You all know I’m a Gerard Butler fan. On Saturday, my friend Patty and I attended the Gerard Butler Charity Convention held in Alexandria, Virginia. For two days Gerry’s fans gathered together, first to view his new movie, Nim’s Island, which opened on Friday; on Saturday to view the award-winning documentary, Wrath of Gods (the director attended the convention), about the making of the movie Beowulf & Grendel, learn Scottish dancing and Scottish customs, learn about making videos, signatures and avatars. Patty and I missed all that, but we did attend the main event, the banquet dinner and raffle. (To see why Patty and I would do such a silly thing like attend a Gerard Butler convention go here and scroll down to Better Late Than Never or the Joys of a Dark Hero)
The raffle was HUGE. The photo shows part of the listings, but there were 8 pages of items and baskets. Lots of movie related items were signed by Gerry especially for the convention, including a huge Phantom of the Opera poster signed by all the cast. The baskets each represented one of his movies. There were books upon which his movies were based, signed by the authors. All the items were donated and all the proceeds will go to Kids Kicking Cancer. Next week I’ll tell you how much money they raised. It’s going to be in the thousands, wait and see.
I put all my raffle tickets in the “300 Lunch Box” bag and won two of them! (I gave one to Patty) Shown here is the lunch box and some of the other things from the conference.
Here is a cel from 300 that was in the lunch box. It shows the Oracle girl. There was also a 300 tote bag and some magnets.
At the banquet we were shown fan videos, incredible works on the theme of the Timeline of Gerry’s career. There was a video compilation of Gerry with his fans from all over the world. (All these videos were done by fans) There was an award-winning celtic fiddler to entertain and a DJ and dancing rivaling anything you’d see at Romantic Times or Harlequin’s RWA parties.
What has any of this frivolity to do with us here at Risky Regencies?
The GB fans are a community, like we are here. They are tied together by admiration and affection for an actor, but, then, we are tied by our love of the Regency, of books, of writing. They share their troubles and triumphs like we do.
The ladies who shared our table have been friends for years. One of them battled cancer and, against the odds, beat it. The friends decided then to seize life and enjoy it together. Attending this convention–and the one in Colorado–and the one in Scotland–gave them a reason to get together. Their connection is strong and how they express it–by attending Gerard Butler conventions–is almost irrelevant.
The connections among all 272 convention attendees was a beautiful thing to see.
And our connections here at Risky Regencies are just as beautiful.
Okay….fess up. Who here is a Gerry fan? Lois, of course!! Who else?
Who has seen Nim’s Island and what did you think of it?
(PS I love all of you!)
I’m home but already missing my friends from RWA.
On Tuesday of last week Keira and I spent the day walking around San Francisco and, yes, we did walk up and down hills. Our last stop was at Pier 22 (or something) and here is the proof.
Wednesday was the Beau Monde HHRW Conference and Amanda and Megan and Risky friend Andrea Pickens held a workshop on how to make your historical time period come alive. Amanda brought along Shakespeare and Jane Austen.
I pretty much stopped taking photos from there. Here, though is a photo of Amanda, Deb Marlowe and Me at the Harlequin Party.
