Well I gave The Balloon Council almost a year. I held my tongue. I waited for something; for anything to develop. I hoped to see some activity that would let me know there really is still some body of an organization out there that actually cares about the business of balloons to, as they say, be “committed to keeping you informed on important issues that impact the balloon business.” If you recall the tone of Part 1 of this Rant, you may have detected a wee bit of doubt I was casting on what would happen next.
And they did not disappoint for they did exactly what I expected… NOTHING! Nada. Zilch. Zippo. Zero. Goose Eggs.
The Balloon Council’s silence, for me, is deafening. In doing my best to find out what The Balloon Council might actually do for the balloon industry, I was assured they would do their best to “integrate” some of the IBA’s work into it’s efforts to represent and inform the balloon industry.
Sorry Balloon Council, that you have not done. Instead, the word that comes to mind for what you have done is NOTHING. That’s what you have done – nothing.
It’s been almost a year now and checking the Balloon Council’s Web site you will find nothing, and I mean NOTHING has been updated in a year. All the “current” information is between one and two years old at the very least. Links don’t work, probably because some of the information is so old it is no longer on the Web. An actually very nice and complete market analysis of the helium problem would be great if it wasn’t something that was prepared over two years ago. Unless nothing has changed with helium supplies and pricing in two years. But of course, we know it has.
Too bad Balloon Council. Too bad IBA. Too bad Balloon Industry. We had a chance to act like “adults” in the business world and we all collectively blew it. The IBA was a functioning body of distributors, manufacturers, decorators and more that tried to hold the industry together here in the US and instead, we all just let it fade away.
Like I said in my previous rant – shame on each and every one of us for letting it disappear. And shame on the Balloon Council for putting on airs it might actually care about an industry it purports to represent. You don’t care because you aren’t even taking the time to see what we do, who we are and how much time and effort so many thousands of us put into the business of balloons.
R.I.P. IBA – unfortunately, you’ve already been forgotten.
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