The Billet Article - Presi-Ditorial

This article is taken from The Billet Issue - 444 - Mar 2009, Authored by Jon Harris

Presi-Ditorial

Welcome to the latest issue of The Billet. It was good to see so many people at our last meeting. The lecture was one on the amazing art of Quick Change and was given by one of the leading performers in the field, Lee Alex. The meeting was the first of what I will hope will be many ‘shared’ meetings with other magical societies and I thought it was a very successful evening, especially as the subject matter isn’t the most commonly performed of the magic arts. It was my first meeting as President too and my thanks go to all those who helped me with little pointers along the way.

By the way, I notice that some of our members have been making headline news lately! Read all about it on page 10 of this issue.

Did any of you go to the Blackpool Convention this year? I could only go for the one day this year due to work commitments so I chose the Saturday as that’s when the International Children's Entertainer Championships are held. I have to say, even though this is probably my fourth year of attending the convention, it still hasn’t lost it’s magic for me. Although I’m a lot better at controlling my spending habits now, I still can’t stop dribbling at the sight of all those wonderful dealers stands. There is no doubt that if I had the money I would buy one of everything, maybe even two so I would have a spare! Probably a good thing I don’t have the money then, eh? Nevertheless, it didn’t stop me having a good scour round for that elusive reputation making trick. I didn’t find it of course and in the end I only came home with a DVD and a book.

I always look forward to the Children’s Entertainer competition as it’s a great way of picking up ideas and bits of business. However, this year I was really disappointed to find that thecompetition had been scheduled at the same as the lecture by Jeff McBride. Now Jeff is a particular hero of mine, magically speaking, and I certainly didn’t want to miss the opportunity of hearing his lecture. So a quarter of the way into the Children’s competition, I sneakily crept out of the Opera House (with probably half the rest of the audience too) and made my way upstairs to the Spanish Hall. To be perfectly honest, I wish that I’d stayed in the Opera House as it wasn’t quite what I expected. Talking to a few of the others afterwards they said they got a lot out of it regarding the mentality behind his magic. Me, I just wanted to see him do all those wonderful tricks I’d seen him do on video! Seriously, it was very good and so was the whole day, capped of at the end by some high quality stage magic in the Intercontinental Stage Championships. I can highly recommend the Blackpool Convention to any of you who have never been.

Let me just finish with a couple of comments. Firstly, as mentioned in previous Editorials, I am fast running out of articles for publication. I have been very disappointed in the lack of response to my pleas. Can I ask once again for you to make every effort in contributing to the magazine. If there are no articles, there’ll be no Billet. Simple as that. Secondly, I’d like to give recognition and a big Thank You to Ian Adair who very kindly supplies me with the majority of trick and effect articles in the Billet. Your help and support is most appreciated Ian. Thanks also to any others who have made contributions over the last year.

Finally it just leaves me to say, have a great evening and enjoy the Andrew Green lecture!

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