Andy has kindly agreed to answer the questions for the 21st/27th and is looking to build a website soon so perhaps we can all encourage him or point him in the direction of someone who can sort him one out.

Just wanted to see how many were getting the forum up like this and loosing some of the top header from the screen,
It does this on my laptop and Fuzzy has noted it for me, anyone else?

I have just changed the background for my google homepage, bottom left of screen and then in editors choice is ballon art by Jeff Koons.

The legends tour has begun over in the US, more details are on the front news page. They have now got a promotional youtube clip; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBVN6m4m6Xc

Thought it might be nice to see how people started out and what there first show/balloon gig was like.
Mine was for a WMC in Whyteleaf, near Croydon. Will try and right up a bit more about this later.

I have the opportunity to book Andrew for a UK lecture on Wed 27th Oct, just putting the feelers out as to how many may be interested as we do need to cover costs for this and would need to get 15 confirmed for this to go ahead.
The lecture would either be in Banstead or Birmingham and would be approx £35 to attend, he is coming over to The Millennium Jam and we are looking into the UK lecture being different from the one in Europe.
I attended andrew's lecture in America at twist and shout and did a write up about it, he does very usable things for the real world. I've just hunted his CD out to view to refresh my memory.

This is the write up from his twisting in a mall/shopping centre lecture;

The late night lecture that I attended on the Thursday was by balloonchat member Andrew McDonald, McPump on Mall twisting, an unusual title as only one thing was twisted in the whole two hour session which was on working for the owners of the mall (shopping centre) rather than the shopping centre as they own hundreds of centres rather than just one. Things discussed were how to get contact with the big organisations, how to work the centres, having people stand in for you and doing the bigger events for the venues. Some good tips & advise were given even about the $100 dollar line and Andrew told some nice stories, a worthwhile class that I felt would have benefited from it being tightened up and 30 minutes shorter but this may have been the first class Andrew had given on this subject and he wanted to make sure everyone got value for there $5 entrance fee but sometimes less is more.
And the line twisting lecture;

Andrew McDonald, Line Twisting,

Thoroughly enjoyed this class, Andrew again told a few stories seemed very comfortable on stage and his friends Magnificent Mike & Big Don kept me company during the session where Andrew taught approx 8/10 good and usable intermediate figures that would make you stand out from the crowd & be reasonable quick when the pressure of 100's of screaming kids were around you, if you did get yourself into that situation. I did spend some money & purchase his CD, when I get a few minutes I'll give a review.
From my notes Andrew showed, Snake, Butterfly, Horse, Giraffe, Monkey, Elephant, Tiger & Tigger. He was hoping to show Superman & a dog but ran out of time.

Darren has agreed to answer the questions next week for us on the forum, his website is; http://www.razzledazzleballoons.co.uk/

And while I was looking around his site I noticed he has a link back to the forum  
If anyone else has a links page or could add a links page and add the forum that would be nice.

Story about a 47ft balloon; http://www.switched.com/2010/06/04/rafa ... n-at-ni%2F

Charles I just spotted your celebrating today! Enjoy  

http://www.birthdaygirlblog.com/2010/06 ... reath.html

I have been trying to sort out all my email lists etc as I have been organising the new Sempertex newsletter which has over 600 new emails to add to the lists I already have.
I decided to code every list so that those who received more than one email from me I could easily see what other list they/you were on and delete so that I was not sending out too many duplicate emails and annoying people. So tonight is the night my computer decides to play up and for some reason only known to itself it decides to put all me emails in the outbox and not send them      
It's taken 90 mins to send 6 emails, have decided to just shut it down now and go to bed and try again in the morning, the fun we have.

He seems to have got the idea from the movie "UP" http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/28/ma ... el/?hpt=T2

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 139008.ece

This can be either a space gun, machine gun or even a hair dryer. Both the balloons were inflated to around 3 fingers un-inflated.

Someone sent me the details from amazon about the toys; http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_kitch ... 20Products

I've found more photo's while sorting out all my files, hope you can follow along. The gun will fire and make a sound by putting a twist in the handle, the tighter the handle the louder the firing noise will be.

While going through my files I found these pictures which were for a publication a few years back, so I thought they may be of use to some?
Hopefully you will be able to follow along to the pictures, if not just ask away with any problems.

These could be fun    http://www.target.com/Nora-Balloon-Anim ... in%2Cprice

Still deleting files from my computer and came acroos this;

"I've learned that people
will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget
how you made them feel."

I've been going through all my old files etc trying to tidy up my computer desk top and found this that I wrote a few years back. I did a quick search on here and I don't think I've posted this before?
Some of it is a bit out of date as it was written possibly 3/4 years ago    

The Joys of Organising a Balloon Jam?
& How it all got started!

So you get a great idea like you want to help other balloon artistes all over the country to improve the art of balloon modelling. Why would you want to give up your time, not only on the day, but trying to organise halls, balloons, sponsorship, adverts, publicity and promotional work along the way. Why indeed, I don't know why myself, well that's not exactly true, I do know why I do these and I thoroughly enjoy every aspect of it. From all the emails, phone calls at all times of the day & night, questions about why haven't I booked a hall yet, why have you changed the location of the day, why is the Sutton day held in Banstead etc, etc, etc
The reason I started to organise the days was because a good friend of mine and I'm sure yours, David Grist passed away. I don't want to put too much of my personal thoughts here, but would just like to say I will never forget the wonderful things that everyone wrote about David on his website after he died, truly moving. This was the spur that I needed, because up to then I don't think I was a very sharing person.
So I wanted to carry on what David had started, in the UK for twisters there was nothing going on, unlike America with the conventions, jam's and Balloon HQ,
Loads of videos & DVD's to buy and get your creative juices flowing.
I thought the best way forward was to start the Balloon Jams in the UK, venue had to be organised, and someone to sponsor the day would be a bonus to keep the costs down for myself. A catchy title would be good, and I'm still looking for one!
They started of as "The Care & Share Balloon Jam/Workshop Fundays" a catchy little number I don't think, but the title did suit the type of day I was hoping to try and run.
The initial concern was that people would turn up as they do for a decorating seminar and all sit there expecting me to show and teach them for the whole day, so on the first lot of flyers that I had printed promoting the days, I put on them;
"Although you are expected to explain and show some of your work"
This unfortunately got me into some trouble, with people not taking it the way I had hoped for, I was concerned as stated before that everyone would just turn up for me to teach all day, I was just hoping to warn people that the day was to be about sharing all aspects of what we do from the entertaining side, how to promote, best way to advertise yourself, etc, etc. We all have loads of experiences, good & bad in all our different fields and we could all help each other along the way.
Some took the way I had written "Although you are expected to explain and show some of your work" to literally mean some of your work, so if you didn't make anything that was your own, you couldn't come to the day, they thought I was trying to arrange an exclusive little club, so I can state here this was furthest from my mind, although I was hoping to meet others who were as enthusiastic as myself about our balloon art. This over the last 15 months that I've organised the days I can definitely say that I have met some fantastic people, who are now good friends.
I feel we're like a small family, the friendship trust and sharing that goes on is difficult to describe, perhaps anyone that's not been to one of the days should come along, I guarantee you wont be dis-appointed. Ask some of the hundreds that have been to the days what they get from it, for me the days are a learning curve, mistakes have happened along the way, the days are evolving and I'm more than happy to listen to ideas on improving them.