Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 20:07:03 +0100
Subject: Congrats & Thank You
From: leo verlinden <leo.verlinden@pandora.be>
To: <balloon@balloonhq.com>


Congratulations and thank you to :

*Larry Moss and the Sorells for taking up the challenge  and linking  their
name to a  project that would lead to the creation of the biggest non-round
balloon sculpture ever made ; few people know this but the very first time
the idea came up  to  creation something really big like  these two giant
soccerplayers  , was at T-Jam while  having a drink with Stef & Ief , Bidou
and  Marvin Hardy  so you could say that T-Jam is definitely a fertile
environment  for 'unusual' ideas
*Pioneer Europe , for unconditional and generous  support in materials
,marketing and people
*Stephanie Bloyd  of Pioneer US ,editor of Balloon Magic -The Magazine for
giving us the exposure that brought it all back again !
*Johan Wijns , my  long-time associate  ,who designed and built  with his
typical 'Mc Gyver' inventiveness  two special compressor-powered inflation
stations with 10 outlets each  that made it 'uberhaupt' possible to inflate
the record breaking number of balloons !Believe me ,a few Balloon Buoys or
Foot pumps couldn't have done it!
*the "die-hard" teammembers  of the first  hour ,especially the people in
the Sunparks bungalow # 1236 (next to the one of  IBS ):
-Hans 'Holland' Siemons  who  set a Guinness Record of his own  by  shouting
"Hooooolllllaaaannnnnnndddddd"  2589 times during the construction of the
Soccerplayers ; I think we ended up paying him to keep quiet...
-Bidou , Sylvain Rollet and Arthur 'Disneyland' Tivoli -the french
connection -,who worked very,very  long hours and whose twisting  expertise
and  technical input  were absolutely  essential to the success of the whole
project  
-Sylvie Arraou ,the charming  girlfriend of Bidou ,who volunteered  as an
absolute beginner  and  came out as an expert in weaving
-the truly unique Sean Rooney who left his mark and showed us a  glimps
unparallelled  genius ; on the poster is a beautifull photo of him playing
with the soccerball that he made without any  design  or drawings ......
just like that !
-Olivier Delaporte : balloon-entertainer and globe-trotter who didn't sleep
more than three hours per night for the duration of the project !
He is probably twisting balloons  somewhere in Japan right now ....

*Norman Manley :  young belgian balloon-entertainer who wasn't intimidated
by his more experienced collegues but instead demonstrated  a relentless
drive to finish what he started !

*Patrick Brown : amazing twister and expert-rigger who didn't hesitate to do
the job when -all of a sudden- everybody had more urgent things to do than
climb on an hydraulic lift  ....

*All the other twisters and instructors who  arrived early and did't
hesitate to jump in and inflate a few more thousand balloons  when time was
running out ......

What impressed me the most was the sight of 40+ twisters from many different
countries that spoke so many different languages ,  working  often
litterally side by side  ,adding the final touches  and doing what was
necessary to meet the deadline ...

Congratulations  and thanks to all of you !
I sincerely hope to see many of you again at the Millennium Jam 2001 !

Leo Verlinden

IBS
Producers of  'THE MILLENNIUM JAM 2001'
the most awesome twister event in europe !

PS Due to technical problems WWW.MILLENNIUMJAM.COM is partly off -line till
Jan. 25th! Sorry for the inconvenience !