 correct answers, while Beverly Schindler and Eileen England tied for runner-up at 47 correct each. Ken won A Treasury of the Encyclopedia Britannica; Beverly and Eileen each won a copy of In All His Glory: The Story of William S. Paley and CBS.

As the meeting ended, President Kruger reminded everyone of the upcoming Paperweight Weekend at Wheaton Village, May 18-20, 2000 and announced that Henry Loftus and Frank Gardner would present a program on the history and products of the Dorflinger Glass Company at the Winter Meeting, February 3, 2001. The room cleared by about 3:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Dorothy E. Shaddinger, Secretary