What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 9th January 2026

The theme of the night was "Free Choice", hosted by David Whitson.

David Whitson started us off with a few gags, including Trix, a fried egg due to the heat, a toast for the New Year and an all red Rubik's Cube for beginners. There was also a plastic melted ice cream gag and the classic bifocal close up glasses with eyes on springs. On the magic front, David performed a convincing effect with large cards depicting Africa and various wild animals. With the Africa folder sitting on one side, the Cheetah appears in various locations behind large cards before jumping across to the folder. Uganda be kidding me!

Noel then performed some coin magic, including single coin through table, then three coins together through the table. He also demonstrated coins jumping from one hand to the other with arms outstretched and three coins from a small steel box right through the table and into a glass. Next up was a large ring that goes onto a shoelace but then merges straight through. The ring is then tied securely onto the shoelace before coming off again. Following this, the large ring is thrown onto the lace and captured instantly. Finally the ring is impossibly put onto the shoelace very slowly in full view of everyone. Impressive! On the same theme, a small finger ring was merged straight through a green shoelace (Aka "security rope"), before sliding straight off twice. The third time, the ring comes off the shoelace after audience participation and appears on Noel's finger. To finish, Noel demonstrated another quick throw on and off of the ring on the green shoelace at the end.

Steve Irwin was next, starting off with a good joke. His card trick has two Jacks set up as investigators and various cards as suspects. A card is selected before the pack is put together and cut, then dealt out in a down/under method. The final suspect (card) is found, revealed and correct! For his following card trick, three piles are created. Noel chooses a card freely from one of the piles and returns it. After this, five hand poker piles are dealt face up. Steve asks which pile the card showed up in and was able to quickly and easily reveal the selected card. This is a great simple effect and all were pleased to get an explanation of the method from Steve.

Neil finished off the night demonstrating a memory effect with a wallet. Noel viewed a card with symbols, promising to remember them all and signing his name on it. David Whitson took it out of the wallet and held onto it for safe keeping. After performing a chant, Neil made Noel forget one of the shapes he saw. Noel recalled that there was a triangle, a circle and a square, but the signed card held by David Whitson revealed that a cross had been completely forgotten, perhaps due to the mystical memory erasing chant!