A Kurt Wiese Weekend

The 25th Anniversary Friends of Freddy Convention

October 9-12, 2009

Hunterdon County, NJ

To mark the silver anniversary of the Friends of Freddy, we will be holding our first-ever odd-numbered-year convention, and our first-ever convention outside of upstate New York.

Now, you might be wondering what New Jersey has to do with Freddy. Well, there's one other major contributor to the Freddy books besides Walter R. Brooks. Who is that? Well, Kurt Wiese, of course! And Wiese spent most of his life in Hunterdon County. As a result, there are wondrous things to be found in the area:

• The county library has an enormous collection of original Wiese illustrations, including ones from the Freddy books, of course, but also a few illustrations that were clearly intended for Freddy books but somehow never made it in.
• The county historical society has its own batch of Wiese originals, including many years of his self-designed Christmas cards and other little notes.
• The Wiese house and studio, whose owners have already agreed to invite us in and show us around.
• Wiese friend and neighbor Nick Minginourch, who has a Wiese collection of his own and many stories to tell about Wiese and his wife.
• The Union Hotel, now a restaurant, whose walls are covered with paintings by Wiese

We made a visit to Hunterdon County on a smaller scale as a club activity many years ago, and it received rave reviews from those who participated:

"It was probably the bestest and greatest historical Freddy exposure we have ever enjoyed. The visit with Nick and all that he had was the undoubted highlight." - Murray Millican, treasurer.

"If at some future time this experience is offered again, I would urge all FoF members to avail themselves of a unique opportunity." - Nancy Joroff, past president.

To see what that event was like, go here.

Of course, in addition to the special Wiese activities, we will have our usual talks and dramatic production. So don't miss it!

Details

The convention will begin Friday evening, October 9, around 7 pm and continue into Monday, October 12. However, to accommodate people who can only stay one night, we are endeavoring to put as many of the key activities (particularly the Wiese-related ones) between lunchtime Saturday and early afternoon Sunday.

Remember, people come to the conventions not only to discuss Freddy, but also to meet each other. So come make new friends and visit old ones and have a weekend of fun. Hope to see you all!

Fees

We expect to be charging a nominal registration fee of $10 or thereabouts in order to cover the cost of renting a meeting room from the hotel for the weekend.

The Hotel

The official host lodging for the convention is the Hampton Inn, Flemington, NJ. Please contact them at 908-284-9427 and tell them that you are with the Friends of Freddy to get our special rate of $118/night, which includes a deluxe continental breakfast every morning. This is somewhat pricier than the Catskills; however, we will also coordinate room-sharing if anyone wants to do so in order to save costs. (There are cheaper places to stay in the area, but, after having seen one of them, we can't in good conscience recommend them.)

Registration:

Please print out this form and mail to:

Friends of Freddy
P. O. Box 912
Greenbelt, MD 20768-0912

Or email your information to:

Thanks for your interest. We look forward to seeing you!

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