Rach and Steve |
The
club Only just started up a few weeks
before the Scottish Convention. We already
had a number of people interested in going
to the convention and it was a great time
to get to know each other a lot better. |
CANCELLATION: There
was great confusion in the build up to this convention
as someone on the organising committee had told
everyone that the convention was cancelled while
Graham was abroad for a few days. He came back and
reassured everyone that the event was still going
ahead.
GETTING THERE: Rach
and I set out in her car, with Jonny. Roger and
Tim made their own way there, and the girls (Kate,
Emma and Amber) didn’t turn up till the next
morning. On arrival we got our convention passes
(a peg – quite disappointing) and I bought
2 groovy t-shirts for £10! Approx 16 people
from the Isle of Man attended the event, including
the wonderful Hazel and Kayman.
For the whole convention, my wife
Rachel had a migraine and didn’t feel too
well, so I didn’t get involved as much with
everything this year, as I was torn between looking
after her and trying to practice some juggling routines
for some performances coming up in the weeks following
the convention.
No Captain Duncan or Lorna or Kirree
this year, which was all disappointing, but lots
of new faces! My aim was to improve my 3 balls in
one hand juggling, and improve devilsticking, and
learn some diabolo tricks, and learn 5 ball juggling,
and learn some ring tricks (from a 10 page article
I printed out). Unfortunately there were so many
people juggling in the main hall and in the corridors,
that it was very hard to find a place to practice
my juggling. I eventually settled for upstairs,
but soon that was crammed full of jugglers too!
THE SHOW
CEILIDH:
No shortage of girls to dance with
for me this year! I danced with Hazel twice, Kate
and Amber once each. At half-time some people went
outside and did some fire juggling practice. Stopped
halfway through and never really restarted as jugglers
started playing gladiators! I managed to join in
and win about 7 games out of the 50+ that I played.
The band were great, and the drummer at one point
managed to keep a beat going while juggling the
drumsticks!
RENEGADE
|
No renegades on the Friday night
as no-one could be bothered organising it. I
co-hosted a renegade last year with Andy Blackett,
so I passed on doing it this year, and Jonny
decided to go for it as Compere for the Saturday
night. He seemed to be expert at winding the
entire crowd up, but it produced a whole load
of extremely funny heckles! At one point, when
he began listing all of Matt Hall’s credentials
before announcing his name, I stood up and said
“it’s me”! It got one of the
biggest laughs of the night, as I sat back down
again and ushered Matt to take my place on stage!
Matt congratulated me on the heckle the following
day, which is excellent as he had drunk a lot
and still managed to remember me! Matt Hall
did another new first-time in public club juggling
act which was awesome. Ewan did some flair bartending
stuff. I did the ball juggling bird impressions
act. Andy Blackett did some jitter ring stuff
while having a blue carrier bag on his head.
We were all relieved when he took it off as
he was starting to look very faint indeed! Pascal
did an even more impressive routine than the
one at the Public Show (probably because there
was lots of audience interaction which he managed
superbly!) There was a large UV section of the
show, at which point Jonny left as Compere,
and James took over. I had never seen UV diabolo
(and string) routine before! Definitely time
for bed at 3am when the renegade finished! |
 |
SUNDAY MORNING: Breakfast
was excellent, complete with the traditional
jelly and sponge fingers! Newspapers in abundance
for everyone to read. |
WORLD RECORD HAGGIS JUGGLING:
Luke did a whitewash breaking each of his previous
world records for 5, 4 and 3 haggis endurance. I
was down to the last 4 with the 3 haggis juggling,
and then dropped after 5mins 34seconds. Andy was
next to drop, then Rob and Luke decided to give
up at the same time so they now jointly hold the
record. The whole haggis juggling event was being
filmed by the Discovery Channel from Canada, and
you can view their movie for free by going to this
link – http://www.exn.ca/dailyplanet/view.asp?date=2/22/2005
it's the VIEW VIDEO button beside the article entitled
"you eat it, no you eat it"!
 |
GAMES: Graham
had asked around to get names of games to play
today. I suggested certain games which I thought
I might be in with a chance of winning!
- Gladiators: We had a few rounds of club
gladiators, which I did ok at.
- Balancing: Luke won this one eventually
- Handstand Endurance: One girl did a slightly
unusual handstand to win this event!
- Coin Juggling: I was down to the last
3 jugglers, and could just smell that money,
but Luke won it as per usual! I lost 40p!
- 3 haggis gladiators was fun (especially
seeing as the haggis by this time were all
very squishy!)
- Diabolo in the box on Jonny’s head
was won by Donald Grant (who else!)
- Buddy Gladiators saw me and Andy Blackett
team up and nearly win on the second attempt.
More difficult than we had thought it would
be!
- Devilstick propellor (one stick only)
gladiators – I won! woo-hoo.
I couldn’t have done this event two
years ago, so I was very happy! I won a
chocolate digestive.
- Stredging: Jonny
and I successfully defended last years win
and we each got another chocolate digestive!
|
RAFFLE: this happened while the
3 haggis endurance was going on (an excellent idea!).
I won the very last prize (a club juggling step
by step book (I have loads of them in my juggling
store!) I gave it to Roger who had just recently
learned club juggling.
SUMMARY: A good convention,
which I would have enjoyed a lot more if Rach had
been healthier for the whole event. Graham and Britta
did a wonderful job once again (especially considering
that they are the organisers for the British Juggling
convention coming very soon!) The public show was
awesome, and Matt Hall really was a fantastic person
to headline and to take part in everything. THANKS
TO THE ORGANISERS!
Scottish Juggling Conventions
