The evening’s programme, attended by 35 members, was hosted by John Teo and JK Tan.   Guests for the evening included Ng Seow Kiat (Ex-Vice-President of Ring 115, now residing in Sydney), Billy Scadlock (with a remaining 6-month work contract at Universal Studios), Jean-Christophe (from Sydney) and Allen Day (from Los Angeles).

Bernard Sim announced that the next club retreat would be held on 17th and 18th May 2014 at Kukup. The cost, expected to be under $100, would include a night’s accommodation, transportations, 2 restaurant lunches and a barbecue dinner. All interested were advised to sign up early with him.

Jeremy Tan invited interested members to a lecture by Guy Bavli on 18th March 2014 from 7 to 10 pm at block 371, Bukit Batok St 31, #02-332, at a cost of $30 each.

John Teo explained that the evening was themed ‘Tribute to Aldo Colombini’, to remember one of the world’s most creative, versatile, and entertaining magicians who had sadly passed on unexpectedly on 12th February 2014. He shared snippets of his memorable encounters with the great man and magician. A few other members also shared how he had touched their lives with his unique brand of magic, comedy and Italian charm.

John Teo led the evening’s performances with his own rendition of Aldo Colombini’s ‘Ringing Around’. This is a 4-phase ring through rope routine. He then performed Aldo’s ‘The Great Race’ using a deck of cards. 3 spectators each chose a different suit, leaving the last suit to himself. The 4 of them were involved in a race to reach a winning point. Cards were individually turned face upwards from the top of the deck. Each one moved one step forward towards the goal when the card turned face upwards showed his suit. As it turned out, John won the race. This was repeated with a different suit chosen for John. Yet he won the race. Finally, another spectator took his place in the race. This time, John was able to predict not only which suit won, but also the actual card that caused the suit to cross over the winning line! An interesting effect with a lot of audience’s participation.

Chew Liang Huat got a spectator to help him. He showed a prediction to the audience but not to the spectator – it was the 5H. Liang Huat displayed half a dozen playing cards – unknown to the spectator all these cards were the 5H! The spectator chose one of these cards. Instead of 5H, it turned out to be 3D! All went well when the performer showed the prediction – instead of 5H, it also changed into the 3D!

Tommy Chiang commenced with a cut and restored rope. He showed 5 red cards which changed into 4 black cards and 1 red card. He removed a black card and added a red one. His next count showed there were only 4 cards left - 3 black cards and 1 red. This went on until he was left with a red card and a black card. He removed the red card. Yet, when the remaining card was turned over, it was a red card!

Jeremy Pei demonstrated selected items he got from Taiwan and made available at his booth. These included 3 packet card tricks: one ended with a production of a 3D birthday cake, another had a spectator chose a garbage truck from 5 expensive cars, and another one chose an ugly date from amongst 5 lovely girls. Other items demonstrated were coloured scarves from a rose, colour changing wreaths in a bag (when coloured scarves were passed through), and the manifestation of an invisible deck in a net-bag.

The February meeting scheduled on the 15th was changed to 12th February so that we could still be within the 15 days of the Lunar New Year celebration. The venue was the Emerald Function Room of the Bayview Hotel.

Altogether, there were 32 attendees, including a patron, 4 associate members, and 4 guests. The guests were Thomas Chan and Darren Tang from KL, Malaysia, Elio   Simonetti from Australia, and Willie Lee who also signed up the application form that evening.

The first program of the evening was the conduct of the 63rd AGM. This was a non-election AGM, but there were several queries on the financial report, which were promptly explained by various members of the management committee.

Just before the break, Jeremy Pei did a dealer’s demonstration. Among the items performed were Whit Haydn’s 4-rings linking rings routine, Devin Knight’s Baby Gag, wiregram, and Di Fatta’s linking rings for close-up performance.

At the break, members congregated on 3 tables of Yu Sheng to celebrate the lunar new year. The usual food and coffee and tea were also available. Members fellowshipped with one another as well as patronised Jeremy Pei’s magic booth.

After the break, JK Tan performed the induction ceremony on Tan Wen Zhang. Magic performances continued with Baharudin. His repertoire included signed coin in potato chips container, Cube A Libre, and a Russian Roulette routine using large industrial staplers.

Hayashi Takuya predicted the sum total of 3 random numbers thought by 3 spectators.

John Teo showed that he was correct when he warned a spectator not to choose that particular number from a small envelope. He continued with an experiment in which the movie he picked from 5 others should match the name of the actor the spectator chose from among 5 other actors, but he picked Collateral Damage while the spectator selected Daniel Craig. However, the prediction proved correct as it showed the movie poster of   Collateral Damage but starring 007 Daniel Craig instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Continuing with the movie theme, he demonstratd the eerie phenomenon of the 23 enigma based on the movie “The Number 13” starring Jim Carrey. 3 randomly selected playing cards with different numbers written on their backs turned out to be all connected to the number “23”!

Jeremy Pei concluded the evening’s performance with his own created routine of (sponge) balls and jumbo (walnut) shell.

The evening ended with lucky draw of 9 special 3D playing cards contributed by our Honorary Member S T Tang.

IBM members warmly welcomed the late John Calvert’s wife, Tammy, who was a Singaporean, and who stopped by Singapore for a visit to her sister and family.

Other guests included a professional magician, Michael Wong, from Indonesia, and two other members’ guests.

Enrico Varella and Ashish Lodhavia hosted the evening’s programme, themed ‘micro magic’ for a total attendance of 31 people.

Chew Liang Huat began the magical evening by making a correct card prediction in his usual swift and smooth style.

Gician Tan amused with his sponge bunnies when he made daddy bunny disappear from one closed fist and re-appear in a guest’s closed fist, which already held mummy bunny. With a light rub, the 2 bunnies multiplied into bunny family with kiddy bunnies in tow. Next, a selected card vanished from a shuffled deck and reappears within a picture frame.

Tommy Chiang showed how he could make a mobile phone ‘sit’ on air. Holding 2 cards back to back between 2 fingers, he lightly twisted them and they switched places!

Enrico Varella gave a mini lecture on micro magic and its difference from close-up and parlour magic. He also shared the various ways magic can be presented eg. transposition, appearance, disappearance, expansion, mutilation etc as well as the use of ‘effects’ rather than ‘tricks’.

Michael Wong from Jakarta could coax a toy squirrel to obey his will. He then swallowed a fully – blown, long balloon and produced and manipulated cards at his finger-tips.

John Teo amazed with a seemingly simple gadget of 3 coloured switches (red, green, yellow) which could turn on 3 correspondingly coloured bulbs. Somehow, no matter how the different switches were paired with the various bulbs, they managed to turn on the respective coloured bulbs. Next, he showed how an audience-signed card could penetrate a ‘wall’ of cards in his version of David Copperfield ‘walking through’ the Great Wall of China, which bore repetition.

Jeremy Pei did a show-and-tell on some of his new magic products including Dick Simmerman’s Dancing Ring, perplexing mah-jong tiles, and hyper knots which could jump between ropes.

After a short break for refreshment, Tan Wen Zhong took his induction test. His performance included a card routine and a mentalism effect.

Jeremy Pei closed the evening with 3 chinese coins ’melting through’ a length of ribbon, 3 coins ‘penetrating through’ his closed fist and ‘translocating’ to a guest’s fist. He ended with a story of how a journey which began with a torn map, no money and no passport ended well when all were restored when he woke up!

The meeting ended at 10.30 pm but fellowship continued on into the night.