The annual BBM&L AGM lunch was a great success with a healthy number of people joining us at a new venue which proved popular. A big thank you to Jenni for organising it all.
The speaker this year was David Bareford who is perhaps best known for his passion for competition ballooning but he opened his talk by sharing fond memories of ballooning with our old friend Norman Pritchard . On their travels far and wide it was Norman who always succeeded in finding a bar!
The bulk of the talk was, however, a gripping account of several adventures in Africa with a number of balloons and balloonists who were inspired by the Jules Verne novel ‘Five Weeks in a Balloon’. The personification of ‘extreme ballooning’ they thoughtfully took a sewing machine with them and it saw a lot of use. The success of this first adventure lead team leader Josep Maria Llado to set up Ultramagic Balloons
The talk ended with the absolute best flight which happened in December 2021 when eleven balloons successfully flew over Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and while David helped his co-pilot work out why his drone wouldn’t fly, ( they don’t like moving start points) everybody else was taking breath-taking pictures of the snow-covered volcanic peak of Mount Kilimanjaro directly beneath their baskets.
The auction and raffle saw many people go home with yet more ballooning items for their book shelf, wine rack, picture gallery etc. and the President Robin Batchelor went home with the fine David Liddiard trophy of a gas balloon for his work on the new website and the picture shows the Chairman Richard D’Alton sharing the laughter.
We can’t let mention of the website be so casual. It is with great pride ( and relief) that we can now announce that the new site is live and ready for visitors to explore. It is by no means complete but the structure is finished after the sub-committee followed guidance from the Aviation and Aerospace Archives Initiative (AAAI) to ensure the content is compatible with accepted practice in the aviation archive world.
The work continues generating catalogues of all the collection’s many categories and sub-categories so it is easily available for future generations and we would be very grateful to hear from YOU if you feel you may be able to help. An interest in balloons is an advantage otherwise just a desire to help a jolly band of enthusiasts and time to join our periodical ZOOM meetings online.
We would also welcome some assistance with our all-important social media activity so if that’s your bag, don’t hesitate – get in touch!
We must thank Kurt Frieden for the photographs from their epic Kilimanjaro flight which David was unable to take,
Kurt is an all-round hero-of-the-skies who flies gas balloons in the Gordon Bennett race as well as hot air.