AFFILIATES REPORT

by Deena Frooman, IJA Affiliates Director

 

I am happy to report that we organized an affiliates committee at the Burlington festival. Jerry Carson, Steve Gerdes, Mary Ellen Duffy and Logan Daffron volunteered to join me in the effort for the next year, and began by setting seven objectives.

 

1) Communication with affiliate leaders through phone calls, this affiliates report in Juggler's World and a quarterly newsletter.

 

2) Increased affiliate participation at IJA events.

 

3) Increased membership in the IJA through participation in the IJA's membership drive plan.

 

4) IJA presence at regional festivals to help recruit members and sell videos and promotional merchandise.

 

5) Revitalization, maintenance and increase the number of affiliates.

 

6) Creation of a point-of-purchase display on the IJA and its affiliates for affiliates to place in local stores that sell jug­gling equipment.

 

7) Community service by encouraging affiliates to participate in an organization­wide blood drive. "Give blood - it's the best drop you'll ever make."                                .

 

We intend to contact affiliate leaders regularly through the coming year, and invite your suggestions for improvement of the system. Let us hear from you!

 

FESTIVAL REPORTS

 

Up For Grabs Fest

The Up For Grabs Juggling Club (an lJA affiliate) held its first-ever jugglefest on May 21-22 in Aurora, Ill., with more than 80 jugglers from seven states attending. Free basic juggling lessons and advanced workshops were offered each day, and there was lots of open juggling. We had competitions for those who wanted to test their skills against their peers, and more than $750 in prizes were given away at two raffles, thanks to donations from the IJA and other vendors. We hope to make this an annual event, so watch for an announcement of the date in a future Juggler's World. We hope to see you then! Report from Todd A. Claxton

 

Catalina Jugglers Jam

The eighth annual Catalina Juggler's Jam was held in Two Harbors, Catalina, on August 26-28. Around 35 jugglers enjoyed the traditional weekend of snorkeling, hiking, partying and juggling. The Friday morning boats to the island were met by a school of 60-70 dolphins who put on a spectacular display of jumping, diving and playing for the excited observers. Shortly thereafter, several flying fish completed our escort to the island. Campers were met on shore by rangers, who loaded our gear onto their truck for the short trip to the campsite. The rest of the day was spent hiking, greeting and having fun in the sun.

 

Saturday was for games of volleyclub, more hiking and snorkeling and the usual evening potluck dinner. After stuffing ourselves on a wide variety of delicious food, we put on an impromptu display of torch juggling for the boats in the marina below the campground. (Many thanks to Mark Collier for bringing the fuel over on his boat!) The rest of the evening was spent relaxing around the campfire with good friends and "Juggle Juice." Wint-O-Green Lifesavers, provided by the Orange Jugglers, created some nighttime "spark­in-the-dark" entertainment that was a new experience for many campers.

 

The campground was cleared around noon on Sunday and the fun moved into the small town of Two Harbors, where club passing predominated. Sean McKinney and Steve Hess of San Diego showed some pretty impressive three-handed passing, since one of Steve's arms was in a cast due to an auto accident. Friends bid each other farewell on the boat ride back to the main­land, with anticipation of next year's event. Report from Steve Gerdes

 

Portland Juggling Festival

by Eric Bagai

 

With 401 paid attendees in 1994, the Portland Juggling Festival has, in three years, become the largest regional festival in the Western Hemisphere. Last April's event featured a 3,000 ball toss-up and finished with the only competitive event of the weekend: The 3-Egg Enduro.

 

Portland is a pretty city, filled with parks, bookstores, restaurants, and taverns serving dozens of micro brews. The city management has worked out a fairly decent understanding with street performers. The Reed College campus is brick-and-ivy pleasant, and many of the students look like '60's recidivists: a major flashback for those of us who once lived in that time zone. This year the rain graced us just on Friday, spoiling only the publicity preliminaries downtown, where, despite rumors that Tonya Harding was to throw out the first club, that honor was instead bestowed on a rather wet Assistant to the Multnomah Arts Commissioner.

 

The festival proper began at 6 p.m., Friday. Registration took only about three to four minutes per person, except for the first rush. Even then, a small gym was open for those who wanted to wait (or play) until the registration line dimin­ished. Jack Kalvan was heard to mumble something about "more people doing more things in the waiting room here than at the entire [festival name withheld]." Once registered, it was on to open juggling in the big gym, with all the usual suspects: Two­Plyers, Renegades, Archie Mcpheebees (store & catalog sales of world's largest collection of lawn flamingos, etc.), a contingent from Lopez Island (who have their own festival in August), Seattle Cascaders, Eugene Corridor kids, and the hosting Portland Jugglers. The Friday workshops covered mostly the basics: beginning juggling, flower stick, club passing, and flying disk manipulation. Most of the action was in the open-juggling area, with people staring bug-eyed at other people doing improbable things. I particularly enjoyed watching Chris Baer and Rick Rubenstein doing so many weird flashes and lobs at each other that it was as much a test to see who would make the other laugh too hard to throw or catch as it was a fancy-passing contest. Even the vendors got into it, with Neil Stammer demonstrating props to customers. (Yeah, like it's the prop that makes it look so cool!) But the atmosphere was very friendly, so few participants, if any, were intimidated for very long.

 

The Renegade Stage opened at 10 p.m., and the usual assortment and mix of per­formances commenced. Hosted by Rhys Thomas and Cliff Spenger, we got to see frisbee mania, belly dancing, clown schtick, animal mimes, club swinging (with giant bull-roarers), origami needle­threading, and outstanding to indifferent juggling. Then there were the amateur performers. The show finished with a sketch concerning "a harmless core-release from the Reed Nuclear Reactor," during which four guys in lab coats emptied metal cases, each containing five-gross (720) one-inch diameter super/glow-balls into the darkened auditorium. That's almost a 3,000­ball toss up! After the lights came up and the crowd left for the gym, I found five balls that hadn't been scarfed up. In all, this Renegade was good as some, and as bad as many.