Dear Collectors and Carvers,

We enter yet another era with our 31^{st annual show. It is time for you to find the vintage bird that may be hidden in the closet for the vintage contest or to create a carving to enter into one of the many other contests offered during the week-end of March 13, 14, 15, 16, 2008 at the Holiday Inn West, Westlake, OH. Make sure to mark these dates on your calendar so you won’t miss out on all the fun. Mail in your hotel reservation card today, so you’ll have a room reserved in your name. If you did not receive a card, please notify a board member and we will make sure to get you one. If you forget to mail your card and you place a call to the hotel please be sure to tell them you are with ODCCA so that you will receive the show’s special rate.}

This years’ show bird is the Black Duck and will be featured on our pin and T’s and Sweatshirts, the trio of Black Ducks was painted by Jeffrey Klinefelter winner of last year’s flat art contest. The Black Duck will also be the bird of choice in the junior painting seminar, the painting contest and head-whittling contest. So get started gathering your reference material and join in the fun of creating your own special Black Duck at this year’s show. The Western Sandpiper has been chosen for the shorebird carving and painting contest.

We are pleased to announce that Pat Godin will be conducting a painting seminar on Friday featuring a Hen Mallard Jim Wilson, Charlie Hall and others will head up the fun seminar for kids and this year, they will be painting a Black Duck. We are very pleased to have Golden Paints as the sponsor of this seminar. Willy McDonald of The Duck Blind, will again be hosting several daily seminars during the weekend in the boardroom.

The rules for the flat art contest remain the same as last year. This contest allows the contestant to keep his or her painting, the ODCCA however will have copyrights to use the painting on the next year’s pin, sweatshirts, T shirts and other pieces. The bird chosen for 2008 is any goose or confidence bird, except for the Wood duck, Widgeon, Shoveler, Black Duck, Canada Goose, Red Head by or Ring Neck. We will again have the Song Bird with its Habitant contest sponsored Betty Odine. Betty will also sponsor a special contest of a IWCA Style Hunting Decoy Shoveler hen that she needs to complete her collection.

We have several new events this year, a fish decoy contest conducted by Scott Morrison and Over the Rig with Tom Matus as the lead. The fish decoy contest will held in Audio Visual room on Saturday, beginning with a seminar on Fish Decoy Carving. Also featured this year will be a contest called Out of the Rig This contest has now been formalized where contestants will pick a decoy from their rig and will toss the decoy into the pool and the very best hunting decoy will be judged and awarded prizes. We are pleased that the IWCA has awarded the ODCCA with the first IWCA Style Shorebird Championship. So get those fish decoys ready, and pick out the best from your rig of decoys and be sure to have your shorebirds ready for the competitions. The 2008 Swim and Sell Pool Party/Cocktail Hour will be held on Friday March 14th at 5 PM. The purpose of this party is to unite current carvers of working decoys with hunters that desire to hunt over cork and wood decoys or collectors of contemporary decoys. This first of its kind event will be conducted by Jon Deeter and Ken Cole. Another new addition to our show will be the Friday auction with Guyette and Schmidt featuring 150 decoys.

The War of the Chips featuring team carving will be held again from Thursday afternoon/evening until Sunday morning. Each team will select any bird as their decoy and carve the decoy by hand or with power tools. No pre carving will be permitted. Each team will start by power carving the head on Friday evening and the rest of the bird will be carved and painted by hand throughout the weekend. On Sunday the carvings will be judged and silent auctioned. For those over 65 years of age there will be a special IWCA Style Decoy contest and the winner will be awarded the Senior Champion of North America. Details of this contest are shown in the following pages.

We would especially like to thank the following for their continued financial support: Tom Whitlock, Betty Odine, Golden Paints, Decoy Magazine, The Holiday Inn West, The Duck Blind, and WoodCraft LLC, who will be sponsoring the Novice division in the Hunting Decoy Contest. These fine folks along with their financial support help make this show a special memory for everyone that attends or sends a decoy.

Our special raffle bird this year will be a Black Duck created by Adam Grebeck of Lakewood, OH a specialist in Black Ducks. Raffle tickets will be available during the show.

Please support our raffles we will be having an early bird drawing and there are many exciting items that will be given away this year. The Black Duck will be featured in a painting by Rob Leslie, a decoy by Ted Mysinger and a cocktail bird by Carolyn Wodrich.

And finally, we thank the many dealers, collectors, carvers, and artists and to all who have supported the ODCCA these past thirty years. Without your support there would be no show.

Watch our web page on www.ODCCA.Net for more information and any updates on the show. Help spread the word by giving the enclosed press release to your local newspaper, TV or radio station.