2010 RBS Annual Gathering and 2009 Humor Award Dinner *** PLUS 2010 Humor Award Competition Update

The Robert Benchley Society announces plans for the Seventh Anniversary Annual Gathering, Friday through Sunday, July 16-18, 2010, in Boston, Massachusetts. The highlight of the event will be the Saturday, July 17th dinner cruise aboard a private luxury yacht. We are finalizing plans and expect to post prices and registration details shortly.

2009/2010 RBS Award for Humor Winner, Ed Tasca

The highlight of the event will be the Annual Award Dinner and Ceremony, Saturday, July 17th. This year's first place winner is Ed Tasca, of Toronto, Ontario and an undisclosed location believed by the authorities to be in Mexico, for his entry Let’s Click Up the Old Gang Sometime. Of Ed's essay, final competition judge Kevin C. Fitzpatrick says "It is an original and lively writing on a new topic, social networks.”

Kevin has been a past judge of the competition. He is the president of the RBS Fascinating Crimes RBS chapter in New York. In 1999 he founded the Dorothy Parker Society and serves as president. He is the author of "A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York" and with Nat Benchley, is the co-editor of the new book "The Lost Algonquin Round Table" (Donald Books-iUniverse). Link for the book: http://www.donaldbooks.com/catalogue.html

Other winners in this competition are:

• Second place: Brenda Pontiff of Los Angeles, Calif. for A Teensy Weensy Renaissance.
• Third place: Con Chapman of Weston, Mass. for Foundations of Western Logic , and
• Fourth place: B. Elwin Sherman of Bethlehem, N.H. for A Woman At Home

Kevin Fitzpatrick

The preliminary judges of the competition were author of Robert Benchley An Annotated Bibliography, Gordon E. Ernst; writer and RBS Director, Eileen Forster Keck; puzzle designer RBS Vice Chairman, Chris Morgan; 2007 RBS Humor Award winner, Daniel Montville; radio personality and chairman of A Moderate State of Preservation Chapter (Ann Arbor, Mich.) of RBS, Tom Saunders; RBS Director Pamela Siska and Robert Benchley Society Chairman David Trumbull.

Preliminary plans for this year's gathering were set during a recent tele-conference among Horace Digby (2005 RBS Humor Award Winner), Kevin Fitzpatrick, Wiliam Goldsmith (Chairman of the "Uncle Edith Chapter" RBS Chapter in Los Angeles), Chris Morgan, Tom Saunders, David Trumbull, and Mary DiZazzo Trumbull

HOW TO ENTER THE 2010 ROBERT BENCHLEY SOCIETY HUMOR WRITING COMPEITION

Details of how to enter this year's contest will announced at the Annual Gathering in Boston, July 16-18 and will be post online immediately following that event. The rules of the contest and procedures for judging will be the same, or very nearly the same, as they were for the 2009 contest, the winner of which will be recognized at the July 17 dinner.