The Berkeley City Club – a beautiful venue, as usual!
What could be better than a group of bibliophiles gathered together in a single room to celebrate the holiday season? A group of booksellers gathered together in a single room celebrating the holiday season with good food and a raffle of lots of alcohol, that’s what! Just kidding! In all honesty though we all (as adults) enjoy our bottles of wine and bourbon, what we truly enjoy is spending time with like-minded individuals. The NCC Chapter of the ABAA Holiday Dinner was no exception!
This year the bar, being held in the same large room as the dinner, seemed to be a bit more of an intimate affair (which I rather enjoyed). The large table of donations for the Elizabeth Woodburn / ABAA Benevolent Fund raffle was overflowing – as usual with impressive selections of beverages, but with also some fun gift baskets and chocolates, 2018 SF Giants baseball tickets, etc., etc! Many raffle tickets were sold (most to our table mates John Windle and co., in my opinion – winners galore!!!) But I get ahead of myself.
First things first Michael Hackenberg, the Chapter Chair, introduced the evening with his wit and charm. Minutes of the last meeting were approved, and one great new piece of information that was praised was the recent repeal of the most egregious parts of the California law on signed material. Unfortunately getting the bill repealed has cost quite a bit of funds for the ABAA, most of which were spent on lobbyists! But in any case, everyone is quite happy that we are on our way to normality back in the signed and autographed world of rare books. Another topic of interest covered is that the ILAB Congress in LA next year is close to being sold out! There are possibly one or two more seats to be had, and those who have been agree that it is a wonderful destination work-trip for any book related people. Over 100 people have signed up thus far.
An image of a very happy (possible) ABAA President?!
New members of the ABAA board will soon be voted on! Members of the NCC that are up for nomination in different positions include our very own Vic Zoschak [as President], Michael Hackenberg [as our Chapter Rep], Brad Johnson & Scott deWolfe are both competing for the ABAA VP slot, and Peter Blackman is on the ballot as Association Treasurere. The NCC Board includes Andrew Langer as the new treasurer, Alexander Akin continuing on as Secretary, Laurelle Swan as the new Vice Chair, and Ben Kinmont as the new Chair! Congratulations to these four! Another interesting topic included the different showcases touted by several booksellers for this upcoming year include the Bibliography week showcase in January and the RBMS showcase in New Orleans! Last but not least, the upcoming fair in Pasadena in February has one of the highest registrations for several years, with over 200 booksellers registered to exhibit at this time. Woohoo!
In all, the dinner, the chat, the raffle interspersed between rounds of discussion (a great new idea, in my not so humble opinion), and the camaraderie always found in this group of people made for a wonderful holiday evening.
And to all a good night! (Or afternoon… you catch my drift.)
