 An Eagle's Eye View of Frodo and Bilbo's Birthday Party Saturday, September 20, 2003 New York City Marymount Manhattan College By Anthony S Burdge, Chairman of the New York Tolkien Society Our event went off rather smashingly and there are many people to thank,aside from attendees of course for coming, that helped kick this off. The following is not only thanks but a bit of opinion on the event being in an observant Eagle eye view of it all. A very heartfelt special thanks must go to our beloved Professor JRR Tolkien whose wondrous creation of Middle Earth and its inhabitants bring us all together in the place Jessica and I wish to thank our fellow Staff and members for helping out in the many aspects that they did, especially to Anne for heading up the Childrens Programs and MC'ing the Costume contest, Stephanie (our Contributing Writer and genuine friend) who guarded the dragons hoard of prizes, and whose ideas helped better organize the running of the event , Laura our Elven Calligrapher and Elf friend for bringing to life the letters and language of the Elves and raising folks spirits, and Mary McCann for helping out in all aspects of the event. If I have forgotten you please email me, but forgive me if I have. A very special thank to author and scholar Brian Sibley who sent along the following message that was read at the opening of the event: As
you will appreciate, I can't be with you for your celebration on
Saturday, BUT---- If there's an appropriate opportunity,
please give my sincere and fraternal good wishes to the assembled
gathering and wish them a very happy and enjoyable event filled
with incisive discussions; challenging arguments (Er... that is...
um... debates!); many shared delights; good food and ale
and/or fine wines and reasonably-priced fizzy drinks (!); happy
encounters; pleasant meetings; joyous re-unitings and sad partings!
We would like to also thank the folks at TheOneRing.net for posting the event. We had quite a few folks who either registered for one of our raffles and drawings and took part in our contests who are TORN ringers. It is to TORN ringer Jeania Crafton that we tip our hat to for winning 2 full membership tickets to December 2003 Gathering of the Fellowship event. It is also to TORN staffer Pippin Skywalker I would like to thank attending as well. In a weird twist of fate she missed her flight to London and ended up attending our event. It was a pleasure and we look forward to your report. To Murnkay of Wee Tolkien who has written a fun and fantastic report which has dubbed me the "James Brown of Tolkien fandom, the hardest working man in Hobbitdom." Many thanks to Murnkay for attending, please stay in touch. And lastly, it is to Games Workshop, Sideshow Toy, Serious USA, Cold Spring Press, author and Tolkien Scholar Anne. C Petty, Shire Post, Glass Hammer, Spider Web Art and our partners in quality programming the Gathering of the Fellowship for sending all the fine gifts and prizes for folks to take home with them. 
As a modern man I unfortunately am dependant somewhat on technology and I am not a big supporter of it, for one reason people become too dependant upon it. As the Founder/Chairman and webmaster of The New York Tolkien Society I find it has its uses, like spreading the word of our event. Though we have many members nationally and internationally, for us it is not about how many folks frequent our website, how many hits we have, nor subscribe to our online services i.e. newsletter, it's the society of Tolkien fans who connect as they did yesterday, September 20th 2003. By attending our event folks fulfilled several of The New York Tolkien Society's basic tenets:
We all did this and rather finely I must add. For those I got to
meet I thank you for taking the time to introduce yourself and coming
to our event. The Staff of The New York Tolkien Society is grateful
to everyone who made this event possible. We were quite happy to
send our contest winners home with prizes, and lots of them. We were all transported back to Wooton Major as Ms. Amy Hitotsubashi told us the tale of the great Cake and the trinkets that it had held in Tolkien's tale Smith of Wooton Major. Of Course she had not baked the trinkets into the cake like in the story, she did not want attendees swallowing the trinkets, but delicately placed them under the slices she handed out. This was fantastic! This was indeed a special delight to have fans such as Ms. Amy Hitotsubashi who go all out for a gathering of fans and make it as memorable as it was. Please send us pictures if you have them! Another fan who did his best in presentation was Thaddeus who not only won the United Cutlery Sting Replica up for grabs in our raffle drawing, but won for best Costume in the "other" category, dressed in a home made Aragorn costume. His elven dagger was hand made out of wood and inscribed with its elven lettering. We also were stumped in our "Beat the Geeks" trivia contest by two fans enough for Emily Newhouse and Heather Storman to go home with some great gifts. Whether its designing Middle-earth costumes, learning all aspects of trivia to beat the staff of the NY Tolkien Society, reading all sorts of Tolkien academic criticism, reporting for various websites, re-creating tales of old, for me regardless of your interest in any of these areas I was happy enough to see the variety of interests gather in one spot. As an observer of the fans attending I was awed by the genuine congeniality of fans, who were once strangers and are now ,hopefully, new found friends. I would like to call it a success, with the 100+ strong crowd at times cheering and hooting for our ringbearers, contestants and fans, it warms my heart to have been among them all. If you took pictures please send them in to us so we can create a section of this joyous time. ---Anthony 
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