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The First 50 Years
Canadian Antique Phonograph Society

1970-2020  

The inaugural meeting of what eventually became the Canadian Antique Phonograph Society was held on October 17, 1970 in the Corvair Room of the Genosha Hotel in Oshawa, Ontario, where a handful of collectors met with the expressed intention of forming a club. The roots of the society go back years before that.

Prehistory

According to documentation preserved by founding member, Paul Dodington, a parallel interest in antique cars brought together a like group of individuals around Toronto in the late 1950s, who discovered a shared passion for collecting phonographs, gramophones and old records. Two British expats, Paul Webb and Paul DeWinter, who were familiar with phonograph organizations in England and New Zealand, decided that the Toronto enthusiasts should form some kind of society and in 1964 the Edison Phonograph & Horn Gramophone Appreciation Society was born. This ad hoc group held "recitals", which were often cylinder record playing sessions, at the homes of the 5 or 6 members. Sporadic meetings continued through the late 1960s. This society was the original nucleus of the future Canadian Antique Phonograph Society.

Invitation to a meeting of the The Edison
Phonograph & Horn Gramophone Appreciation
Society dated March 13, 1965
CAPS pioneers, early 1980s
John Vanderjagt, Earl Mathewson, Paul Dodington,
Peter Denman, Bas Ingrouille, John Peel, John Alexander

Founding of CAPS

In August 1970, phonograph collector John Steffen, a pharmacist in Oshawa, 60 km east of Toronto, sent a letter to all prospective phonograph enthusiasts in Ontario, from Kingston to London, including those in the 1960s organization, inviting them to join with him to form a society known simply as The Phonograph Club. After its inaugural meeting on October 17, the name was changed almost immediately to the Phonograph and Record Society to reflect the interests of collectors of records as well as phonographs. By 1975 the name had become the Antique Phonograph Society (APS) and in 1985 the Canadian Antique Phonograph Society (CAPS) to fully encompass collectors across the country.

Letter initiating the formation of a club
dated August 19, 1970
Invitation to the inaugural meeting
dated September 16, 1970

Meetings and Presentations

From the very beginning, meetings consisted of a 2-part program - a presentation by one of the members on some aspect of recorded sound history and an auction of sound machines, recordings, parts and music-related ephemera. This format was suggested by Edward Moogk, later Head of Canada's National Library's Recorded Sound Section and author of Roll Back the Years: History of Canadian Recorded Sound and Its Legacy, as a means of preventing the fledgling society from turning into nothing more than a flea market. Each member was encouraged to put on one program and to send out notices for his meeting to all of the people on the membership list.

Allen Koenigsberg presents a talking doll
at a CAPS meeting in 1975. Founding member
and auctioneer, John Steffen, is on the right.
Edward Moogk records a wax cylinder
at the April 2, 1976 CAPS meeting.

Left: Bas Ingrouille, right: Paul Dodington.

At the second meeting of the society, which was held on February 5, 1971 in the Holiday Inn at Highway #401 and Warden Avenue in Scarborough (Toronto), Paul Dodington established a tradition that has continued ever since. Paul made a wax cylinder recording, capturing for posterity those present at the meeting: Peter Charlebois, John Peel, Vida Schwab, George Johnston, Earl Mathewson, John Steffen, Peter Denman, Joe Showler and Bas Ingrouille.

Bas Ingrouille demonstrates a Berliner gramophone
at CAPS 10th anniversary meeting on June 8, 1980

Early on, CAPS established a schedule of eight meetings a year, spaced about six weeks apart, held between September and June, with a break during the summer months. Meetings alternated between Oshawa and Toronto. Room arrangements were ably taken care of by John Steffen in Oshawa and Bas Ingrouille in Toronto. By 1977 through the early 1990s, most meetings were held at Donevan Recreation Complex in Oshawa and Trace Manes Park Club House in Toronto. From 1994 to the present, all meetings have been held in school facilities in Toronto - initially, Scarborough Centre for Alternative Studies (1994-1998) and currently, the Progress Campus of Centennial College (1999-present). Throughout its history, from the early 1980s to the present, each CAPS meeting has regularly attracted 40-50 members and guests.

Over the years CAPS has aimed for a balance in the subject matter of its meeting programs, alternating between presentations on machines and on records, and within these two broad categories, on the display, history and repair of machines and on the history, manufacture and restoration of recordings. For some meetings members are simply asked to bring their favourite or unusual records for all to hear and enjoy or their favourite machine to play and discuss. Other proximate areas of interest for presentation include radio, mechanical music, moving pictures, ephemera and music performance.

A highlight of the 1984 schedule was the presentation and recital of 90 year-old Wee Willie Robyn who made his first commercial recordings acoustically in 1920. Mr Robyn went on to record over 100 songs. Anyone with a fair sized collection of early popular vocal selections will no doubt have one or more sides by this artist. His performances were issued on all of the popular labels of the day. Mr Robyn was accompanied in his recital by CAPS member, Milford Fargo, Professor of Music Education at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and author of Ada Jones: the First Lady of the Phonograph.

CAPS meeting in Oshawa, April 27, 1986
Seated: Steven Barr, John Steffen, Earl Mathewson, John Rutherford, Bernie Power, Don Woodrow

The following year we enjoyed a music performance by Jack Kingston, who first appeared on Capitol Records in 1950 and subsequently recorded over 100 record sides which were released throughout the world. Mr Kingston was a western singer in the tradition of Canadians Hank Snow and Wilf Carter. He was a feature artist on the Mainstreet Jamboree radio show and appeared at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville in 1955. As a composer, he may be best remembered for two songs about the tragic Nova Scotia mine explosions of 1956 and 1958 entitled Springhill Mine Explosion and Miracle of Colliery 2.

CAPS auctioneer Bernie Power records a
wax cylinder at Don Woodrow's May 7, 1989
presentation on home recording

The late blind musician, Jeff Healey, was a frequent presenter at CAPS meetings. Known principally for his blues albums and his performance on the soundtrack of the movie Roadhouse, Jeff was a veteran collector of "Hot Jazz" 78s from the 1920s and for many years hosted a show on CBC radio, My Kind Of Jazz. Jeff would play and discuss some of his favourite 1920s 78 rpm jazz records. He had a remarkable memory and it always amazed us to watch him identify a record by simply feeling its matrix number. He would then regale us with the history of the recording, its title, recording date and major artists.

In 1976, an article in the newspaper "Oshawa This Week" unfortunately created confusion over the official founding date of the society. It reported that "the organization began in 1968 after the pharmacist (John Steffen) gathered Ontario names from a phonograph club in England and mailed out requests to initiate a group of their own." The 1968 date was off by two years although the idea of a formal Ontario group was percolating at the time.

In June 1988, then CAPS President John Rutherford organized a weekend celebration of CAPS 20th anniversary - two years early as it turned out. A Saturday evening wine and cheese party at the president's home was followed, on Sunday afternoon, by a silent auction and special presentation in the auditorium of Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto. Featured performers were John Dodington, principal singer for the Canadian Opera Company, CAPS members Paul Dodington, Steven Barr and Lynda Black, and veteran radio and recording stars Ivan Romanov and Lesia Zubrack. Ms Zubrack spoke fondly about the 78rpm era, after which she was presented with a 78 disc she had recorded in 1955.

June 5, 1988: In performance
Paul and John Dodington
June 5, 1988: In performance
Lynda Black, Steven Barr
June 4, 1988: Bill Tarling,
John Rutherford, Earl Mathewson

Canada's important contributions to the "history of recorded sound" have been well represented in programs. In 1992 Richard Green, the head of the Music Division of the National Library of Canada, shared with members a lively sampling of the documented history of recorded sound in Canada on paper and on disc in a presentation titled Canada's National Archive of Recorded Sound. In 1993 Ernie Dick, Corporate Archivist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), presented An Earful of Canadiana, an opportunity for members to walk Memory Lane with the keeper of the key to Canada's vast storehouse of radio broadcasts and performances of the past.

In 1995, Ernie DeCoste, Curator, Communications, at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa, discussed the museum's fine collection of sound recording and reproduction technology spanning the industry's history from the beginning to the present day. In 1996, Jeannette Kopak, of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and member of a Federal Task Force formed by the Department of Canadian Heritage with the National Archives of Canada, reviewed the government initiative to locate, record, preserve and improve access to Canada's legacy of vintage recordings and film.

Darren Wallace demonstrates an Edison Concert
phonograph at the Show and Tell on June 24, 1990
Horst Weggler demonstrates an unusual gramophone
at the Show and Tell on November 28, 2004

One annual presentation, hosted by Mike Bryan, is a particular favourite. Members are asked to bring their finest or rarest or most unusual machine or other collectable with phonographic interest and talk about its history for The Phonograph Show and Tell. Another favourite presentation, hosted over the years by Bob Nix and Don Woodrow, the go-to members for phonograph repairs and restoration, was a seminar on tips and tricks on maintaining your phonograph in tip-top working order.

John Peel and Mark Caruana-Dingli
present a Columbia AP Graphophone
on November 28, 2004
Domenic DiBernardo demonstrates his gold-plated
Edison Opera phonograph on June 7, 2009.
Left: Angelo Raffin and Larry Moore.

Along with the formal Show and Tell presentation, members are encouraged to bring new acquisitions or outstanding items from their collection to show the members.

On October 30, 2011 CAPS members were treated to a visit by Montreal-born Oliver Berliner, grandson of Emile Berliner, inventor of the gramophone and the flat disc record, in a memorable afternoon of reminiscences of gramophone history.

Paul-André Lawrie presents his collection of
mechanical organettes on February 21, 2016
An afternoon with Oliver Berliner on October 30, 2011
Oliver Berliner, Mike Bryan, Domenic DiBernardo

The range of meeting presentations over 50 years has been staggering. A small sampling of the subject matter includes:

Audio restoration - cleaning wax cylinders and discs, digital reproduction of 78 rpm recordings

Ephemera - advertising, gadgets, gizmos and other paraphernalia of the talking machine

Mechanical Music - automata, music boxes, jukeboxes, organettes, player pianos and nickelodeons

CAPS meeting, May 3, 1998
CAPS meeting, June 1, 2003

Moving Pictures - the Edison Kinetophone, early sound on film (the Vitaphone Project) and early moving pictures in Toronto

Music History - Toronto's Massey Hall and Palais Royale, opera from scratch and artists who created sheet music covers

Phonograph History - Edison, Berliner, Victor, McLagan, Wurlitzer, Thorens and the Barraud Photo Studios

Mike Daley, Mike Dicecco and David Lennick give a presentation at Centennial College on January 13, 2013

Radio - early radio airchecks, transcription discs, programming and advertising, radios manufactured in Canada and the story of Rogers radios

Recording artists - Bix Beiderbecke, Eddie Cantor, Enrico Caruso, Peter Dawson, The Dumbells, Jimmy Durante, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Al and Bob Harvey, Victor Herbert, Guy Lombardo, John McCormack, Paul Robeson, Luigi Romanelli, Sophie Tucker, George Wade and others

Record History - 2- and 4-minute wax cylinders, 5-inch cylinders and Blue Amberols, 8, 16 and 45 rpm records, 8-track tapes, Canadian record labels, ethnic 78s, picture discs, rock 'n roll, Stax records, Japanese records, among many others

Don Scafe and Walter Hoffman at a presentation
of portable gramophones on September 17, 2006
Mike Dicecco demonstrates a Colibri
portable on September 17, 2006

Record Manufacture - home recording, digital reproduction of 78 rpm recordings, the development of hi fidelity and stereo in the 1950s, a tour of New York recording studios, how a CD is produced

Videos - tours of members' collections, soundies and film clips of personalities of the 1930s and 40s, an early record-pressing factory, histories of Edison and various phonograph-related topics

A complete listing of all CAPS meeting presentations, from 1982 to the present, is accessable on the CAPS web site - CAPSnews.org - sorted by Date and by Presenter.

The Auction

A regular feature of CAPS meetings, which began with the very first meeting in October 1970, is the auction. Here, for 2+ hours, CAPS offers a vast variety of sound machines, recordings, parts and music-related ephemera brought in by the members. In recent years, CAPS Auction Manager, Blain McCutchen, has introduced "absentee bidding" for members who are unable to attend the auction. One week before each meeting an e-mail is sent to each member announcing the presentation and listing some of the major items in the upcoming auction. Members are invited to contact Blain with their bids. Between the formal presentation and the auction is a social period when members buy and sell parts, catch up on each other's latest finds and exchange tips on phonograph repair and refinishing while partaking of a coffee and donut organized by CAPS catering volunteers.

Ed Moran, Mike Bryan, Arthur Richardson
(Auctioneer), Bob Nix, November 1, 2003
Dave Dazer, Larry Moore, Mike Bryan
(Auctioneer), Bob Nix, June 6, 2010

CAPS Web Site and Social Media

A milestone in the history of CAPS was the launch of its web site by Bill Pratt on June 6, 1996. It was one of the first sites by a phonograph organization dedicated to sharing knowledge about all aspects of recorded sound and its fascinating history. Four years later, CAPS established its domain address, CAPSnews.org. Having a presence on the internet was a boon to membership which reached a peak of 368 in 1997. From the web site, members have access to both a Membership Directory, which lists contact details and specific interests of current members, and provides all issues of CAPS publication, Antique Phonograph News, in pdf format, back to 1982. CAPS Facebook presence was initiated by Vince Colucci in late 2012 - facebook.com/CanadianAntiquePhonographSociety/ - and is managed currently by Jeremy Hopkin and Blain McCutchen. In 2020, Mark Caruana-Dingli launched CAPS YouTube channel which highlights past meeting presentations.

CAPS CD Project

2000 was an exciting year for the Canadian Antique Phonograph Society. CAPS celebrated its 30th anniversary with the first two-colour issue of Antique Phonograph News and a celebration at the October meeting for the launch of its CD - Music (Makes The World Go Round): Dance Bands From Canada 1922-1930. The meeting attracted nearly 100 members and guests, the largest turnout in the society's history. Produced by CAPS Secretary-Treasurer, Bill Pratt, the project was a collaborative effort that involved many society members: Colin Bray (booklet notes), David Lennick (disc transfers), Graham Newton (audio restoration), Jack Litchfield (proof-reading) and Gene Miller (photographs and other ephemera). The CD was compiled from original 78 rpm recordings in members' collections, digitally restored and professionally produced. The focus was dance bands from the 1920s, the fabled "Jazz Age", and the music selections presented a cross section of sides, from straight dance music to some peppy sides to some very hot tracks by Canadian musicians playing in Canada and abroad. With almost 1,000 sales to date, the project has been a great success for CAPS and a boon to its coffers.

A portion of the large crowd in attendance at the
launch of the CAPS cd on October 29, 2000
Some of the production team on the CAPS cd project:
Graham Newton, Jack Litchfield,
David Lennick, Bill Pratt, Gene Miller

Sharing our Interest with the Public

In 2006 CAPS was invited by the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame to attend its 3rd annual gala on February 5 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Members of CAPS executive set up a display table of machines and ephemera to the delight of the many artists honoured at the event. It was a thrill to see Leonard Cohen, the principal inductee for the year, receive overdue recognition and to hear k.d. lang, Canadian singer-songwriter, perform Cohen's most famous song, Hallelujah.

CAPS display table on February 5, 2006 at the
Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame 3rd annual gala,
Bill Pratt, Mark Caruana-Dingli, Bob Nix, Mike Bryan

Well aware that antique phonographs and records are not something that most people ever think about, some of our members have made it their mission to expose the topic to the public. Their main reasons were to educate and entertain people, but also to generate interest in the subject and in our club. Among the public presentations and displays made by our members over the years, Mike Bryan has maintained a record of those he has made, the first with Bob Nix in 2007, then with Paul Dodington in 2011, after which he teamed up with Keith Wright to make numerous presentations, displaying and playing phonographs while covering the invention of recorded sound right through to the rock and roll era.

Always struggling to find an appealing title for their talks, they often used: "The Birth of Recorded Sound & the Talking Machines that Brought It Alive Or Thomas Edison's Solution Looking for a Use!"

Displays and the playing of phonographs at large public events such as antique shows, pioneer village and record fairs have kept the teams of CAPS volunteers busy answering questions and explaining how the sound from a phonograph is produced. Venues have included:

Scarborough Historical Society (2007, 2020), Christie Antique Show, Hamilton (2010), Whitby Library (2011), Lang Pioneer Village & Museum, Keene (2011, 2012, 2013), Antique & Classic Car Club, Courtice (2012), Antique Phonograph and Music Box Show, Union, Ill (2012), Durham Personal Computer Users' Club, Courtice (2013), Uxbridge Historical Centre (2013), Brampton Historical Society (2014), North York Historical Society (2015), North Toronto Historical Society (2015) and Aurora Historical Society (2017).

Presentation for the Scarborough
Historical Society on March 27, 2007
John Alexander, Mike Bryan, Bob Nix
Keith Wright display table at the
Gatsby Garden Party event on June 25, 2016,
Spadina House Museum, Toronto

Keith Wright has been enlightening others for 22 years through demonstrations in schools for audiences from kindergarten to university (University of Toronto). He provides both recordings and machines to demonstrate their importance from 1877 to the present, beginning with the tin foil machine followed by cylinders, 78s, 33s, 45s, cassettes, 8 track, CDs and MP3s. In an entertaining fashion he accompanies his presentations with a slideshow providing a historical context (fashion, cars, family photos and interesting facts) for each machine/decade. For each 10 years he plays the top selling hits on appropriate machines. If possible, he provides a Canadian connection.

Spadina House, an early 19th century mansion in Toronto that is now a historic house museum, has welcomed his presence at specialty events like the Gatsby Garden Party and Winterlicious. His enthusiasm for the music and his knowledge of the machines provides for an entertaining time.

CAPS 40th Anniversary

2010 marked another milestone in the society's history - its 40th anniversary. In attendance on June 6, 2010 were some of CAPS members from its inaugural year including Ken Vinen, Dr. Peter Charlebois, Don Kelly, John Peel, Paul Dodington and John Alexander. Paul spoke about CAPS early history and made note that the hobby was viewed with some skepticism in the early days by outsiders because the machines had no value. He noted that as time passed, and the phonographs grew in value, the group’s focus grew more serious.

This meeting also featured the playing of the two recordings made originally by Paul in 1971 and 1976 using a brown wax cylinder on an Edison Home Phonograph. The recordings featured the voices of some of the early CAPS members who were in attendance at this celebratory anniversary meeting. All seemed to enjoy hearing themselves from the past.

Another collaborative audio project by CAPS members, the original 1976 recording had been dubbed from cylinder to cassette tape by its producer, Paul Dodington, years ago. Recently, it was transferred to CD by Arthur Zimmerman and the sound "cleaned up" by Mike DiCecco using audio editing software. It is still a noisy listen but the voices are quite audible. You can listen to this early artifact of CAPS history at <<1976 wax cylinder recording>> while reading a transcript of the words.

CAPS 40th anniversary meeting, June 6, 2010
Front row:   
Mike Dicecco, Brad Berger, Danny Ogaki, Dave Dazer, Umberto Tufaro, Mike Bryan, Paul Dodington, Sean Ewart, Ron Drover, Steve Webber, Ken Vinen, John Alexander
2nd row:   
Bruce Ward, Cecil Byers, Horst Weggler, Roger Randall, Jeanne Randall, Trish McAlpine, John Peel, Audrey Peel, Mary Forbes, Betty Pratt, Arthur Zimmerman
3rd row:   
Domenic DiBernardo, Mark Caruana, Brian McAlpine, Saul Glass, Noel Martin, Doug Platt
4th row:   
Mark Quail, Bob Schisler, Bob Nix, John Milne, John Brown, John Rutherford, Ron MacIntyre, Peter Hopkins
5th row:   
Gary Pyper, Ken Donovan, David Lennick, Arthur Richardson, Don Woodrow, Angelo Raffin, Fred Toulch, Peter Charlebois, Don Kelly, Jeremy Hopkin
Back row:   
Larry Moore, Bernie Jocque, Ed Moran, Steve Sandbrook, Paul-André Lawrie, Harold Glick, Bill Pratt

Antique Phonograph News

Hand-written invitations to meetings in the early 1970s gave way to the first formal typed newsletters which were introduced in 1975 by Membership Secretary, Don Woodrow, and mailed to members about a week before each of the eight annual meetings, with an announcement of the time and date of the meeting, a map to the location and a brief description of the program. As these 1-page flyers evolved, they began to include a small section of wanted and for-sale ads, tips for collecting, repairing and managing one's collection, reprints and other ephemera.

1975-1981
1981-1985
1985-1991
1992-2000

In 1981, under the editorship of Bill Pratt, the first 4-page newsletter was produced, with original articles of interest to and written by members and including reports of the meetings and highlights of the auctions. In 1985, with the name change to Canadian Antique Phonograph Society, the newsletter adopted a new masthead which was 'lifted', with some modification, from the 78 rpm record sleeve design used by the Canadian Berliner Gram-O-Phone Co. Ltd. Montreal for its "His Master's Voice" records. This masthead design, and overall format of the publication, which was now issued bi-monthly, was codified in 1992 under the editorship of Barry Ashpole with the adoption of the title "Antique Phonograph News". APN expanded to 8, 12, 16, 20 and, currently, 24 pages. To mark the society's 30th anniversary, the September-October 2000 issue boasted a two-colour cover. Sixteen years later, in 2016, CAPS became a large format, quarterly publication and produced its first issue with a full-colour cover.

2000-2015

As with the meeting programs, CAPS publication has always aimed for a balance of topics to appeal to the diverse interests of the group - machines, recordings, music history and all things phonographic. Particular emphasis is placed on the history of the phonograph and recorded sound in Canada. Articles of special importance include Steven Barr's series On The Record: the history of recorded sound in Canada and The Canadian Connection; Mike Bryan's biography in three parts of Edison, the first 30 years; Mark Caruana-Dingli's many features on Emile Berliner and the history of Berliner gramophones; Mike Dicecco's research on 16 rpm records; Robert Feinstein's many episodic glimpses at the life of Gianni Bettini; Steven Gaber's insightful biographies of various popular and jazz musicians; Bill Pratt's research on piano and gramophone manufacturing companies in Ontario; and Keith Wright's engaging histories of 45 rpm, 8-track tapes and Ontario phonograph companies.

Of particular significance are featured articles by Arthur Zimmerman, who is also copy-editor for Antique Phonograph News: biographies of George White, George Wade and His Cornhuskers, Frank Oldfield, Luigi Romanelli, W.E. Ramsay and others as well as insightful articles on Lord Stanley and Edison's Perfected Phonograph at the CNE, Standfield MacPherson Company and XWA, Montreal: the Very First Radio Broadcast in Canada.

Barry Ashpole, APN Editor
May 5, 1991
First APN with full colour cover
Winter 2016
Arthur Zimmerman, APN Copy Editor
September 14, 2014

All issues of Antique Phonograph News published since 1982 are available for viewing and downloading in pdf format on the CAPS web site - CAPSnews.org. Articles are indexed by Subject, by Date and by Author. Since 2005, select articles are also available for reading directly on-line.

CAPS Volunteers

In 1988 CAPS adopted a formal constitution. Prior to the Constitution, in the words of then-President Lynda Black "the society's executive positions - from president to catering convenor - were shuffled over the years among a small group of perennial incumbents". Little actually changed with the coming of the constitution. As with most similar organizations, a small core group of volunteers have successfully guided CAPS through its first 50 years.

President (titled Chairman 1970-1986)
   Peter Charlebois (1970-1977)
   Bill Tarling (1978-1983)
   John Rutherford (1984-1988)
   Lynda Black (1989-1991)
   Ed Moran (1992-1994)
   Mike Bryan (1995-1999), (2007-2009), (2013-2015)
   Arthur Richardson (2000-2003)
   Bob Nix (2004-2006)
   Mike Dicecco (2010-2013), (2019-)
   Blain McCutchen (2016-2018)

Vice-President
   Bernie Power (1989-1991)
   John Rutherford (1992-1994)
   Keith Wright (2000-2006)
   Mike Dicecco (2007-2009, 2016-2018)
   Mark Quail (2010-2011)
   Saul Glass (2011-2013)
   Kevin Jelley-Kasper (2013-2015)
   Gareth Boardman (2019-)

Membership Secretary
   Bas Ingrouille (1970-1974)
   Don Woodrow (1975-1981)
   Bill Pratt (1981-)

Treasurer
   Bas Ingrouille (1970-1981)
   Don Woodrow (1981-1988)
   Bill Pratt (1989-)

Program Convenor
   Don Woodrow (1977-1979)
   John Rutherford (1980-1983)
   Steven Barr (1984-1988)
   Colin Bray (1989-1991)
   Barry Ashpole (1992-1996)
   Mark Caruana-Dingli (1997-2003), (2013-)
   Brian McAlpine (2004-2006)
   Mark Quail (2007-2009)
   Brad Berger (2009-2011)
   David Lennick (2011-2013)

APN Editor
   Don Woodrow (1975-1981)
   Bill Pratt (1981-1987)
   John Black (1988-1990)
   Barry Ashpole/David Ross (1991)
   Barry Ashpole (1992-1996)
   Mark Caruana-Dingli (1997-2005), (2019-)
   Mike Dicecco (2005-2006)
   Keith Wright (2007-2013)
   Keith Wright/Mary Forbes (2011)
   Vince Colucci (2013-2015)
   Adam Mock (2016-2018)

Auction Manager
   Ed Moran (1995-2005)
   Larry Moore (2005-2013)
   Blain McCutchen (2013-)

Auctioneer
   John Steffen and Bas Ingrouille (1971-1983)
   John Steffen and Bernie Power (1984-1994)
   Arthur Richardson and Charles Aiken (1995-2005)
   Mike Bryan (2005-)

Catering Convenor
   Don Woodrow (1975-1983)
   Horst Weggler (1984-2012)
   John Black (1995-2001)
   Keith Wright (2002-2006)
   Mike Dicecco (2007-2009, 2011)
   Mark Quail (2010-2011)
   Saul Glass (2011-2013)
   Peter Hopkins (2013-)

Social Media
   Vince Colucci (2016-)
   Jeremy Hopkin (2019-)
   Blain McCutchen (2019-)

Web Site
   Bill Pratt (1996-)


Chronicled by Bill Pratt, 2020
Additional text and photographs by Paul Dodington,
Mike Bryan, Mike DiCecco, Keith Wright

Colin Bray, David Ross and CAPS first President,
Peter Charlebois, May 6, 1990

CAPS Executive, January 9, 2005
Brian McAlpine, Horst Weggler, Bill Pratt,
Ed Moran, Keith Wright, Bob Nix,
Arthur Richardson, Mark Caruana-Dingli

Blain McCutchen and Ed Moran
November 20, 2016

Peter Hopkins and Saul Glass
September 15, 2013