This year’s invited guest were Mark Kennedy(USA), Gay Merrill Gross(USA), and Vincent Floderer(France). Mark shared his paper decorating techniques, and Gay treated us to some of her wonderful origami stories. Vincent taught everyone his mushroom “folding” on Sunday.
As usual, there was lots of socializing, eating, folding, teaching, and beautiful origami exhibits to look at. However, a few special events were also planned for the weekend. When we checked in at registration table Saturday afternoon, we all randomly chose a country flag from a box. Later it was explained that the country we chose was to be our team’s country in a sort of “Origami Olympics”. The next day we met with our teams to prepare for the competition. Each team was given a box to decorate in the team’s colors. My team represented Spain. We decorated our box with bull heads, and red and yellow flowers. We also came up with a team cheer, and a song and dance routine.
Sunday evening the competition began. The teams took turns going one on one in different origami events. The first game had half the team folding origami candles and the other half of the team waiting in a circle, holding hands, with their two fingers on each hand sticking up. As the candles were folded, they were placed on the fingers. When all the fingers had candles, they danced around in a circle singing Happy Birthday. The fastest team got first place.
The second game was “The Princess and the Frog”. The princess had to fold the traditional frog model. When she was finished, another teammate picked it up with their teeth, passed it to two other teammates the same way. Finally, dropped back down on the table, the princess kissed the frog. Then, the prince who had been hiding under the table woke up, unfolded the frog, and re-folded the paper into the daffodil model. The prince then presented the daffodil to the princess. Then, the prince carried the princess across the finish line to win.
The third game consisted of a team member playing fisherman. All the teams folded boats, which were places in a small “tub” of water. The fisherman had to fish the boats out of the water and place them into the team box without touching the boat. The team with the most boats won.
The final game had everyone sitting in a circle folding water bombs. Each team folded with a different color. In the center of the circle, Paolo Bascetta, dressed up as a skunk (I’m not sure why) and ran around with a large bag. We had to throw our water bombs into the bag. The team with the most water bombs in the bag won.
In addition to the games, the teams were judged on box decoration, team cheer, and overall team spirit. So what was the grand prize??? The winning team received the most Eurogamis (origami money). And what can you buy with Eurogamis, you ask?!?!
Monday evening we had an origami auction. Instead of real money, we had to use Eurogami! Everyone received some Eurogami when they registered. Some denominations looked like regular US dollar bills, with CDO officers' faces instead of US presidents. There were also coins, which where not valid until they were folded. You could also earn more Eurogami buy buying books and paper at the origami store. Origami models folded by the original creator were auctioned off. Some of the models were: mushroom by Vincent Floderer, gecko on the wall by Herman Van Goubergen, beautiful shell by David Derudas, Bear lamp by Ramin Razani, and a whole bunch more that I can’t remember. Unfortunately, the auction ran late, and items had to be auctioned off two at a time, but it was loads of fun!
Just like all origami conventions, it’s hard to say good-bye when it’s all over. But it’s nice to know that there’s another convention around the corner. -Mette