On a beautiful spring morning back in 1998, Randy Lyons -- while walking through West Chester -- decided that the town needed a "just-for-fun" juggling club. And that it should meet on Saturday mornings on the plaza in front of the Chester County Courthouse. Chums who understood such things informed him that Kathy McBratnie, head of the Borough's Parks and Recreation Department, could be a partner to make this happen.

So Kathy and Randy hatched a plot: Randy would show up at the aforementioned plaza every Saturday morning for 10 consecutive weeks and Kathy's organization would advertise the program and clear any bureaucratic hurdles with the County government (it is their Courthouse, after all!). If, after 10 weeks, only 2 or 3 people showed up, the program would be quietly laid down. If, on the other hand there were 7 or 8 regulars, the two of them would consider an extension of the program.

At the end of 10 weeks, there were a dozen regulars and a steady stream of other folks just dropping in from time to time. Clearly, the program had serious traction!!

That was the good news. The bad news was that the summer was coming to an end and... well, it's tough to juggle outside in, like February. Wind. Snow. Mittens. Runny noses. Checking around, Randy found that the West Chester Friends School gymnasium would be available to allow us to continue the program into the fall and beyond. Warmth. Still air. Restroom facilities. Ah!

Around the same time, several THJ regulars suggested that Saturday morning wasn't the most convenient time for everyone -- and could a second weekly session be added? Checking back with the School, we found that our use of their gym on Thursday evenings would be just fine by them.

Since that time, we've had over 175 different jugglers participate in our program -- including 2 IJA World Champions and a number of full-time professionals. But the core of our program was then and still remains folks who are brand new to juggling and intermediate-level jugglers looking to advance their skills.

The program's goals have changed very little since then. We're still a "just-for-fun" group, and we still look:

• to support local jugglers in maintaining and advancing their skill set.
• to introduce newcomers of all ages to this ancient and honorable craft.
• to provide a socializing environment for what is far too often a very lonely practice regimen.
• to help participants combine their juggling and presentation skills into well designed performances.

For some sessions, we may have only 2 or 3 jugglers attend. For other sessions, we've had 25. (And we still can't figure out why the number varies so widely, nor can we predict who or how many will show up!) But the average lately is in the order of 14 to 16 jugglers. A nice, workable size crowd for the size of the School's gym!!

Oh yeah, one more thing I forgot to mention: YOU'RE INVITED!!