Pelikan announced yesterday that they are going to revisit their Pelikan Hubs project, refreshing it for 2015. Some of you may recall that this project was first unveiled in 2014 and highlights Pelikan’s emphasis on the community of fountain pen lovers who share a passion for fountain pens and Pelikan’s fine writing instruments. The original event occurred on June 13, 2014 and saw Pelikan fans across the world gather at a set time without any specific agenda other than to share in the passion of being a fountain pen lover. Activities for the event were open to the interpretation of the group allowing for some nice variability between venues. Many great conversations took place along with some awesome show and tell. Unfortunately, not everyone could participate but a lot of the excitement was shared via social media with the hashtag #pelikanhubs. Each hub was selected by Pelikan based on a pool of applicants provided that they lived near an eligible city as determined by its population. Once the cities were selected, a hub master was chosen for each. This is the person who leads that hub, acts as the point of contact, and finds a centrally located meeting space in the appointed city. Once that is established it is all about meeting up, making new friends, and enjoying pens with a group of like-minded individuals in a way most of us cannot regularly do.

This year, Pelikan Hubs will take place on September 25, 2015 at 6:30pm local time. Online applications are now being accepted through July 30th for those interested in participating with a deadline of June 30th for those wishing to be considered for the hub master position. Pelikan suggest that would be participants would best be served by early entry as that will help to ensure that your city reaches a critical mass of participants to allow it to be selected. When you sign up, you will indicate which city you would like to see host a hub keeping in mind that eligible cities need a minimum population of 200,oo0. Hubs will range from 7 to 25 participants, including a hub master so if you’re really interested in this coming to your city, make sure you get the word out so that enough people sign up. When registering online, you will have a chance to say why you would like to be your regions hub master, should that be the case. By July, the chosen cities will be announced and hub masters will be selected. Once chosen, the hub master will be sent all of the pertinent details in advance of the event to facilitate their end of the organization. During the meeting participants will be encouraged to share the evening on social media, again with the #pelikanhubs tag.

To briefly recap my experience from 2014, Philadelphia was one of the chosen hubs and we met at a small diner in the city’s center. It was an intimate gathering of fellow pen lovers all coming from some very diverse and varied backgrounds. We compared pens and shared, dipping nibs and ogling each others writing styles. I shared my knowledge and brought some of the more unusual pens in my collection. It is at last year’s Hubs that I fell in love with the M101N Tortoiseshell Brown brought by one of the other attendees. At the conclusion of the event, we were all provided with a fluorescent green notebook courtesy of Pelikan. The color makes for a nice companion piece to the M205 DUO neon green highlighter. My application for this year’s event is in and I look forward to perhaps seeing some of you at one of this year’s Hubs. Head to the official page linked at the end of this post to find further information along with the application form. Also at the bottom, you will find a list of last years selected cities.

Pelikan Hubs 2014 Selected Cities:

Australia: Melbourne

Austria: Wien

Brazil: Sao Paulo

Canada: Montreal, Toronto

Chile: Santiago

China: Beijing

Colombia: Bogotá

France: Paris

Germany: Berlin, Bonn, Dortmund, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt/Main, Hamburg, Hannover, Karlsruhe, Köln, Leipzig, Mannheim, München, Nürnberg, Rostock, Stuttgart

Greece: Athens, Thessaloniki

Hong Kong: Hong Kong

Hungary: Budapest

India: Mumbai

Italy: Florence, Milan, Turin

Japan: Tokyo

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur

Mexico: Mexico City

New Zealand: Christchurch

Phillipines: Cebu, Manila, Quezon City

Poland: Katowice, Warsaw

Portugal: Lisboa

Singapore: Singapore

Spain: Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga

Switzerland: Zürich

Taiwan: Tainan, Taipei

Turkey: Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir

United Kingdom: Edinburgh, London

USA: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco, Washington