Web team report

The web team has been quite active over the last month.

• We have prepared a section on "how to juggle" to be added to our site. This is comprised of links to sites we have identified as good resources.
• We have examined several forum software alternatives and experimented with integrating them into the site.
• We have continued our efforts to revise the over-all look and feel of the site including a new home page. To date we have yet to find a solution with undesirable side effects. Undesirable side effects may be unavoidable.
• We have looked into gallery software that would allow members to have a way to share juggling photos and/or videos.

We expect to be able to have all of these improvements available soon.

IJA Archives Report

The IJA Archives has gradually been pulling itself together and rapidly increasing in size. Here's an update on what's happened to it lately, from assistant archive director Alan Howard. (That's me.) The present home of the Archives is Las Vegas. Stan Allen purchased a large building for Stagewrite Publishing last year and presently has plenty of unused warehouse space. The archives now live there (with a number of boxes of videos, negatives, etc. being stored upstairs in my office, in a more temperate climate).

The archives include 9 boxes of materials which were mailed to me from Richard and Ginny a couple years ago, plus a number of boxes (mainly containing financial records and similar files) which had previously been sent to Andrew Conway. These were delivered to Vegas by Karen Quest, who drove down from San Francisco last year and packed along as much of the stuff from Andrew's as she could. I believe he still has one or two items remaining which were too big to transport along with everything else (such as Kris Kremo's old prop table, from his days in Las Vegas).

Mary Wilkins made significant contributions to the archives, with magazines and nearly a full file of IJA Newsletters. (It may actually be complete now, with the recent acquisitions from her -- see below.) When I arrived in Buffalo in July I was not expecting to become caretaker of so much of the archives, but Braidy Brown showed up with a van full of stuff. Posters, display boards, photos, scrapbooks, props, letters, etc. -- all the archive item he had in his possession. He turned them all over to me to transport back to Las Vegas. I squeezed as much as I could into my rental car on Sunday (not being able to pack them properly and ship them out that day), and drove them to Cleveland, where I was for the next few days. I packed them all for shipping and sent them via UPS from Cleveland to the Stagewrite offices in Las Vegas. All boxes arrived, seemingly unhurt. (Well, the boxes were a bit scarred, but the contents are okay.)

There were approximately five boxes which would not fit into my car. Sandy Brown took charge of these, loading them into her van and transporting them to Kansas. We have not yet made plans to get those here to Vegas. Sandy has a couple large boxes of auction items, a plastic trunk of 10 (I think) Harry Lind clubs, and two boxes containing the Passing Zone's Teams trophy (a for-display model, I am told).

In August I rented a van and drove to Phoenix to pick up boxes of 248 juggling videotapes, previously purchased from Mary Wilkins and stored at Dave Davis' home. In a vehicle with no mileage charges, this seemed a good time to get these boxes of tapes, since I had to go to Mary Wilkins' home in Chino, California that weekend anyway. Mary was moving, and that was the only time I had available to get to see and bring back her collection of books before she had to be out of her old house.

Braidy and Mary had worked out a deal in Buffalo for the IJA to acquire her juggling library. The items were to be auctioned off in 2005, with the IJA and Mary splitting the profits 50/50; the IJA would also be able to purchase any items we wanted to retain for the archives, working out an individual per-item price with Mary. When I arrived in Chino, Mary said she had changed her mind -- with no guarantee that the books would all sell in 2005, and not wanting to see this deal dragged out over a number of years, she preferred a single one-time settlement. I agreed to her price of $2,500.

The IJA now owns the majority of Mary's collection of books, magazines, clippings, photos, displays, etc. We may do with them as we wish, either keeping them in the archives or auctioning pieces off. I think this is a great deal, and do not think there is much we should be auctioning. Especially in the books and magazines -- the rest of the IJA archives includes no books, and I think this is an important start at a comprehensive research library for the IJA. If we had stuck with the original deal between Mary and Braidy to auction or buy these (either for an agreed price or by bidding for ourselves at the auction itself), we could well have gone beyond the total price Mary was asking.

I have sent three bills to IJA Treasurer Dan Howard for reimbursement/payment: $2500 to go to Mary Wilkins, van rental and gas costs to go to me, and UPS shipping costs to go to Stagewrite (to whom I billed the boxes shipped from Cleveland to Vegas, since I knew the account codes and Stan okayed my using them).

Now, in a temporary relatively-slow period between magazines, conventions, and shows, I am starting to sort through and catalog all the IJA Archives items. First a general listing of what is in each box, then later a more detailed accounting of all items individually. Future plans include scanning papers, photos, and photo negatives to help preserve them digitally, and copying videos onto DVD, again to aid with preservation of the contents.

Please let me know if you have any questions.