Dear Carol,
 
I would be interested, if you know if my land-shells, which I donated
to Rev. Dan for the COA-auction went or if they would be used for
another auction. I would be very glad, if the bidding of the European
land-shells would be successful. Can you tell me something about this.
thank you best
yours Helmut Nisters from Innsbruck / Austria.
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> First I want to remind all of you that this is just MY report. I have no
> OFFICIAL capacity and I really hope that some of the first time convention go-
> ers will also add their impressions of how they felt going to the convention,
> sights and feelings. Everyone has different experiences. So when everyone gets
> back home I hope there will be a few more reports as many of the
> conventioneers did things that I did not.
>   The 3rd day started out with the COA representatives meeting. Linda Brunner,
> President elect, chaired the session and asked us what we felt that COA did
> for the individual clubs as not all clubs are COA members. Some of the things
> that were discussed were the political clout that combining forces gives us in
> conservation issues, COA newsletter exchange. If your club belongs to COA
> there is a newsletter exchange. Publicity for your club on a world level and
> the COA award that is given at shell shows. There will be a new feature in
> American Conchologist and you can send in your club's news to be included in
> this COA feature.
>   We spoke about problems in individual clubs and how other clubs may have
> solved those problems. These included meeting places and programs for
> meetings, how to get new members and how to keep old ones. It was very good to
> exchange information and I am sure that everyone came out of the meeting with
> at least one idea of how to better their own club.
>   Art Weil started off the programs for the day, with his often humorous talk
> on how to write a shell book. He has a new book, hot off the presses on how to
> Collect Shells. I glanced through it and it is full of cartoon drawings and
> witty anecdotes.
>   Bob and Betty Lipe spoke to us about their quest for Marginella muralis, (I
> hope that's correct) in Grenada and Aruba with Bob's marvelous photography of
> live marginellas and Betty's narration of where they actually were and some of
> the high points of their trip.
>   Doug Jones spoke on Molluscan Photosymbiosis or the connection between algae
> and the mollusks that have special cells to grow their own algae. He said
> there are two groups that do this, the Tridacnids and the Cardiacium.
>   Amy Edward gave us something totally and entirely different and that was a
> program on origami shells. She had some directions on how to fold paper to
> make different shells, crabs, shrimp and squid. It was very clever. She also
> brought some directions on how to make different shells and some shell cases
> with examples of the real shell and the origami shell. A great light way to
> end the morning session.
>   The afternoon brought the COA shell auction and many beautiful shells,
> corals some lovely needlework,  and a lot of interesting things to bid on.
>    The evening brought the CONCH-L  get together, which had no particular
> venue, just a chance to talk some more with each other. Rosalie introduced Amy
> Edwards, the administrator of this list, without whom we would not be getting
> these messages. Carolyn Petriken again spoke on the need to get organized
> before you hit that send button, or the reply button,  repeating that some of
> our out of country subscribers have to pay as much as $2.95 per MINUTE to
> receive the conch-L postings.
>    There is only one program scheduled for tomorrow, that is Shelling in the
> Canadian North- Labrador or Bust by Ross Mayhew,  so this may be all till I
> get home. The Bourse is scheduled for the afternoon and I know it is going to
> be fabulous.
>         Bye for now,
>                   Carole Marshall
>