Pelikan Hub 2016 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

This year, the Pelikan Hub in The Netherlands took place in Amsterdam, in a beautiful church with plenty of space for pens, inks, people, and snacks (very important)! Stephen Brown was our Hub Master and Joost Appelboom from Appelboom was great, organizing and securing us a venue to accommodate us all. He even brought Pelikan paper pads (not the ones distributed by Pelikan to the Hubs), all the Pelikan Edelstein Inks, including Turmaline, Moments of Joy notebooks, and more. The added goodies that Appelboom brought in made this Hub even better!

Pelikan sent out boxes to all Hub Masters for distribution, so we hauled everything over to Amsterdam with the assistance of Eric Orozco and Michael Ward. We had 18 participants signed up, and a few added on after the registration date. However, a few of the registered folks couldn't make it, and in the end, everyone received a goody bag. Yay! 19 people showed up to the Hub, most staying well past the end of our booked time. That means we were all having an awesome time. 

Don't laugh. The napkins were a last minute addition for inking pens.

It truly was an awesome time. When I was going through these pictures to share with you, I was thinking, oh shoot, I didn't take many pictures of PENS! Thinking back to the Hub, what I now realize is we all spent most of our time socializing while we inked, dipped, and shared pens - it wasn't just about pens, it was about socializing with people we know online but have never had the pleasure of meeting in person. All those Instagram names now have a face and a great memory to go with it! There were still beautiful pens in attendance, and the Edelstein inks provided by Appelboom were the perfect add-on, as we inked our empty pens and tried out the colors we have been longing to try. 

He caught me.

Old friends, new friends, good friends. We kept our Hub casual as we snacked and chatted, we got to know each other, we checked out great pens and inks and more. Honestly, I was not expecting the turn out to be so great and I thought maybe some people would be bored - nope. It was truly a wonderful evening with fine folks, gourmet pens... and delectable stationery.

Michael entertained and thrilled us with beautiful Spencerian on Pelikan paper! A big thanks to him for putting up with all our strange requests!

Thank you to Pelikan Hubs for launching this great idea and for sending goodies to participants. Thank you to Appelboom for filling us up with even more ink, a venue, and Pelikan pens from the store for us to ogle, pet, and dip. Thank you to everyone who bought snacks and beverages! Thank you to Stephen for being Hub Master and leading this weird and great gang of pen people, and thank you to each and every one of you who showed up and made this such a fun Pelikan Hub.