Bloke's Lettersun Meet

On May 2nd and 3rd, 1998, the first annual Letterheads in Queensland was held! The photos following don't do justice to the meet, but it is my hope that they will give each of you just a hint of what we all learned as well as the fun we had.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Australia, I'll give you a couple of details. Brisbane is the capital of Queensland, which is roughly the northeastern 1/6th of Australia, and is the home of the Gold Coast Indy Race, Warner Brothers Movie World, and various other tourist traps. Over here the advertising slogan is "Beautiful One Day, Perfect the Next".

The guys that thought that up obviously didn't anticipate a Letterheads meet, but the two days straight of rain wasn't even noticed by most of the 120 people that turned up. The demonstrations had every one involved....getting down and dirty signwriter's style. Enough background info you say? OK.. read on!

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The first warning anyone had that a Letterhead Meet was happening was the banner that the students at the college had made. Not bad for a bunch of guys and girls with six weeks training huh?

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Rob Clark and Phil John are responsible for this job, along with their offsiders. Two days well spent I reckon. Pardon me if I spelt your names wrong guys. I know you'll be reading this. :)

lh keith cb.jpg (13170 bytes) Keith Chivas from Signmart was busy too, chalking away on many and various themes, this one is Ned Kelly, a bush ranger who made a coat of armour from old farm implements. The story goes that when they finally hung him, his last words were reported to be "such is life". The stuff legends are made of. :)

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The guy that claimed the award for "Greatest Distance Travelled to Attend" was in the spray booth knocking together a chest of drawers for Cherie's young fella. Darren also won the body painting award on Sunday and may be better known to some of you as the guy that works with Rod Tickle aka Ticks on #letterheads. Rod and Darren are also hosting the next meet in Loxton in September.

lh dhadley.jpg (32819 bytes) Oil painting was also on the menu with David Hadley teaching a class in oil painting in this photo. The less fortunate of you may recognize Damian Maiden, aka Mahler from #letterheads. Anyone ever noticed his name is an anagram?

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Graham Monaghan was inundated with folks wanting to try their hand at srolling and striping and was ably replaced by his son Anthony on day two.

Brian Ward and the guys from the Recliffe Carving Assn.were well recieved too, we don't see any ca lh carving2.jpg (19363 bytes) rved work down here so they generated a heap of interest, even the security guy for the college wound up having a go. There was urethane as well as some nice timber species and everyone that tried it walked away with a project as far as I could see.

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Some of the other goings on over the weekend included; airbrushing, muraling, glass decoration and mucking about with computers.

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Only one other thing remains...

Thanks to Cherie for doing the hard yards. Cherie convinced the sponsors to give away some great prizes as well as too many other things to mention. If you live in Queensland, please make sure you say thanks to her and Oxlades for making this happen. If you're a signwriter in Qld. it's odds you know them both!

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Special thanks to our good friend David Fisher, better known to those of us on Letterhead Chat as Bloke. David deserves a pat on the back from his fellow Letterheads around the World for his unselfish efforts in promoting the Letterhead ideal. Thanks for sharing Bloke!