All the pictures are now up and posted from the Bride and Groom that I made with Danielle last week, Bride and Groom.
Now it’s back to the writings on the Care & Share days and how they evolved over the years.
Chapter 6, This is a little of a mish mash and out of sequence a little but just writing things as they spring to mind.
So back on track with the Care & Share Balloon days, they had been going along nicely with between 6/10 balloon days a year with Sempertex sponsoring and making the days happen. People would come along and share balloon ideas but also little routines with balloons or a magic trick. There was so much to learn, everyone was very generous sharing. Some were a little reluctant at first to share but once attending and seeing how the days ran with everyone wanting to encourage and help others along it was a fabulous few years of running the balloon days. Originally, we had sponsorship from 2006 to 2008 for 3 years. We did try to cover the country, I’ve just found the list of days for 2008,
Leeds, Tuesday 29th April
Birmingham, Thursday 1st May
Ashford, Wednesday 21st May
Mildenhall, Wednesday 18th June
Darlington, Tuesday 15th July
Manchester Thursday 17th July
Northampton Wed 22nd Oct
We used to add the odd date here and there as I used to spread out the sponsorship money so we could have some extra days. And even attending a face painting of juggling event as well. We also started to have mini lecturers at the days as in the earlier years with Twistina and Malcolm Malan who is now an artist, but back then wrote a book on balloon modelling called, Random Ramblings of a (self confessed) Balloon-atic. I’m not sure if they did the full day or possibly just a session or half day talk/workshop. Hopefully someone might remember who attended some of the days?
One of the first full days we had was Patricia Bunnell who had some excellent DVD’s out on Balloon Modelling and who I had met at the American conventions and became friends with.
Good old balloon chat, I just looked it up, Patricia was November 2009 and out first International lecturer which I paid for and unfortunately was a disaster… darling, he he From the point of, we needed approx. 30 to break even and ended up with just 12/13 attending the day, and yes it was in Birmingham and the very first one at Benjamins where we still meet after all these years. It’s 2 mins form the hotel and 2 mins from the town centre so an ideal location and they have a downstairs and upstairs hall that we can use. So that did cost us a pretty penny. I still was confident in the days and that they would work, just better planning from myself and getting everyone to pull together.
I see from the Leeds day in 2008 I only posted 13 pictures from the day and from Birmingham only 4 pictures… how things have changed, I now post hundreds of pictures from everywhere that I attend.
While running the days we also started attending the magic conventions with Blackpool in February each year which was the biggest magic convention going. Back in the day it was approx. 2,000 people attending where as now adays it’s up to over 5000 attending every year. It’s well worth attending and the evening gala shows are amazing. We used to attend a lot of one day conventions in Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Leamington Spa and a few others around and about. The international Brotherhood of magicians used to travel about the country and tried to do a North and a south convention every other year. These were always fun to attend but over the years the numbers fell and also dealers attending. It used to run over 5 days but for this year it’s now down to just a one day convention. I have many a happy memory of all the conventions we attended over the years, it’s always nice catching up with everyone and going down memory lane.
The children’s magic conventions we also attend, originally Kidology that was run by Alec and Jeremy then in later years Jeremy started his own convention called Trix, I have happy memories of attending both of these events, Kidology in Wolverhampton and Trix being held in the first few years at Oswestry in Shropshire. I have a lovely picture of the motor bike that we made at Kidology the year Alec tried to break the Guinness world record for the most three twist dogs that were made. At kidology 239 were made and where did I find this information… he he, yes on Balloon Chat and it was back in 2013. Balloon Chat is a wealth of, as I say… useless information.
We used to attend Capel Manor on many occasions where they had a balloon decor class’s that Lucy Hennessy used to run, I would go in and run the twisting sessions for them. Met a fair few friends there that we are still in contact with today. Mildenhall was good as this was where Oaktree who used to import the Sempertex brand were based. They were a lovely family and looked after me well over the years. I met them the other week at the Spring fair for a catch up and thanks to Sempertex and Oaktree for giving me the springboard to go around the UK sharing balloon ideas with everyone. One of the slogans I really like is “Let’s Improve Our Art” which was one of the original ones along with the “Care & Share” Days.
We started the balloon forum, “Balloon Chat” in 2008 and with me not even knowing how to add an attachment to an email… eek! It was funny as we set the forum up and people had started to post and I did not realise it was even live… that was all a shock. Luckily Wim came to the rescue as technology and I do not go together, I’m a little better nowadays but not too much. So many thanks to Wim for all his work setting up the forum and one regret, we never got to meet in person, which is a shame as I would have liked to have taken him out for a meal and got a small present as a little thank you.
There was a UK balloon forum before Balloon Chat, I think it was called Twist and it started late 2007 or early 2008 and was run by, from memory 3 people. Apologies I forgot their names, I did get in touch and speak with them about helping to run it but they were concerned as I was sponsored by Sempertex and they wanted it to be impartial.
There was a star interview section on the forum in March 2008 and it’s like a who’s who in balloon modelling from some of the top names in our industry who have kindly taken part. There are about 35 interviews if you would like to take a look,
Star Interview.
Something I cringe about now and definitely would not do now but I was the first person interviewed, goodness not sure how that came about, so unlike me and yes a little embarrassing… but it’s part of my journey in latex so thought I should mention.
We then had a “Topic of the Month” section that Danny Schlessinger kindly ran for us that started in June 2008 that ended up with over 75 topics being discussed. If you have a question needing answering, then I’m sure it’s been answered already on Balloon Chat back in the day with Danny. This is the link if anyone would like to take a look, Topic of the Month.
Remind me to tell you how this got me in trouble quite a few years later…
oops and I was only trying to help people xx
Sempertex/Oaktree very kindly agreed to sponsor the days for 2009/10 so that took us up to 5 years. The days progressed and we travelled all over the UK with friends even coming along and doing a little spot for us and helping the days to grow. Some of the days we were getting 40/50 people attending, this was when they were free and we had product for people to try at the days as well. Some of the venues were a little different, like the hall Barbara Roll got us down I think Devon way where the outside phone box double as the local library where people shared books. It was in the middle of nowhere, but we still had a good few attend the day. Just searched on Balloon Chat and it was 6th March in 2013 and at Ashbrittle Village hall near Tiverton. I even found the picture of the said Phone Box/Library.
And as usual, To Be Continued and I will try and find some other odd places we attended.
