The BCD

The sky was blue, the theme was ‘Something old, new, borrowed or blue’ and club members (many wearing blue) were in great spirits. The splendid Arts and Crafts village hall had an added bonus – an adjoining café serving hot food and delicious cakes, in addition to the usual contributions from our members.

After a morning spent puzzling, chatting and browsing the sales tables, the Show and Tell produced an interesting range of puzzles, including two of exactly the same print showing a mediaeval betrothal scene.

One more meeting to go this year, at the JHG puzzle factory in Dorset in November. And then 2025 will begin as we mean to go on, with a virtual meeting in January and a very special house party in February. See you there!

Hopefully there was something for everyone in this issue, with a profile of legendary hand cutter Dee Rogers, a review of laser-cut puzzles worldwide and a competition to win cardboard puzzles from British producer JHG. There were reviews of Emma’s ‘Bold bright and colourful’ quarterly meeting in Bourton on the Water as well as  the Puzzle Parley and the Stave 50th Anniversary event in the USA.

Maria described her oldest map. which shows the three journeys of Captain Cook, while Heather cut a puzzle portraying the huge map made by the Ngurrara tribe in Australia to demonstrate their title to their ancestral land. Bronwen gave a brief update on new hand cutters learning their craft in the U.K., and Per-Martin told the story of the Wirsing puzzle company in Sweden. Pete showed two portraits of mystery women, Nicki found out more about one of Britain’s oldest puzzle clubs, The Sphinx,  from an article in an Australian newspaper, and Camille from France introduced herself and her puzzling interests.

The theme was ‘Bold, bright and colourful’ – several members had taken this very seriously and turned up wearing bold, bright and colourful outfits… Host Emma showed the most dazzling  puzzle – ‘Humming dragon’ had metallic elements – but there were plenty of other very colourful cardboard and wooden puzzles on display.

The weather was perfect, there were cakes and puzzles galore, and several people on their first visit to a quarterly meeting were put to work helping other members to complete puzzles.

We found time to thank a retiring committee member for many years of service, and to wish another many happy returns on his Golden Wedding anniversary. Only two months to go until our next meet-up, near Newark!

The summer extended edition was already crammed with information about our annual house party, before we found room for a virtual meeting in  April! There were two interesting Show and Tells on the themes of  ‘The living world’ and ‘Beyond European shores’, as well as write-ups of talks by Katherine and David on designing laser-cut puzzles and on puzzles with irregular outlines.

Two new series began – head and shoulders portraits, and our very own Letter from America written by Deb. Jackie did a comprehensive review of puzzles that (literally) move, and Maria reported on her important map puzzle exhibition at the State Library of Berlin.

There was a celebration of the life and puzzles of Andrew Kershaw and his puzzle-cutting mother and grandfather.

New member Vicky blew our minds with Quezzle’s ‘Amazing Cappadocia’, our new crossword compiler Peter set us a quick summer crossword, and at Hayley’s request, we finally found just enough room for a little online competition!

The theme of ‘Beyond European shores’ was an inspired choice for a Show and Tell. Members from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA talked about cardboard, laser- and hand-cut wooden puzzles as well as virtual reality ones. And we pretty much covered the globe outside Europe, with puzzles from the Arctic, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia.

Our world map expert, Maria, was in her element; she showed us a precious antique map of the world from the 1830s/40s, which illustrated the three voyages of James Cook.

Then new member Vicky stole the show with a modern laser-cut puzzle so mind-blowing that it will need a whole magazine article to itself.

Our Sunday chat was as lighthearted and irreverent as ever. If you are at all intimidated by the thought of all those puzzle experts with their encyclopaedic knowledge, join us for a Sunday chat to discover how silly we are at heart.

This issue was a Harry Potter special, with hand-cut puzzles from Heather Prydderch of Puzzlewood as well as Harry Potter puzzles from other companies. The issue also profiled hand cutters Robert Rowell, remembered by his daughter Jane, and the American hand cutter Helen C Cole.

There was a write up too of our virtual weekend with the theme of  ‘Puzzles great and small’. Bob wrote about his love of ever larger cardboard puzzles, while Mike reported on the 72-hour Megamarathon, to which he contributed more than 9,000 pieces! Several candidates were suggested for the title of World’s Smallest Puzzle.

Alan, Cathy and Delia wrote about communities puzzling in Grappenhall, Warrington, Colchester and Kelsall in Cheshire. Linda, meanwhile, was enjoying her membership of the British Jigsaw Puzzle Library, although it hadn’t completely prevented her from buying jigsaw puzzles…

We liked being sent to Coventry so much that we went back again this year. This is our major puzzling event, and it was great to welcome members from Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and the USA as well as UK members, some attending for the first time. We hope you’re all hooked on the house party now!

The theme for the Show and Tell was ‘The Living World’, and the BIG puzzlers chose the perfect puzzle. Not only did they complete the 3,000 piece puzzle in a single day, but they are boastfully promising to bring a 4,000 piece puzzle next year, and still complete it within a day.

There were two laser cutters present, Puzzly and Puzzling Beats. Katherine of Puzzling Beats gave us an interesting talk on how she designs and cuts her tricky little tray puzzles. And Puzzly kindly sponsored our speed puzzling competition, in which 15 people battled to complete identical puzzles with no guide picture to help them. Meanwhile hand cutter Heather of Puzzlewood had the one puzzle she had brought with her to finish off  snatched from her hands by an eager buyer.

David S’s illustrated talk on ‘Anything but square’ focussed on his fabulous collection of Holtzapffel Figure-It-Out puzzles, but included plenty of other vintage and modern examples.

Puzzles of every kind were being completed in our spacious conference room, helped along by enough cake, biscuits and chocolate to feed the whole of Coventry. When the sales tables opened, there were so many puzzles to choose from that even the greediest collectors were satisfied (or had run out of money).

Possibly the world’s quickest AGM was completed in 16 minutes, and included our thanks to Sally, stepping down after 20 years’ service. Katherine took her place, and Emma became our new Secretary, leaving Julia with only one job to do as Events Organiser, with events booked well into 2026. Then we could get on with celebrating our Chair’s 70th birthday. Thanks, as always, to Alan, who does the hard work of organising the event as well as being our Membership Secretary and Treasurer!

Next year, in our 40th anniversary year, we are promised a new and larger venue in order to be able to accommodate even more members and their families and friends. Watch this space!

The theme of our virtual meeting was ‘Jigsaws Great and Small’, and we kicked off in style with three Zoom talks – from Maria, on small puzzles, Julia on postcard puzzles, and Mike on the history of large cardboard puzzles (over 1,000 pieces).

Meanwhile, on flickr members were posting photos of the puzzles they were working on, including an unusually large number of small puzzles. There was an ongoing debate about which was actually the world’s smallest puzzle. Nine members showed small and large puzzles in our ‘Show and Tell’. This session, and the talks, were recorded, and are available on the members’ section of the website.

Here are examples of tiny puzzles (Friendship Tea, JNG Puzzles) and a 1,500 piece puzzle, (Intercepted correspondence, Wentworth).

Our final event was an informal chat on Zoom, where it is great to catch up with members who can’t get to meetings. Excitement is building up now about the house party next month, where there will be some interesting talks, mountains of puzzles for sale, and the chance to puzzle from dawn to midnight with old friends.  See you there!

This issue, like the previous one, covered two Show and Tells, so the magazine is jam-packed with colourful photos and puzzle descriptions on the themes of ‘Life on the farm’ and ‘Light and dark’.

Jackie followed up John’s exhibition of Pears puzzles and annuals with an update on her research into Pears puzzles. Several members contributed to a retrospective of the work of cutter Kevin Holmes, and we celebrated the special birthday of cutter Andrew Kershaw. Kerstin described her findings about German puzzle company Kora. Adrian shared his love for the Ford Anglia (and its appearance in puzzles), while Ian and Kelly shared their admiration for travelling puzzle mascot Ted.

There were regular columns from Nicki, about the Frogmore Picture Puzzle Company, and from Maria about (what else?) a world map. Claire enthused about jigsaw festivals, and Emma (to her surprise, but not ours) won the Cotswold Jigsaw Championships.

The marketing manager of Gibson’s Puzzles gave us an update about their cardboard puzzles and their membership subscription offer. Finally, there was a review of the major puzzling events across the world in 2023.