Our first meeting (Sat. Apr. 25) of the AZ Sleuths was a lot of fun! We had 9 people attend the first book discussion group session at Barnes & Noble--myself, my mom Linda, Dede, Judy, Gail, Laura, Arlene, Sharon, and Leone.We met for lunch before the book discussion at the Cheesecake Factory. Over a delicious lunch worthy of Hannah Gruen, we chatted about Nancy Drew, the Sleuths group and our upcoming convention in Las Vegas. I passed out goody bags with Nancy Drew pins and magnifying glasses inside.
Barnes & Noble set us up next to their Cafe area with tables and chairs and we were all set. We passed around some items that several of us had brought--scrapbooks (Dede's is shown below) from past conventions, a Nancy Drew paper bag album I made, and photos of my collection. I passed around the Collectors News article from this past February which featured my collection and talked about the Sleuths and our conventions.
Then we delved into the book discussion featuring the first book in the series, The Secret of the Old Clock, and we compared the original to the revision. We briefly talked about the first book in the Girl Detective series--Without a Trace.We also chatted more indepth about Nancy Drew news, the Sleuths group, and what we do at the conventions--with highlights to come from this year's Las Vegas convention. And we discussed planning a party for later this summer or fall.
We plan on getting together in May and June and then going to every other month after that. We are planning on doing a Nancy Drew gift exchange at our next meeting for fun! All in all, it was a really pleasant day and it was a lot of fun to get together with other collectors and meet new members!
On a related note, our Carolina Sleuths met this same day and hopefully they'll share news of their adventures. So if you want to get together with Sleuths in your area and form a book discussion group, contact me for information! I'll help you get set up with other interested Sleuths in your area and also you can help recruit more members!Jenn:)
