|
WJF Update for June 25th, 2008
In this update:
• WJF 5 Updates
1. Jason VS Thomas: Battle for the WJF Presidency
2. New WJF Competitors
3. WJF 5 Special Guest Performer: Falco Scheffler
4. Convention Package Rate Increase
5. WJF Sponsorship Program
6. Support Already Coming in
• The 2007 WJF Training Camp DVD
• The WJF on Facebook
• WJF Video Featured on Youtube
WJF 5 Updates!
Jason VS Thomas: Battle for the WJF Presidency
On December 23rd, 2008, Thomas Dietz and Jason Garfield will compete head to head for the title of WJF President. Thomas Dietz has won the Overall Championship for the past three years in a row, however has been denied the chance to compete against Jason Garfield in all three prop categories since 2004. Opting to not compete in the Overall Championship due to public criticism and scrutiny, Jason Garfield will now put the WJF Presidency on the line in a separate one on one competition in a variety of competitions including full programs for balls, rings and clubs. An all star WJF cast will lead the show before the Battle for the WJF Presidency begins. The winner of this competition will be the WJF President for 2009. More information on the list of performers and competitions in the Battle for the WJF Presidency will be available soon.
New WJF 5 Competitors
The list of WJF 5 competitors continues to grow. New competitors include Josh Horton, Nathan Herz, Sondre Ribe Øverby, Mattieu Perrochot, Lydia Bush, and Jason Garfield. More are confirmed and will be announced after we receive pictures and video. To keep updated on the growing list of WJF 5 Competitors and to view competitor profile videos, visit the WJF 5 competitors page here:
http://www.thewjf.com/WJF5/WJF5Competitors.php
WJF 5 Special Guest Performer: Falco Scheffler
I'm very excited about this. It's not often that 3 ball juggling excites me. When I stumbled upon Falco's juggling video on youtube I was amazed and impressed. If anyone deserves the praise that 3 ball juggling to beatles music receives, it's Falco. Equally impressive 4 and 5 ball juggling as well. I invited Falco as a special guest performer at WJF 5 and he accepted. Falco will be giving a juggling performance, practice exhibition, and workshop during the convention. Falco's schedule at WJF 5 will be posted soon. In the meantime, check out his page on the WJF website here:
FALCO
Convention Package Rate Increase
Just a reminder that the convention package price is going to increase on July 1st, so help yourself and us out by registering early. The more people who register early, the sooner we know our budget and the more we can plan. And the more you save! And remember, try to convince as many other people to attend so we can really pump up the production quality for what is looking to be our best WJF event to date!
http://www.thewjf.com/WJF5/WJF5Register.php
And please make sure to reserve your room at the Riviera Hotel ASAP to guarantee your convention rate and also to help us meet our quota in advance. Make sure to mention that you are with the World Juggling Federation Convention when making your reservation. Thank you!!!
The WJF Sponsorship Program
The deadline for video submissions has passed and we have received some very impressive entries from kids all over the world hoping to win the 2008 WJF Sponsorship prize of an all expense paid trip to WJF 5 to compete in the WJF Juniors Competition. 1st prize includes roundtrip airfare, hotel room for two, and two convention packages. The top three winners will be announced on July 1st, 2008 on this page:
http://www.thewjf.com/WJF5/wjf5sponsorship.php
Support Already Coming In
In the last email update, I made a few suggestion for how you could help us out with WJF 5, and I've included those suggestions again in this email because within minutes of sending out the last email update, someone emailed us back and offered to sponsor a competitor from overseas. More information on who that competitor will be soon but it looks like it's going to be a very cool one and first time WJF competitor!
How can you help?
There's a lot of ways you can help. I've broken it down into the different ways below:
Promotion
If you're a student or teacher, we can provide you with promotional ads via email that you can print and pass out to your school faculty and students. If you have a job you can pass them out at work. Instead of cash, next time you see a juggler street performing, put a WJF 5 flyer in their hat.
Word of Mouth
Right now we're able to produce our events and raise the current level of prize money with attendance between 200 and 300 people and some creative planning. Just think what we could do if we doubled or tripled our attendance! If each person who attends could convince one or two other people to go with them, we'd see more prize money all around, more sponsorship programs for junior and overseas competitors, and more special surprises. So get the word out. If you've been to a WJF event, you know what to tell everyone. If you've never been, talk to someone who has. This year is going to be a very special one, so this is a great year to help us increase attendance.
Air Miles
A lot of very good jugglers from overseas would like to compete, but can't afford the trip. If you have any air-miles that you'd be willing to part with, you could help in bringing over a competitor for WJF 5.
Sponsor a Competitor
Do you know someone that wants to attend and compete at WJF 5 but can't afford it? Do you have some extra cash? Is the cost of the trip worth the experience that juggler will never forget? Sponsor a competitor, for any division, and we'd be happy to give you a special mention and thanks. But the experience you'll provide for a juggler low on funds will be remembered forever.
Donations!
Of course, nothing can help raise the prize money more than cash donations. Last year we came close to 10K in prize money. Right now it's likely that we'll easily match that from registration and our sponsors. Now it's up to you to decide how much higher it goes. And you can specify which division you want your donation to go towards. Want to reward the junior competitors? Donate to the juniors prize money fund. Want to motivate more women to compete? Do the same for the women's prize money fund. Overall Championship? No problem. Don't like deciding? That's OK too. You can also choose to donate to the convention fund and simply specify "prize money". And all this is available on one page:
http://www.thewjf.com/support.php
So help us help the competitors make all the time they spent practicing in solitude worth it! Let's motivate them to train harder and keep up the excitement in juggling.
Combat!
After testing out some combat competitions at WJF 4, I've decided that combat is definitely worth putting some thought, time and money into. This year we'll have a competition arena specifically built for combat, prize money starting at a minimum of $1000.00, and some new rules to make combat more fair and exciting. If you'd like to help out with the combat prize money fund, that option is also available here:
http://www.thewjf.com/support.php
Combat rules are available here:
http://www.thewjf.com/WJF5/WJF5CompetitionRules.php#EXTREME
The 2007 WJF Training Camp DVD
Two hours and fifty-four minutes of archival footage from the 2007 WJF Training Camp is available on two DVDs. Not a fancy video with special effects, but contains the following events:
Archival Footage of the following events:
Junior Freestyle
Junior Compulsory Programs
Intermediate Freestyle
Intermediate Ball, Ring, and Club Programs
Vova Galchenko Ball and Club Program Exhibition and Practice Exhibition Highlights
Concentration, Explosion Recovery, Combat
Available at The WJF Store:
http://www.thewjfstore.com/2007trainingcamp.php
The WJF on Facebook
Now you can get WJF updates and event information on Facebook. Become friends with World Juggling Federation on Facebook and let the madness begin.
WJF Video Featured on Youtube
For some reason, Youtube featured the WJF trailer for "Olga and Vova: Just Hard Stuff", giving WJF juggling footage an extra 188,000 more views than it had before. Woo Hoo.
So that's all for now. Of course if you can please attend, donate, support our event and competitors any way you can. More updates coming soon! And for all the WJF updates for 2008, please visit:
http://www.thewjf.com/news.php
and to engage in discussion on WJF 5 and the WJF in general, become a WJF member and join our forum:
http://www.thewjf.com/forums
Jason Garfield
World Juggling Federation
President
|
