Author: ReneC

This month (Feb 2026) IBM Ring 49 featured a lecture from Shelley Summers AKA Dotsy the Clown. Shelley’s business, which obviously includes being a clown, extends far beyond her personal appearances into hiring other performers, party supplies and rentals, and selling supplies for performers.

As usual the meeting opened with President Doug “the Great” Hunt welcoming guests and new members and making the usual housekeeping announcements. He then introduced Peter Wiltshire, one of our most active members, who demonstrated a new effect he had made. The effect was sort of a rising card effect, except the card never rose!! (I never said he was a good trick developer.) Then he pulled away a wand that the deck was resting on and all the cards EXCEPT the chosen card dropped into the box. (On second thought – he is pretty good.) Great fun – and a great effect.

Our teaching table was hosted by one of our newer members, Ted Chisholm. Ted performed an old effect called Micawber which was published in the October 1952 issue of The Linking Ring. First, this was a very good effect; someone simply selected a random card, and then a deck was taken out which had one reversed card in it. That card indicated where the selected card would be. Ted moved to the appropriate face down card, turned it over, et Voila – success!

But in my mind, Ted’s selection of an older effect speaks to a second point – too often we are obsessed with the ‘latest and greatest’, always looking for something ‘new’. There is nothing wrong with older ideas and methods. Often the pater needs sprucing up, but the effects can still be very strong. (Now how do I get off this soapbox?)

But Shelley was the highlight of the evening. Her personal story was riveting – started making money on the side in high school clowning, supplemented her income in university (what you American’s call college) and by the time she graduated she had a full-blown business going. Years later Covid hit and like most performers her business suffered but she found a new product (lawn signs) she could pivot into, and she rolled with life’s proverbial punches. Maintaining the flexibility to ‘pivot’ was a keynote of her talk

Shelley spoke about her retail offerings, her staffing of talent to become a known supplier of clowns and other performers (including Santa’s), equipment supply, lawn sign business and her ‘power of three’ philosophy, that is the third time you get a request for something – start providing it!

Shelley spoke of the importance of keeping up to date with interest of your audience. So, if you’re a children’s performer, that means things like K-pop demon hunters and Minecraft. That’s hard for us older people, but you have to meet your audience where they are at.

Shelley wound up with probably her strongest points, all relating to the importance of using social media and how marketing our services has changed (what, no yellow pages??). This was a killer night – we learned so much from this star speaker. Highly recommended.

Rene Chouinard

January 2026 and we’re off to a great start! I usually think of January as a slow month with people still getting over the Christmas season, but this month’s meeting was one of our best turn-out in quite a while. We had to put out extra seats.

After some basic announcements, including President Doug Hunt discussing his charity project and some assistance Scott Hood has been providing for a past member’s widow, we started as usual with our Teaching Table – this month lead by our own IBM TVP Scott Hood. Scott demonstrated and then discussed a very effective marketed trick called Prestige (well worth looking up). Scott combined this with an inflating bear prop to create a very effective and entertaining routine.

Then on to the main event. Our theme was loosely a follow-up on our December Christmas meeting with people bringing in holiday effects and table magic, but basically anything they wanted show.

Since the turn-out was so high we had a steady stream of performers. A new visiting member, Joseph, started us out with a couple of card tricks: a one ahead effect with a marked deck, and an effect using the Stebbins stack.

Victor Staniewski did a Christmas themed Temple Screen effect that could be customized for any special event. Calvin Cutts performed with a Merlin puppet (again, that could be event themed) to ‘find a card’ as well as a lollipop effect for children’s parties.

We had a lot of fun (both at the meeting and at the pub later) with a bill thru the rollers prop brought by Barry O. Ken McCreedy demonstrated the Chicago Opener effect.

Peter Wiltshire, who builds great props, demonstrated a couple of versions of an effect where he drops dice, or the other version, a ball bearing through a tube in a magical way (like a Strat-O-Sphere effect).  Rick Rossini finished up with a fabulous ‘invisible purse’ coin effect.

Just listing the effects really doesn’t do justice to the benefit of the member interactions on evenings like this – especially with the turnout of talented performers we had, all adding wisdom and advice to advance follow magi’s skill. Thanks everyone for making this a great night.

Rene Chouinard

Season’s Greetings from Ring 49! Like most clubs, we generally have a special event for our mid-winter meeting to celebrate the season, and this year was no exception. Some of my favorite people showed up and the night was truly magical.

This year we met at one of the nearby restaurants and took turns around the table showing off some of our favorite effects. One of the advantages of having an event in a public space is there is an opportunity to involve non-members/non-magicians in the fun so the performers can show real-life responses from the public to their effects. So often, in closed meetings, simpler effects that are obvious to our trained eyes get dismissed when for a lay audience they often are real miracles – events like this allows for everyone to see how regular people respond.

Case in point, later in the evening when the whole restaurant became aware that there were magicians in the house, one of the server staff brought out the cook to see one of my effects. It was a simple Elmsley Count effect, not very impressive to other magicians, but this guy was so blown away he literally hugged me – never had that happen before. One of the members was able to make a show booking with another organization that happened to also be in the restaurant.

Once things got going, people approached OUR table requesting magic. It certainly makes that initial approach for table hopping a lot easier when the audience is approaching YOUR table.

But more often we were able to interact among the members to share effects and benefit from group input. For example, one member demonstrated a Santa Clause/Christmas Tree effect which led to a robust discussion about performance tips, prop mechanics and related techniques. The club president (Doug ‘The Great’ Hunt) offered some tips on approaching people for ‘strolling magic’ to break the ice on that initial contact. In fact, everyone contributed and I think all in attendance benefited greatly.

The weather was a bit dicey (this is wintertime in Canada after all), but we are a hardy group and the warmth inside more than made up for chill outside. Best of the season to everyone.

Rene Chouinard

Congratulations are due to our own Doug Hunt, Ring 49 Member and current President on the release of his new Book: 55, inspiring journey of chasing down a world record. Doug will be holding a Book Release Bash on Thursday December the 11^th at 6:30 pm held in the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre in Brantford ON with prizes, pizza and refreshments. The event is free, and the book is only $25 with proceeds going to Participation Support Services in Brantford. Come on out and support on of our own.

This month (Nov 2025) Ring 49 hosted a lecture by Chris Campbell on his FenyxFyre Escapology Thrill Show. This might be a little off the beaten path for many in our guild, but not far off.

Magic has a much older history in the so-called ‘old world’ but in North America some of our earliest performers* were people like the Davenport brothers who would be tied up and closed into a cabinet. Supposedly spirits would then cause thing to happen that a tied man couldn’t do (spoiler alert: an escapologist could). At the turn of the century (1900) many spiritualists and mediums would have themselves tied to their chair before the lights were out – well, I think you see where this might be going.

The most famous magician of this era, Harry Houdini, was just as famous for escapism as for magic, and he spent his later career exposing fake mediums. To be fair, he never exposed any real mediums, but maybe because he never found one.

All that to say, Chris fits right into our community and he gave us an incredible and valuable look into a less common side of our art. I’m hesitant to delve too far into Chris’s personal life as he was quite open, but many years ago he met an old carney, and that chance encounter set him on lifelong path into the wild world of escapism.

His material largely distilled down to his audience (us) trying to restrain him, and he shaking off the shackles like water from a duck’s back. He escaped from ropes, zip ties, straight jackets and even handcuffs. In fact, he once posted a video with just a little too much information about handcuffs and was then contacted by our Provincial Police. Long story short the video was taken down but he now consults with them now helping new recruits learn more about their equipment.

 He opened standard police handcuffs in seconds using a five-dollar bill – honestly! This guy was amazing.

He went over the basics of lock picking, taught a member to escape from a standard straight jacket (successfully first try), and exhibited many of the ‘prop’ (i.e. gimmicked) equipment available on the market (but he usually uses ‘the real things’). Chris also develops and markets a lot of his own equipment. 

The uniqueness of his material, his thorough knowledge of escapology, and his open and approachable demeanor made this a presentation that will stay with us indefinitely.

Rene Chouinard

*Note: this writer does recognize that there where well-developed peoples and cultures in North America prior to European settlers and they may have included magical effects, but unfortunately this has not been well-documented.

Hello again from Ring 49 in Hamilton ON. Sometimes you get real killer presenters for club meeting, and we excelled this month – our members took turns demonstrating, teaching, getting effect and presentation feedback and generally sharing the knowledge with each other. This is all real-life stuff from peers in the same performance sphere (let’s face it, everyone wants to have a David Copperfield lecture, but how many of us are booking gigs that his material would apply to).

Here’s my dilemma: brevity is important for ring reports (or no one will read them) but it’s imperative to give people their ‘due’. Here’s whirlwind attempt to meet both objectives.

After the requisite preliminaries, the night started off with our own president Doug Hunt presenting a Balancing Bottles effect he developed (Doug combines magic and juggling). Great presentation followed by a very informative discussion on how he developed the props.

Peter Wiltshire showed an effect with a large key and explained his thinking on using everyday items for props, followed by an effect using wood tiles with letters spelling ‘REVERSE’. The effect was fantastic (no matter how he put the tiles into their box, then ended up in order). It turns out he built the prop himself –he does beautiful wood working.

Magic Travis (Halyk), who also handles a supply table for the club, showed a clever effect with a fork and spoon (with a humorous tie back to our last meeting).

Doug McCoy demonstrated and explained some packet card effects including one using a brainwave Deck and another where the cards turn into credit cards.

Rick Rossini took the floor with a Jumbo Card effect called Sidewalk Shuffle (sort of a Three Card Monty variation) and showed a classic coin through silk.

Beebop the Clown (Laura Martin) performed an effect with animal cards and a silk.

Vic Staniewski recently bought a Dice Box at an auction and basically queried the room on all sorts of performance tip and ideas. Many people are familiar with standard props like this and have developed unique ideas, so this was a really good opportunity for everyone to share thoughts.

Finally, our own TVP, Scott Hood, closed the night with several effects. Someone picked a card, and a picture of his selection rose from his sketch pad. He also explained the use of a Svengali Deck for forcing a card. A real novel piece he displayed was a prop where the performer shows a wooden puzzle of a deck of cards that then turns into a real deck – great effect.

Another great night in Hamilton.

Rene Chouinard

Ring 49’s season opener was a lecture by Ryan Edwards – arguably Canada’s top mentalist, and it was certainly easy to see why. Ryan gave one of the most entertaining and educational lectures I have seen in a long time.

But before we get to Ryan, Scott Hood (our TVP), Derrick Finn and Victor Staniewski had recently attended Magic Live where the magic of Doug Henning (former member of Ring 49 and namesake of the club) was highlighted. Mr. Henning’s sister Nancy was there and sent back a special gift: an original event poster from one of Mr. Henning’s shows for one of our current members, Doug McCoy. Why specifically for Doug? Doug Henning and Doug McCoy both joined Ring 49 on the same night!

A second bit of business was the introduction and first presentation of a new tradition for Ring 49, an annual President’s ward.  The brainchild of our current president, Doug Hunt (we have a lot of Doug’s in this club), this is an award that will be presented each year for service to the ring. Doug was honored to present it this year to our long-serving Treasurer and Secretary Victor Staniewski. Vic is passing those formal duties off to our new Secretary/Treasurer Kim Harrington, but he had literally kept the ship afloat for many years and we all appreciate and thank him for that.

Another new initiative, this time from member Magic Travis (Halyk) is the setting up of a monthly Dealer’s Table to make available effects and supplies as a service to our members. Travis brought in a good range of items, and all sales will help support the club as well.  Excellent initiative Travis, thanks from the group.

Finishing that, we had a great lecture.  Ryan (Edwards) had a well thought out reason for specializing in Mentalism; magic equipment is too heavy and requires too much effort to set up, and the public is often desensitized to magic, so mentalism often has much more.  I like performing magic, but I must admit I see both points. Ryan has had a long, varied and interesting history which I won’t go into too much detail here, but includes effect production and marketing, consulting (including for TV) and of course lots of performing.

One criticism he has for current mentalism is all the reliance of electronics, so he started out with an effect that was more old-school, and pure genius.  He did a trick where the back of a deck of cards changes from blue to red – very strong effect. Then he explained it was entirely based on people not really caring about details. The entire club would have sworn that he spread out a blue backed deck (face up) and that it turned red. I won’t divulge his method, but it was strongly based on mis-leading actions and comments (I will say that the deck was red from the beginning – how can a club full of professional magicians miss that?).

We discussed how to use psychology to mislead people and influence what they believe they saw. He demonstrated fooling people without actually doing anything at all, simply by saying things and letting their mind fill in erroneous assumptions. I think I learned more about magic from this effect than from learning 100 tricks.

Other effects that he offered his takes on included distributing bags for people to put objects in and then identifying who each item came from, and getting several people to randomly suggest large numbers and then having them add to a predicted number – both standard effect but with very good twists. He also demonstrated skill at splitting cards and other items for making customized props.

Ryan closed with a discussion about the importance of scripting, including prop and stage management, music, and generally treating magic as the artform that it deserves. Too many of us are focused just on doing tricks. Ryan emphasized the importance of the performance elements and of theming a performance. Well said!

Next month, we are opening the floor for members to bring in items of interest and perform short presentations for the benefit of the group. These events are invaluable as they are hugely instructive to the members, highlight new or unusual effects, and maybe most importantly allow the presenter to gain constructive feedback from a well-informed group on the effect and their presentation. Looking forward to seeing everyone then.

Rene Chouinard

On June 5^th, 2025, member volunteers of the Doug Henning Magic Wand Ring 49 club performed two shows for the clients’ of St. Joseph’s Villa in Dundas ON (a neighboring hamlet to Hamilton ON). There are a lot of benefits to a ring for providing such a service.

First and foremost, is simply the charitable intent to benefit of our community. That goes without saying, but beyond that there are many more reasons to host an event. As a ring we have been trying to focus on the various aspects of magic, like: children’s parties, school and/or library programs, fairs/festivals, walkaround, restaurant and/or bars, trade shows and corporate events. In that vein, stage shows have a long history in our art, even if they are less common then in the past.

Presenting a show like this also allows members to gain some experience in both the behind-the-scenes organization and in the ‘back-stage’ considerations such as lighting and sound systems, and this event even included visual projections. For amateur members of the ring a volunteer event also provides an excellent opportunity to get some ‘stage time’ that might be novel for them.

So, with those considerations front of mind, we found a suitable location: a seniors’ facility with a stage available for us to use. This venue already had appropriate stage lighting and one of our members (Scott Hood) lent us an excellent sound system (including mic’s) that perfectly suited our needs.

Peter Wiltshire handled our backstage requirements including adjusting the stage lighting so as to have an attractive red-washed background, not too much lighting on our AV monitor (so as not to wash-out the picture) and plenty of light on the performers from the front. Peter also handled the sound system ensuring level sound settings for each of the mic’s and all the backup music and sound used by the performers, muting and un-muting the appropriate mic’s for the performers, and even handled the AV requirements (PowerPoint based slides with embedded sound and/or video).

Originally there was intended to be four performers, but tragically Victor Staniewski suffered a leg injury just prior to the show date, so each of the remaining three extended their routines to accommodate (thankfully, Victor is recovering well).

With an excellent introduction from our MC’s Doug Hunt (first show) and Travis Halyk (second show) we were ready to go.

Scott Hood opened with the Gypsie Thread routine, then a disappearing Coke Bottle effect, the Vanishing Bandana, and closed with a Silk Fountain. Scott is our area’s Territorial Vice-President for the IBM and the Fan Favorite Winner – Toronto’s Best Magician Contest. He is a real anchor for our ring, and we thank him for his professional contributions to this event.

Barry O (O’Neil) was up next and was a crowd favorite performing his version of What’s Next along with his trusted sidekick George the Lion (Barry combines magic and puppetry). This friendly lighthearted effect really engaged the audience with a friendly personal interaction despite being a stage presentation.  Barry followed up with a changing color triangle effect that was equally engaging.

Finally, I (Rene Chouinard) took the stage with a little story telling magic. I started with a rope routine combining it with a sailing themed pater, then a routine involving the appearance, and disappearance of water. With a nod to the classics, I did my version of the Linking Rings and then closed the show with a routine I call The Time Box utilizing a modified Gibson Box, Spring Flowers and a pocket watch with a theme exalting the experiences we gain over time.

We all also did some ‘walk-around’ before and after each show to enhance the experience for people while waiting as facility staff assisted residents in arriving and departing (a nice consideration in facilities like this).

Was it a success? The audiences certainly seemed to appreciate the shows; several people were heard in their cafeteria afterwards making positive comments. The Villa staff (who were all excellent to work with) certainly seemed sincere in thanking us. As a performer I can speak for the group in saying we enjoyed the format and learned from the experience, and I think it’s fair to say that the entire ring has taken some pride in the event as input was made throughout this season towards it. So yes, it was a success.

Submitted by Rene Chouinard

The full crew, Scott Hood, Travis Halyk, Rene Chouinard, Barry O, Peter Wiltshire, and Doug Hunt up front MC’ing

June 2025’s Ring 49 meeting, the final event for our 2024/2025 season, was held at Symposium Cafe Restaurant in Ancaster Ontario. This well attended event was chaired by club President Doug Hunt. After some opening comments, he establishing the Executive Board for next year (he’s staying on as President).

Then, as Chair of the Events Committee, I gave a review of a recent club show performed for a local senior’s facility.  Performing annual ‘formal’ shows is something the club is intending to adopt as regular activity as it really seemed to unify and add purpose to the group.

After sharing a meal together, members took turns in performing their favorite effects for each other. Restaurant/table settings are well suited for card effects, especially packet tricks, but wands and balls and numbered tiles – all the usual paraphernalia – made appearances.

Informal events like this are well worth including in your ring’s schedule.  I find they create a real sense of comradery and group adhesion; and the food and drink doesn’t hurt either.

Rene Chouinard