Meeting Theme: The Mark Wilson Treasure Hunt

By Dave Arch on May 3, 2024

From our club’s Magic In The Library initiative we have enough copies of Mark Wilson’s Course In Magic so that every two people will share a copy for our May event.

Your club might have enough copies owned by your members that if each person who owns a copy brings it, you might have enough to use for the following meeting idea.

Interspersed throughout the evening, we’ll also have two or three of our members ready to perform their favorites from the book.

Since the meeting hasn’t happened yet, I will come back and update this post into the past tense with any changes we might have made on the fly that night.

As you can see on the poster, you’d also be welcomed to join in on the fun that night through Zoom.

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Surrounding the room on the walls will be blank flip chart papers each one titled with a section from Mark Wilson’s book.

Our posters will be entitled:

• Self Working Card Tricks

• The Hindu Shuffle

• The Double Lift

• The Glide

• The Short Card

• Money Magic

• Money Magic – Bills

• Rope Magic

• Silk And Handkerchief Magic

• Impromptu Magic

• Mental Magic

• Make At Home Magic

• Sponge Ball Magic

• Billiard Ball Magic

• Cups And Balls

• Magical Illusions

• Reputation Makers

By way of courtesy we’ll let our Zoom guests go first in selecting which poster each Zoom pair of two would explore.

Then those attending in person will be asked to get up from their seats and go stand beside a poster with a topic they would enjoy exploring and reporting back to the whole group with two or three best ideas from that section.

Negotiations will be held between the members until we have two people by each poster. Not all posters might be used – depending on the size of that evening’s attendance.

Each pair will now be given twenty minutes to read over their chosen selection in the book – deciding on their best idea from their chosen section.

After twenty minutes, we’ll take a refreshment break and have our raffle drawing and possibly a performance from the book by one of our prepared members.

Then the pairs will go back to their original posters – drawing a picture depicting each of their best ideas. No text will be allowed.

As a side note, the members really enjoy when we use the scented markers.

Then we will all pretend we’re in an art gallery as we go around the room in a group (with classical music softly playing in the background) with each pair (including our Zoom participants) describing the best ideas as they interpret their drawings for us.

Some drawings no doubt will need more interpreting than others.

At the conclusion of the meeting, those in attendance will be given the opportunity to purchase a Mark Wilson book for $10.

I’m happy to report that the event went exactly as planned above. High energy and involvement by all.

Here are some pictures from the evening.