Hello to The Discourse members here on ThePlayingCardForum.com! I'm Mike, the owner of UnitedCardists.com and a 52 + Joker member as well. Tom, Lee, Don and many of you already know me from "over there", but for the few that don't, we're trying to open a few doors and put our heads together to do the one thing that everybody here agrees about: furthering our hobby of collecting playing cards.
I'm going to be the local host at this year's 52+J annual convention here in my hometown of Charleston South Carolina where I've lived basically since I was born. Mom's Danish, so I know enough dansk to get by, and I tend to think that way since I was brought up in a multi-lingual household. That convention will be held Wednesday October 15th through Saturday October 18th and I invite each and every one of you to attend. Charleston is a fabulous place, if you've never been it's time to visit "America's Most Historic City"! We'll take in the sights, visit the plantation gardens and maybe even eat lunch at Rarebit. My wife Donna is planning a great "significant others" track for those who come but aren't necessarily into the hobby, so if you want to spend a couple of days before or after the convention we'd be more than happy to plan some things. I know for certain that Randy Butterfield and several others are already planning on making a tourist event out of it, so we're prepared to entertain. That date is less than 6 months away, so if you haven't already made plans, please come visit. The hotel and convention site is less than 5 miles from my office, the "InnPlace Charleston" and "52plus" works to get the special rate for those dates shown above plus a few days on either side which is $95 including breakfast for two every day. The hotel is a fabulous property and typical room rates are $149 and up. It used to be a Marriott and the new owners turned it into an old Charles Town feature, it's a heck of a venue for the convention! Here's the website where you can make your reservation:
http://www.innplacehotels.com/locations/charlestonAs far as I know Steve Bowling and the rest of the convention planning crew haven't nailed down the price for this year yet, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably going to be about $50 or so. More news will be forthcoming in the next two issues of the club's newletter "Clear The Decks" which is published by someone you likely already know: Judy Dawson, Tom's wife (AKA "HeartQ" here). I'm sure as soon as those details are available both Tom and I will post them here and on UC.
Tom if there are any updates that I'm not aware of or I misstated anything, please chime in here and set me straight!