Pictures from the world record attempt's that could be coming your way soon to a care & share day  
1, flowers going to the hotel staff after the event
2, Denzil going all out to win
3, All the hat's after the attempt

Pictures from the jam room;
1, usable car
2, Another one of Jenine's frog's
3, Colin & Lorinda, two lovely people

More picture's;
1,Jack Mattson's bear
2, Tonya Mcneil's geo pig
3, Minnie, unknown

More picture's from the jam room;

1, Tonya McNeil's, sheep
2, Elephant hat, unknown
3, Dress made for the nbc TV reporter

Pictures from Patricia Bunnell's lecture bubble belly babies;

Jane Driscoll, Restaurant entertainment

Zanie Janie is a lovely lady with a big personality and you cant help but warm to her. There we're some good advice given in the first half hour of the session with three excellent tips passed on to those that attended, and it was a full class, the biggest of the week that I attended, approx 60 people. Guess who has just walked in the room as Istart to do a review about here........yes you guessed it, Jane.

So the first 30 mins for me was excellent but as we don't have a restaurant market in the UK the the rest of the session passed me by but the rest of the class attendees we're very enthusiastic and it was all well received by them, you cant help but warm to this lovely enthusiastic lady, except for if she choses you later on in the week to play a princess in a balloon play, yes all will be revealed later on when I write up the gala/awards night. I think I made a nice princess  

On to the Diamond Star, talent show competition.

Cricket was the first acton who also has a dealers booth and sels magic, balloons, dvd's etc. Does some nice jokes, funny bits and pieces and is very good with the microphone doing all sorts of noises etc.

Tom Vorjohan & Daniel Herron, I bought these two artistes DVD many years back from T.Myers and the quality was so bad I couldn't see or hear what was going on, T never replaced the dvd. So after the show I was speaking with Tom as he bought David Grist's new DVD and I was telling him the story and hekindlyoffered to send me a new one, so tha was very nice of him. There sketchwas old macdonald had a farm with many volunteer's up on stage and the bdouble act playing off each other,they seemed to get a good response from the audiance but I thought the act was very american and a lot of it passed me by.

Roger the balloon wizard did a scene about a garden which turned out to be an octopussys garden with an underwater theme and singing along to the song.

Tony Cooper did improv with characters and lecturers from around the convention being part of his show, it was nicely done and very topical.

Janet and Adam Lennox told the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf, the props we're very nicely made and Janet kept the pace flowing along while Adam her young son of about nine was the star of the show. A nice little act that was put together for the convention.

Sheldon Blake has  a very lively and possibly at times over the top personality and performed a card in sword magic effect. Sheldon when you talk with him one to one is a very likeable young man but does need to learn quickly where the line is and what is funny and what offends people. I expect he will learn and come back as a very useful addition to our balloon community.

Tony Cooper won the competition

Thanks for taking the time out to review the event Graham.  It sounds like you are getting plenty out of the trip.  I will have to squeeze some tips out of you when you get back.  As for you being a Princess.  Its worrying but I can actually imagine you as a Princess.  Very sweet too if I may say so.

Thank you for sharing Graham some great stuff, I wish I was there :cry:

fantatstic photos... were you allowed to film maybe some of the twists and turns on your mobile? it would be cool to have some first hand to hand show of how to twist some of those things....

I only went to two out of four classes on the Saturday, first up was Jimmy Leo on character developement. It was interesting to see and hear Jimmy's thoughts on this and how you can play with varying idea's but for me and others that I spoke to after, the class lacked something or it may have been that his other lecture which was for me one of the highlights of the convention was just too dam good and he had no where to go with this one.

Fantasy Flowers, Janice Whitehead.

I was looking forward to this class as I had bought the DVD from Janice about this subject a few weeks previous. Janice and I'm assuming her husband set up a video screen as most of the work is very detailed and they both went through this assuming we had some basic idea of the subject. I thought more explanation was needed as she jumped ahead sometimes and even I was unsure of some of the steps. I would like to see more detailed explanations with not such a wide range of flowers being talked about. So then it was time to try and make a carnation in class, I was very pleased with my first effort and wore it to the gala awards ceremony in the evening and had many many nice comments made. So thanks Janice for your efforts  
We are hopingJanice will be doing the star interview soon on the forum.

Let's try this for the second time, just spent fifteen minutes writing up all the other lectures and then is dis-appeared
This is the list of classes on offer that I never managed to attend;

Kris Cope, Put on a happy face, The everybody
Ralph Dewey, Kingdom Twisters, Balloons with heart
Robbie Firman, Introduction to deco twisting, Deco weaving, Business side of deco twisting
Ed Chee, Improve your yield, New and Advanced twisting techniques
Patrick van de Ven, For the birds, Apes and primates
Bidou, 5" Prints. King of new twisting elements
Jane Driscoll, Art of the story
Jan Iimes and Ken Stillman, Awesome twacking
Ken Stillman, Beat the hard times with awesome balloons
Nina Dees, three face painting classes
Patricia Bunnell, Beyond twisted critters
Colin Myles, Small table centrepieces
Russ Sauve, Special event coordination
Julie Coheley, Start making more money

So there was definately something for everyone with plenty of choice, possibly too much though as it was not possible to see all the instrutors. Rather than one teacher doing 2 or 3 different classes it may be better to have them do the one class and teach it a few times throughout the week at varying times so that it would be possibly to see everything that is on offer as plenty of work is being put into the classes by the instructors and it's a shame when the classes are poorly attended due to so much choice being on offere and registration/numbers on the low side.

The awards ceremony on the last night of diamond jam was well attended due to this being the cross over day and start of ballooncamp.
I will add all the winners at a later date for all the competition winners etc.
Ralph Dewey's world record winners,
Braided hat, Stuart Gutter with 38 hats made in 30 mins (can you do better)
Buttercup flower, joint winner's, Ed Chee and Mellisa Condillez with 20 flowers in 30 mins (can you beat this?)

Large Sculpture winner Mark Verge
Medium Sculpture winner Benny Nieves

Stage performer, Tony Cooper
Busking, joint winners, Sheldon Blake and Roger the balloon wizard

Gus the new owner of T. Myers compered the final night show very competently while performing some good strong magical effects with a comical twist thrown in. Zanie Janie then did a little spot with about eight helpers on stage including myself. I think I was type cast as the beautiful princess and enjoyed the experience although all the helpers were a little unsure about what we we're  expected to do and the story did seem to go and none of us knew what it was all about. It received a mixed reaction from the audience.

Ralph awarded four special prizes this week, two for up and coming to Tonya McNeill and Jack Mattson who are both members on this forum and twister of the year went to Debbie Stevens.
There was also a trailblazer achievement award that went to Leo Verlinden from IBS balllons and who runs the millennium jam for all his hard work over the years in promoting our balloonart to the world, this was well deserved and I had the honour of picking the award up for Leo and saying a few words on his behalf. This also gave me the opportunity to plug the new DVD that has just been broughtout called "Friends od David" which has 12 top names from within the industry giving there time freely to help raise funds for David Grist's family. I will have a few of thses for sale when I get back at the end of the month.

1, Empty jam room
2, Jenine's work
3, Zanie Janie