So if today is the fourth Thursday...

That's right, The Ozark Pipe Smokers have a rare fifth Thursday coming up and, therefore, a Fifth Thursday Meeting.
As with most fifth Thursdays, we do not have a heavily serious agenda, but there should be some fun. On the agenda are a well-postponed discussion of our annual slow-smoking contest, and I've got another fun exercise that should elicit a laugh or two, but I'll talk more about that this weekend.
On the smoking contest, we are hoping to build a schedule of events that will span more than one day. A two- or even three-day weekend might give people more reason to trek down to lowly northwest Arkansas and see the community they have seriously misjudged. My hope is that if we can plan a multiple-day event, we can count on the cooperation of some of the city agencies, like the Chambers of Commerce or Main Street Rogers.
Right now, we have our cornerstone event, the slow smoke, but we'd like to find more reasons for people to come here. The cigar smoke ring contest was also fun, and allowed us to extend the contest briefly, but I can't help thinking there is more we can do. More events will attract more people, and more people will attract more vendors, and more vendors will again attract more sellers. And with the right events, we could possibly put ourselves in the national pipe smoking spotlight, even to be in better position to host the International Pipe Smoking Competition.
So bring your ideas next Thursday or post them here. Any suggestions will help.