IJA eNewsletter – June 2024

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www.juggle.org		    IJA eNewsletter
   June 2024Editors: Don Lewis & Martin Frost
(ijanews@juggle.org)

CONTENTS

  • 2024 IJA Festival in Green Bay
  • Dining and drinking guide for Green Bay
  • Volunteer needed as Vendor Coordinator
  • Get ready for the festival
  • Four Day Intensive on “Mastering Form and Flow in Juggling” with Cyril Rabbth
  • Online voting open for 2024 IJA Board of Directors Election
  • 2025 IJA Festival Director — Call for letters of interest
  • IJA Board meetings
  • Latest articles in eJuggle

 

 

2024 IJA Festival in Green Bay  by Afton Benson, 2024 Festival Co-director

IJA 2024 Festival Green Bay

Hi, everyone!

The IJA Festival is coming up fast, and we cannot wait to see you in Green Bay!  Whether it’s your first IJA Festival or your 77th, we want to highlight some information that will make registration onsite extra smooth.

Onsite Registration

Haven’t registered yet?  Can only join us for a few days?  Have a friend who now can make it?  No problem.  You can register onsite!

On Tuesday only, we will have festival passes available that get you gym admission and show tickets for the week for $350.  After Tuesday, day passes are $75 for adults and $35 for youth, and show tickets can be purchased separately.  We’ll also have limited edition items on sale, like our Disc Golf discs!

Waiver & Consent Forms

All fest attendees will need to sign a waiver.  If you’d like to fill one out beforehand and bring it with you to save time at the festival, that would be amazing.  Adults bringing youth participants will need to fill out an Adult waiver for themselves plus the parent/guardian waiver for the youth(s).  We will have waiver forms onsite in case you don’t bring one with you.

Adult Waiver & Consent Form

Parent/Guardian Waiver & Consent Form


IJA 2024 Festival Green BayMemberships

All fest attendees need to be IJA Members.  Please check your IJA membership now to make sure it’s current.  If you can log in there and it doesn’t say your membership has expired, you’re all set.  If it says it’s expired, click on “Securely renew your membership” so you can renew before the fest.

Filming

There will be quite a few more people filming this year at the festival. They’re all going to be doing their best to have a low impact on fest activities.  One crew will be filming a short movie and documentary, and they may ask you to be in their shots and to sign a release for their film.  This is different from the waiver/consent form the IJA requires.  All other filming is being done on behalf of the IJA and will be by folks wearing standard IJA Festival passes.

Cascade of Stars

One last thing!  A fun activity that a lot of people participate in for the Saturday night Cascade of Stars is dressing up.  This is our last night to share together, so let’s look our best — whatever that means to you.  Take photos, cheer for the performers and wrap up the festival with the party we all deserve.

Looking forward to seeing everybody in Green Bay!

Noel Yee, Afton Benson, Shivella Sparkle, & Ross Berenson – IJA Festival Core Team

 

 

Dining and drinking guide for Green Bay  by Mike Sullivan

Our week in Green Bay will be another treat for the senses as we take up residence along the Fox River in this sparkling city.  All of our festival venues are a close walk away with plenty of good Midwestern food and drink at every turn.

This page will give you a solid start on finding all the best and closest places to eat and drink near the Hyatt Regency hotel and the KI Convention Center, with good choices all within an easy walk and several located along the beautiful Fox River.

The page will be updated throughout the festival, so bookmark it and check back often!

 

 

Volunteer needed as IJA Vendor Coordinator  by Mike Sullivan

How would you like to earn a festival package for your work as one of the festival team next year?  We’re looking for a trainee to help out as the IJA’s Vendor Coordinator, starting with initial training at this year’s festival in Green Bay.

As Vendor Coordinator, most of your work is done before each year’s festival.  You collect and organize the vendor space orders during online registration, then work with the facility and the festival director to plan the layout of vendors and other users of the gym space in the convention hall, as well as email all the vendors with the info they need before arriving at the festival site.

Once on-site, you provide assistance to the vendors, work with them and the facility to resolve any last-minute issues, and help the vendors have a hassle-free and successful week at the festival.

The job requires about 30 hours of work in the months prior to each year’s festival, and then a full day on the first day of the festival week.  Strong communication skills, proficiency with office productivity apps, email and the web are also required.

If you’re interested in learning more, and will be arriving at the festival in Green Bay on Sunday, July 7th or earlier, contact Vendor Coordinator Mike Sullivan at vendors@juggle.org.

 

 

Get ready for the festival  by Don Lewis

The festival is almost upon us.  Are you ready?  Each year I write some of the same reminders here, and each year the same issues crop up for some people who didn’t pay attention.

Identify your stuff!  This is particularly true for juggling props.  It is one thing to leave your clubs lying around at a club meeting.  It is quite another in a festival gym where there might be a thousand juggling clubs scattered around the gym area.  Stuff gets kicked (or sometimes moved gently) out of the way when groups are trying to get a complicated pattern to flow.  Your stuff may not be where you left it when you come back from a break.  You always know where your cell phone is, right?  A surprising number of people set their phone down for a moment, perhaps to demonstrate something, and idly walk away.  The phone ends up in the lost and found box.  Guess what?  We don’t know your passcode, so we don’t know whose phone it is.  Put your name on the opening screen image so we know who to get the phone back to.  Same with clothing.  Sometimes part of the gym gets re-configured and things get moved.  It is just a whole lot easier returning things if we know who they belong to.

Identify yourself!  If you are going to vote at the festival, you need ID.  If you are bringing kids, they all need some kind of ID in case they get separated from you.

Check your shoes!  You are going to be standing on a concrete floor all day for a week.  The broken down old shoes which are super comfy on the grass may not be so great after a week on concrete.  Instead of buying new shoes and breaking them in, you can buy new insoles for a quick fix.

Bring any medication you might need with you.  You can’t always get things easily away from home and you are not going to want to waste time searching for an open store.  Check your travel insurance to see if there are any hoops you have to jump thru to be covered for medical emergencies away from home.  If you are travelling with children who are not your own, be sure to have a parental authorization for treatment with you, as well as their insurance details.

Leave room for more props!  It is easy to be tempted by all the stuff on sale at a festival.  Be open to being tempted by the vendors and take some new stuff home to play with!

 

 

Four Day Intensive on “Mastering Form and Flow in Juggling” with Cyril Rabbth

July 10-13, 2024, 1pm – 4pm
Cost: $200.  Space is limited to 20 — Register for the workshop now

Cyril is a French artistic juggler living in America who has worked with world-class jugglers, notably Nadejda Akopovna Akvits at the Moscow Circus School and Italo Medini at the Ecole National du Cirque d’Annie Fratellini.  They have been performing for 30 years, with Cirque du Soleil, Absinthe in Las Vegas, and beyond.  While performing an average of 10 shows a week for a total of over 10,000 shows, he developed a series of exercises and routines to stay healthy and avoid injuries, all the while improving his skills.  This workshop is an intensive exploration of the tools he learned and developed to be optimal, grounded, and efficient in his juggling practice.

You will learn a series of comprehensive tools to structure and advance your juggling practice:

  • Optimize your body posture by uncovering deficiencies and making targeted corrections.
  • Master physical exercises to support your juggling practice, strengthen your body, and reduce the risk of inflammation.
  • Improve your number of catches by increasing your endurance, and progress to more advanced techniques.
  • Explore beyond the usual pointers and take a deep dive into your nervous system, visual field, and muscle chains to stabilize your juggling patterns.
  • Develop your creativity through guided exercises around research, performance, and composition at the end of each session.

You will work on each category every day and progressively increase the level of difficulty.  The workshop structure is designed to be adapted and tailored to you and your goals.  In the end, you are the one in charge of picking and choosing from the myriad of information, to decide which ones work for you.

Head to the Workshop page for details.

 

 

Online voting open for 2024 IJA Board of Directors Election  by Martin Frost

The annual IJA election for members of the Board of Directors takes place at the IJA Festival in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  The nominees are listed below.

The IJA Board of Directors is comprised of seven people who make policy and collectively decide on the direction of the IJA.  Each director is elected for a two-year term.  There are four director positions up for election this year, so IJA members can vote for up to four people in this election.  The nominees are listed below, and their candidacy statements are on the IJA website.

WHO CAN VOTE?

All regular, life, youth, and family IJA members who are at least 13 years of age as of July 11, 2024, can vote.

HOW DO I VOTE?

You can vote at the fest on Thursday, July 11, 2024, or you can vote online from now until 11am CDT on July 11, 2024.  Voting either way is easy and only takes a minute or two.  Voting at the festival ends thirty minutes after the Annual General Meeting is adjourned.

You can use the following link to sign in and vote online now.  It will ask you to enter your IJA username and password and then it should take you to the voting page.  (If it doesn’t take you there, after signing in, go to IJA 2024 election and cast your ballot there.  If you have any trouble signing in, use the login form at the bottom of ym.juggle.org.)

NOMINEES

Here are the nominees for member of the IJA Board of Directors.  You can view their candidacy statements online at www.juggle.org/business/candidates/.

  • Benjamin Domask-Ruh
  • Jonathan Perry
  • Sofia Noethe
  • Noel Yee
  • Albert Lucas

 

 

2025 IJA Festival Director — Call for letters of interest  by Ross Berenson, IJA Board Chair

Call for letters of interest for the 78th annual fest happening during the week of July 14-20, 2025.

Are you passionate about curating unforgettable experiences for the juggling community?  Do you thrive in dynamic environments where creativity and organization intersect?  Join our team as a Festival Director and play a pivotal role in shaping the 2025 IJA Festival in Evansville, Indiana.  The IJA would love to hear from those who are interested!

Responsibilities:

  • Organize the week long festival.
  • Oversee all aspects of festival planning, from conceptualization to execution, ensuring seamless coordination and exceptional attendee experiences.
  • Collaborate with the board, volunteers, artists, vendors, sponsors, venues and local partners, to align on goals.
  • Develop and manage budgets, timelines, and resources.
  • Choose to lead a team of your choosing, providing guidance, support, and clear communication to ensure everyone is aligned with the festival’s vision and objectives.
  • Craft shows that highlight the vibrant spirit of our community and embody the core values of our organization.  Let’s showcase the very best of who we are and what we stand for!
  • Implement comprehensive marketing and promotional strategies to drive attendance and enhance the festival’s visibility and reputation.
  • Evaluate the success of the festival through post-event analysis and feedback collection, identifying areas for improvement and innovation.

Past festival directors are here to cheer you on and help guide you whenever you need it!  While some parts of the festival, like the competitions and shows, are tried and true favorites, there’s also plenty of room for you to toss in your own ideas and make this experience unique!  So, let’s team up and have a blast creating something unforgettable, together!

If you’re excited about the position and eager to learn more, don’t hesitate to reach out to the IJA Chair.  Send a letter of interest stating why you’d like to be the Festival Director, any experience you have organizing events and volunteers, and any ideas on how you’d make the festival great!

 

 

IJA Board meetings  by Ross Berenson, IJA Board ChairIJA Board meetings

IJA Board meetings are open to all IJA members and are hosted on Zoom.  To find out the times of this month’s vision and business meetings, or to attend, please email ija.chair@juggle.org and say which meeting you’re interested in.

 

 

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