What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 15th August 2025

The theme of the meeting was "Free Choice" (again) hosted by David Whitson.

David Whitson started things off with an impressive and well executed white cane to scarf.

Al then demonstrated a card routine with rows of cards narrowing down to a single selection. This was themed to the story of depth charges and submarines in World War 2. The single depth charge hits the chosen card and we learned a lot about radar in the process.

Noel performed a transposition, turning a large silver coin into gold and then back again, before following up with a routine involving coins appearing from nowhere and being caught one after the other in a metal goblet.

John used his knowledge of chemistry, taking a red liquid from a bottle and pouring it into a regular plastic cup before turning it upside down to reveal no liquid at all, only a dry red silk falling out of the cup. He followed this up with a card effect using photocopies. John showed various double sided black and white photocopies of a pile of cards, noting that only one card is face down. He turned the copy around to reveal that an earlier freely selected card was the only one facing the other way. 

Steve Irwin convincingly performed a baffling self winding bolt several times in a very close up environment. He also performed a stunning trick with three cards from a borrowed deck. The spectator chooses one card in secret and then mixes up all three. Moments later Steve is always able to reveal their chosen card.

Warden continued the theme of goblets, this time four of them with a poisoned message in three. Spectactors freely chose three goblets and then were able to switch several times at will. Upon opening the messages, all three spectators had chosen the poison while Warden was left with the safe goblet. Killer material!

As an encore, Noel performed a quick coin through table complete with sound effects.

Finally David Whitson used a change bag to share a great routine with knitted coloured coils. First the separate different coloured coils are changed into linked coils. Next they are changed again into a single long piece of coloured rope. Finally, much like the colour spectrum, all of the colours change into a single length of white rope. David also showed the empty Tarbell cone, modified to make a heart, before producing a red silk from inside. Next was a silk penetration contraption from the Graham Holstein estate. A long multicoloured silk is threaded through then chopped with a wooden card that has a hole in the middle. Upon removal, the wooden card has the silk threaded through the hole. Utterly convincing! To finish off, David performed a routine with sticks, tassels and a mysterious relationship between them.