The BCD

We have members all over the world, so virtual meetings enable far-flung members to keep in touch and take an active part in the club. As usual, the weekend began with people posting the puzzles they intended to do on flickr, and sending updates on their progress.

Our Friday talk was from Chris Wirth,co-founder of Liberty Puzzles in the USA. The subject of his talk was innovation, and he showed us examples of some of Liberty’s creative designs. Surprisingly, Chris admitted that he wasn’t a fan of one of Liberty’s most innovative ideas, the ‘Easter egg’ – an alternate solution to a puzzle, often 3-D, only advertised on the website, but eagerly sought after by puzzlers who love an extra challenge. His talk was followed by many questions from participants.

The theme of the weekend was Patterns and Shapes, which allowed members to show patterned images or puzzles with non-standard shapes. Some of the puzzles were both patterned and shaped, including the two puzzles shown here – the stunning hand-cut Loonatic Fringe, by Andrea Farnham of Thingamajigsaw, and the Springbok puzzle Spectacle Island Rose, a mosaic flower created by Bob Schneeberg. The Show and Tell session elicited a huge variety of unusual puzzles.

As the weekend wound down, we had an informal chat on Zoom, to catch up with each other and look forward to our next meeting. The only downside to virtual meetings is the lack of cake…

This issue had an American focus, with a special feature on US premium laser puzzle company Liberty, who have recently celebrated their 20th anniversary.

Geert and Anne shared their research on early figure pieces in jigsaw puzzles, asking others to collaborate with them. Joe showed many photos of the beautiful little PEPE puzzles he has received as a regular contributor to the Pagey Elliot Puzzle Exchange (PEPE) at the Puzzle Parley.

Kerstin talked about movie puzzle jigsaws, Wout filled the Portraits slot with two unusual puzzles featuring Maori subjects, and Bronwen dived into mediaeval China after buying a mystery laser-cut puzzle.

We held our regular January virtual meeting; the theme was ‘Maps, facts and science’. There were talks by Craig from Puzzly about how AI is being used in puzzle design, and by Mike about what makes some puzzles harder than others, and how he assesses their difficulty. It’s always great to catch up with members who can’t get to our face-to-face meetings in the UK, so please join us if you can, for some or all of our next virtual weekend,  15th – 17th May. The theme will be ‘Patterns and Shapes’.

The annual weekend knees-up was a blast, as always, and only slightly quieter than last year’s 40th anniversary event. Highlights on the puzzle front were the 20 Stave puzzles kindly brought by Karen – many members had their first opportunity to try out these premium American puzzles.

It was also great to have David’s scroll saw, and to be able to watch some of our hand cutters making light work of cutting complex pieces.

There were some stunning Show and Tell puzzles on the theme of Fiction and Fantasy. The 3000 Club chose a particularly difficult puzzle to complete this year, so it will be finished at home.

We enjoyed talks from Craig on the first five years of UK company Puzzly, and from Ali of Herring Puzzles about his superb tiny brass puzzles.

There were a few changes or additions to the programme – puzzle chess (a new variation on speed puzzling, but with the usual suspects as winners!), a raffle with puzzle prizes (thanks, Deb!) and a treasure hunt in Coventry, which Maria described as her ‘absolute favourite’.

Missing you all already!

There were two very different meetings during this period. The September meeting, in the sunny Cotswolds, had the Show and Tell theme ‘London to Bristol’. Some speakers had highly imaginative explanations as to how their puzzles fitted the theme! Wintry weather made for difficult driving conditions to the November meeting in Market Harborough, but 25 brave souls turned up. The theme chosen by our host was ‘River deep… mountain high’.

This issue had a feature on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Two new cutters, Rachael and Gray, showed how they were using it to aid their puzzle design, explained their reservations and asked for feedback from other members.

Bronwen contributed an appreciation of British hand cutter Dave Cooper and a review of laser-cut Quordle Puzzles. Vicky introduced us to puzzle chess and our US rep Deb had a great time at Puzzle Jam South in South Carolina, with other BCD members.

The portrait feature was contributed by Per-Martin from Sweden, three of our German members held their own mini-meeting, and our distinguished crossword compiler gave us his usual hard winter puzzle.

We opened the weekend with a talk on a subject which is a hot topic within the club – Artificial Intelligence (AI). Craig Astfalck of Puzzly gave the same prompt to three different AI tools, and showed how they had interpreted it. He looked at the pros and cons of using AI in puzzle design, as well as the ethical issues, and the likely future of the technology.

Our second speaker, Mike Card, talked about puzzle difficulty. He times himself doing large mainly cardboard puzzles, so that he can work out the average number of seconds per piece and number of pieces completed per hour. He has compiled a difficulty grading list for almost 300 puzzles. He noted that difficulty does not increase in proportion to increased number of pieces; rather the image and the type of cut accounted for variations. For wooden puzzles, push-fit cut and colour line cutting both slowed progress significantly.

Our Show and Tell theme was ‘Maps, facts and science’. As our hosts hoped, this theme elicited some unusual puzzles. The US puzzle brand Nervous Systems was a popular choice, in addition to many types of map.

As always, members who did not take part in the Show and Tell were able to post their puzzle photos on flickr – photos from Wout and Kerstin are shown here.

During our final, informal chat on Zoom, a US member commented that while all the club’s face-to-face meetings apparently included lashings of delicious-sounding cake, no recipes were ever published… the magazine editor has taken note.

Our final meeting of the year was in Market Harborough. Floods over large parts of the country made driving difficult, so attendees were happy to arrive in a large warm hall full of cake and jigsaw puzzles.

The Show and Tell theme was ‘River deep… mountain high’. Most members chose to show landscapes rather than examples of undying love as suggested by the iconic Tina Turner song with that title. Simon’s colourful mountain landscape and Jackie’s huge vintage Chad Valley puzzle, Mother love, are examples of both.

Not long now to our January virtual meeting (no driving; dress casual, including pyjamas) and our annual house house party in February. See you there!

This issue was bursting at the seams, with write-ups of  two quarterly meetings in Mostyn, north Wales and Langley Burrell near Chippenham.

Ihor Reshetnikov of Dreamton Puzzles in Ukraine introduced himself and his creative laser-cut puzzles. BCD member Paul explained how he fed his wife’s jigsaw habit at zero cost, a skill many of us would love to learn. Our main feature was on Canada, profiling 3 cardboard, 3 laser-cut and 3 hand-cut puzzle producers. Kerstin showed an unusual German Tuck puzzle, celebrating the centenary of the military Order of the Iron Cross. A Swiss member, Regina, explained her preferences when commissioning wooden puzzles, while Maria ordered not one, but ten world map puzzles from US hand cutter Mark Majors.

There were tips for puzzle repairers on cleaning and finishing puzzles. Finally we celebrated the life of UK hand cutter Rob Garner of Amber Puzzles, who cut more than 1,000 puzzles, the majority of which are in the collections of BCD members.

The quarterly meeting at Langley Burrell near Chippenham was well attended; there were quite a few old friends there whom we hadn’t seen for a while, and two of our founder members, Sally and Matthew. Three puzzle sellers did good business.

The theme for Show and Tell, ‘London to Bristol’, proved quite challenging and resulted in some imaginative responses. The advert for Clement Cycles cut by Genest was included because Bristol become the first UK City of Cycling in 2008!