Jared makes an interesting point:If you like juggling conventions, you have the IJA to thank for that. There was no such thing as a juggling convention before the IJA began putting them together.
I'm guessing that the basis for this statement is that the 1st IJA Festival appears to be the first ever festival as we know them. But during the late 19th/early 20th century, an age of guilds, fellows, brotherhoods & all sorts of gentleman's clubs were there any organised conference of jugglers? Or were they all busily protecting the secrets of their craft?
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I don't know about meetups, but I feel like 'thanking the IJA' sounds like kinda a too big thing. There is no way these conventions would NOT have happened without the IJA. The con scene here in Europe developed way too quickly too a much too large size for that.
There was an earlier attempt to establish a Society of Professional Jugglers about twenty years before the IJA was founded, but it never happened. I do think the IJA is responsible for the creation of juggling conventions and festivals.
David Cain
lukeburrage - - Parent #
I also thank the ancient Sumerians for the creation of agriculture, but I'm not sure that's a good reason to send them money for them to pass on to a SAAS company to manage membership to help people send them money for them to send that money on to a SAAS company for them to...
Little Paul - - Parent #
You seem quite hung up on the SaaS membership thing.
I'm a member of another "special interest group" which also runs mainly on volunteer effort, produces a regular publication (albeit a paper magazine rather than a blog) and hosts regular meetups not dissimilar to juggling conventions. There are loads of people in that organisation with tremendous technical skills, and a large number of them are open source advocates (myself included). We use a SaaS membership provider.
Why? Because it's a metric shit-ton easier than doing it yourself, which gives you back all that time you would have spent running a membership system and lets you do something more interesting with it.
Of all the IJAs problems, using a SaaS provider for your membership system isn't the biggest. Not by a long chalk!
lukeburrage - - Parent #
It's just one example I picked partly at random, and partly because it had come up in the original thread. :)
Little Paul - - Parent #
Well, you see.. I think I would actually thank Len Vintus.
Who is Len Vintus you say? He's the chap who founded the International Brotherhood of Magicians in 1922.
Although other societies of magicians (and other variety artists) existed before the IBM, the IBM was the first "distributed" society, where members were spread out across the globe and only came together once a year for a convention. Other societies (eg the Magic Circle) were based around a club which met regularly in a designated space, more akin to a gentlemans club. They may have had a yearly formal dinner, but nothing like the format adopted by the IBM.
The IBM proved there was a place for distributed societies of like minded performers, who would come together for a yearly convention.
The IJA grew out of the IBM so it was natural that they would adopt the yearly convention model (and newsletter, members lists etc) - I think if you're going to thank anyone for juggling conventions, you should thank the person who founded the society which inspired them.
It's interesting that it was a discipline famous for its secrecy to start up a distributed society over other performance disciplines known for being more open (as in the old adage, "a juggler shows his/her skill, a magician hides it"). Perhaps jugglers were too few to form a society first?
The IJA wasn't founded to focus on being more open than the IBM, but to focus on juggling. The original founders and members of the IJA were all pros, and you had to be nominated and invited in (as you did for the IBM). Jugglers, especially those of the vaudeville era, were almost as secretive as their magician brethren (though they had a harder time keeping some things secret, obviously).
Travelling wasn't as easy as nowadays in these old days .. so such an IBM meeting must have had strong exotic and exclusive flair ..
Little Paul - - Parent #
Although I feel it is written from a UK bias (the listing of six "one day" festivals in the UK, one in the US, and none elsewhere in the world is funny)
If only there was some way you could contribute to that page to make it more balanced...
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
So what should it change to? Listing no one day festivals? It is not like there really is a biggest one day fest, right
I am also not sure the 'three types' makes sense.. I much more have them in mind like 'weekend' or 'longer', 'camping' or 'sleeping in gym', 'shows,food,everything' or 'just a gym'.
And would it make sense to post links to INBAZ or the jugglingedge calendar or the Miark calendar?
lukeburrage - - Parent #
I realized that those "three types of juggling conventions" is something I wrote about a decade ago, I think for the IJDb compendium, that I copied over to wikipedia to pad out the Juggling page. I wrote large majority of the early wikipedia entry on Juggling, and had no qualms about some of it being "original research". I had no problem with people updating the page and removing or changing what I wrote, and still don't, and at one point I was quite happy with the Juggling page. Now the Juggling page is a complete mess.
I remember at one point someone added this image to the top of the page:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Jugglers_Circus_Amok_by_David_Shankbone.jpg/220px-Jugglers_Circus_Amok_by_David_Shankbone.jpg
And there was some discussion back and forth if it was the most appropriate image of juggling. Turns out that the entire system of wikipedia editing and stuff meant that, yeah, that stuck, while images I'd chosen of more modern juggling were simply deleted over and over.
Now the images are "Shit photo of stiff five ball juggling in a park" then "shit cellphone video of fire juggling in a street show" then "another shit photo, this time of more fire juggling" then "tennis racquets" then the above image of "lots of clowns, is one of them juggling?" then "shit image of stilt walker also juggling" then "another shit photo... yes more fire juggling" then two really shit animations taken from very old siteswap animators.
Sigh.
There does seem to be a network of editors who wield a disproportionate amount of power in subjects they have little to no expertise in. I had to appeal to a mod to replace the IJDb club listings when it closed down with a link to the Edge.
That photographer in particular appears to be on a vanity trip to get as many shit photographs on as many articles as possible.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
"it's a good photograph!... high quality... It has won awards" - the author..
There is a link to Juggling Edge events listing in the second section "Juggling Activities" (it is not the obvious place for a link or very noticeable).
The German version of that wikipedia page does have link to INBAZ (and Juggling Edge, Jongle.net, EJA.net)
I wouldn't expect the European Juggling Association to contribute to projects outside of Europe in the same way that I don't expect the International Juggling Association to contribute to projects outside of planet Earth ;)
fat_hampster - - Parent #
I don't see why you can't have extra-terrestrial nations.
At the same time, you can be international without existing in all of earths nations. An international company might only operate in two distinct markets. Though I expect the IJAs mission statement says something on its intended reach.
lukeburrage - - Parent #
Jared, this is fine to say, but do you know how many people on this forum have tried working with the IJA in the past on non-American projects? And how they worked out or, more to the point, how they didn't?
Mike Moore - - Parent #
I'm interested in reading about this. Non-events tend not to get much publicity, so I hadn't heard of even any attempts in the last ~10 years.
Scott Seltzer - - Parent #
I tried a bunch of things that I thought were great ideas, but they got rejected. In the end, I found something that was good for the organization and quite good for "rendering assistance to jugglers." It may not be easy, but it's not impossible.
For the record I'm not nitpicking the IJA for being US centric (I'm nit picking for not being clear about where all the money is going), in fact I have argued & still believe that the IJA should be more US centric.
I think a lot of jugglers who could help the IJA be more international are too busy organising conventions, running local clubs, running prop specific organisations, producing content etc. in their own locality on their own. Why should they help the IJA when they are already providing assistance to jugglers without help from an umbrella organisation?
It's not that they should help the IJA, in fact they are helping by rendering assistance to jugglers locally, which is the best place to do it. The question is why do "they" feel a need to dump on the IJA for trying to do what it can. Maybe the IJA doesn't do it the way you would and maybe your way would be better. Go for it. There might be a better way. But spending a lot of time and pixels berating jugglers who are doing the best they can is not going to improve the world.
Our European pixels are better. #ntsc #pal #retro #formatwars #goadingstick
lukeburrage - - Parent #
I have no problems with all of the things the IJA does do, and I really don't want to dump on anyone specifically. The festival I went to was fun enough, and I can see why jugglers without better options locally are happy to return each year. I really appreciate the eJuggle blog and the video projects, and would happily pay 30 dollars a year to support that initiative.
My problem is that I feel really bad giving money to the IJA knowing its leadership is continuously fighting against incompetence and bullshit. Again, look at the website. I mean the four different websites. I mean the four different websites, and the email list that sends out PDF text files. Seriously. How can any organization that has such a public face be taken seriously? How can there be such high levels of uselessness and complete lack of leadership?
And no, the answer is not to volunteer myself. The answer is for the IJA leadership to be not broken.
Little Paul - - Parent #
Truth be told, these days I get a warm fuzzy feeling from the IJA board being perceived as being incompetent and devoid of leadership.
I mean, it's been that way for as long as I've been on the internet (just shy of 20 years now) and it's like a constant rock in the juggling community which people still cling to and argue about as though it's important :)
I think it's amazing how much the IJA manages to achieve despite being apparently dysfunctional at its core for at least 2 decades, and every time I've been approached to help the IJA out I've done so gladly - not because by doing so I think I stand any chance of changing the status quo, but because doing so has helped out other jugglers in a small way.
So I say, keep it up IJA!
lukeburrage - - Parent #
I mostly agree. Despite the IJA leadership being dysfunctional, people still keep doing good work. I don't mind helping out the people who are actually doing the "rendering assistance to fellow jugglers" part but I'm steering waaaay clear of any politics and bullshit.
Little Paul - - Parent #
As they say - "pick your battles"...
Although as I say - "the bloody dog has just thrown up all over the bathroom - cleaning that up is not what I had in mind when I said I'd work from home today"
Mike Moore - - Parent #
"Why should they help the IJA when they are already providing assistance to jugglers without help from an umbrella organisation?"
Another approach, though david's response also makes sense to me.
I've made (and ran, for a while) a couple clubs and recently ran my first fest (yay!). I try to render assistance, as well as spread the juggling love in a localish setting (Ontario).
The IJA is very useful for our club. It ensures that there will be at least one large, well-rounded[1] juggling festival that many of our members can attend[2] each year. Sometimes we'll sit around, watching the newest Peden or Pezzo video, compliments of the IJA. They've also been known to make donations to raffles in the forms of memberships and DVDs, both of which go over well.
The IJA is very useful for me. They run competitions I get excited about (Video Tutorial Contest, some of the World Record Challenges) and I also love the festivals. The people I've met there have helped me immensely.
So for me, I try to help the IJA because I feel I've benefitted from it far more than the money I've spent on it. If I have the time and ability, why wouldn't I volunteer for an organization that's helped me so much?
[1] - Turbo is a solid fest, but very circus/club-oriented
[2] - RIT unfortunately hits during many students' exam times
Undoubtedly the IJA festival should be credited as the longest running juggling convention as we know it still around today and the inspiration for other juggling conventions such as the EJC, and if it is the first it should have recognition for that too.
If you were to measure success in popularity it would be very likely that more people have attended the EJC over the past 37 years than attended the IJA festivals over 67 years (it is hard to find attendance figures for past IJA festivals, but an article by one of the attendees of the first EJC suggests the IJA festival attendance before the 1970s was down to 25-30 people).
Despite searching on-line I have still not found any evidence that there was any seed money from IJA for the first EJC, admittedly it was advertised in the IJA bulletin and the IJA allowed the 1st EJC organisers to contact IJA members in Europe using the IJA list/roster and some of the 11 attendees were IJA members. It was also referred to as an IJA mini-convention [ ]. So I am happy for the IJA to say their festival inspired it and they helped it (as their motto "to render assistance to other juggers" suggests they should), but I am not sure the IJA can take all the credit for getting the EJC going.
The first BJC could be said to be inspired by EJC as the organisers of the first BJC were at the EJC in Saintes and decided to organise a British Juggling Convention [ ]- but the EJC has never (to my knowledge) taken credit for the creation of the BJC.
The EJA does donate money to fund juggling initiatives within Europe, but the EJA has never claimed to be International in its name.
Some of those UK one-day juggling conventions have a higher attendance than WJF conventions and more than half the attendance of IJA festivals.
oops! the links in my post did not seem to render, they were:
[1] www.juggle.org/festival/IJA-EJC-Brighton.shtml
[2] www.kaskade.de/fileadmin/downloadarchiv/1-44e/011%20e%20Kaskade%201988_01_20.pdf#page=20
"but the EJA has never claimed to be International in its name."
Isn't the 'E' sort of international (still) : )
Yes, fat-hampsters point that "international" can just mean more than one country which makes it perfectly appropriate for an organisation holding festivals in USA and Canada. If the jugglers in the other 195 countries had realised this fact perhaps they wouldn't moaned so much over the years.
Perhaps if the IJA festival were to venture into a third country some time in the future they would have to change their name to the Multinational Juggling Association.
I did hear that some of the guys were looking into having it over in Vancouver, however there's apparently a policy that the whole event must be help at one venue and not spread out (which is currently a problem).
Out of curiosity I did have a look at the IJA website, but I couldn't really figure out how to volunteer or run for the board. I'm guessing that might be in a paid member section?
I wonder what the reaction would be if an IJA was held in Europe...
The IJA website suggests you only need to have been a IJA member "in good standing" for a year to nominate somebody to the IJA Board (looks like the only requirement of the nominee is to be over 18). It looks like you have missed the nomination deadline for this year (3 candidates for 3 positions doesn't look like a very interesting vote as it looks as if you can only vote for a candidate not against them).
https://www.juggle.org/business/nominations.php
oops broke post!
I don't know if anyone or group has ever bid to hold the IJA festival outside North America - perhaps the problem is not the IJA but the lack of potential non-US festival organisers. Looking at IJA festival requirements it might fail the "affordability" requirement since many IJA members would have to travel from USA to Europe.
The documents says all venues need to be in 5 minute walking distance of each other (this does not including lodging) so not necessarily all in one venue, but very close venues.
I am always surprised to see the IJA has a European Representative (does anyone know what "the European Juggling Magazine" they refer to is? Are they referring to Kaskade by its subtitle?) but I am not an IJA member so probably wouldn't need to be informed they have a European representative. I would have thought a South American Rep would be a more likely job considering all the South American IJA initiatives they have had over the past few years.
Curiously the non-american IJA representatives appear to be the only IJA officer position where the holder is required to be an IJA member.
that An initial read of the requirements doc suggests that a typical European style convention would fail the initial proposal. The way it's worded suggests that camping as accommodation would be unacceptable. What are people's thoughts on that (considering it'd be covered in a festival ticket cost)*?
Is everything in this doc a must have? Like the 200 chairs in the gym, water coolers and WiFi?
*Obviously performers would have the optional off local B&Bs etc.
From the introduction page:Please note that this festival requirements document is extensive, but there are very few “show-stopper” items in it; i.e., we can work without or around nearly any item on the list if the balance of your proposal is solid.
Scott Seltzer - - Parent #
The IJA is more than just a festival. Here are a few of their more international programs:
* eJuggle (http://ezine.juggle.org/) - probably their best project ever. ;-)
* IRC (IJA Regional Competitions) - so far a few have been in South/Central America but they're hoping to expand further.
* Video Tutorial Contest
* World Juggling Day
* Props2U - props donated around the world.
oh, another interesting discussion might be; are juggling conventions responsible for the popularisation of juggling or is the popularisation of juggling responsible for juggling conventions?
Definitely the latter, my friends & colleagues are considerably more surprised to find out about the existence of juggling festivals than they at finding out that I juggle.
JackJuggles - - Parent #
It may not be the first juggling festival, but I think it's the first "successful" one. By successful I mean it is still around today, and lots of people know about it and/or attend.