Letter from Meyers

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LETTER FROM MEYERS

Dear Fellow Bootmakers,

2024 was certainly a turbulator year (for me personally), but I hope the Bootmakers’ meeting provided some comfort and entertainment amongst life’s chaos.

Our US and international membership continue to make our online Zoom meetings popular with between 50 and 70 participants. In 2024 we had another round of wonderful guest speakers including: author Andrew Lycett, author and BSI alumni Steven Doyle from the US, our good friend Roger Johnson from the UK, A. J. Low aka Adan Jimenez and Felicia Low-Jimenez authors of the Sherlock Sam series, and UoT statistics professor Jeffrey Rosenthal.

I always want to mention our interesting and entertaining Bootmakers’ magazine Canadian Holmes, edited expertly by Mark and JoAnn Alberstat. Canadian Holmes gives our group a professionalism and gravitas that puts us on a level with the BSI and London. And I would like to encourage our membership to help support Canadian Holmes by submitting articles for possible publication.

This year, as in other years, I will schedule interesting guest speakers; arrange, book, organize, and setup all meetings—online and live—including our executive board meetings; create agendas and PowerPoint slides. I will maintain and update our website, organize the Awards event, and produce the Awards video ceremony. I will manage our Zoom and Meetup accounts. This year I booked and organized 2 live meetings in the library which included a Sherlock Holmes radio play and Jeopardy game, and I plan to do 2 live meeting events next year as well. Next year we will endeavor to resurrect our Silver Blaze event and our Pub event. And I will continue to manage, with help, all the behind-the-scenes workings of the Bootmakers organization.

I look forward in 2025 to another year of wonderful international speakers, original song parodies, diabolical quizzes, and much more. Thank you for being members of the Bootmakers, and for those who are not yet members please take the time now to review the membership categories on our website and help us maintain the Bootmakers by becoming a member.

Sincerely,
Mike Ranieri, M.Bt.
Meyers, Toronto

Here is your “new” executive team for 2025:

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

  • Mike Ranieri – President (Meyers)
  • Thelma Beam – Vice-President (Shoehorn) & Membership Secretary (Bootstrap)
  • Kathy Burns – Secretary (Bootlace) & Archivist (Sole)
  • Pratap Reddy – Director-at-Large
  • Wendy Heyman-Marsaw – Liaison to Sherlockian Societies & Director-at-Large
  • John Gehan – Canadian Holmes Publisher (Cordwainer) & Mailer (Bootstamper) & Director-at-Large
  • Jim Ballinger – Director-at-Large

BOARD APPOINTED OFFICERS

  • Michael Brown – Treasurer (Bootjack)
  • Mark & JoAnn Alberstat – Editors of Canadian Holmes (Bootprints)
  • Angela Misri – Social Media Master (Aglet)
  • Karen Campbell – Quiz Master (Tongue)
  • Karen Gold – Songster (Lassus)
  • Bruce Aikin & Dave Sanders – Meeting Diaries (Insoles)
  • Cliff Goldfarb – Honorary Counsel (Stretcher)