Hi everyone-

I want to report on more of our work with hospital clowning in Victoria, BC, since we seem to be the only clown troupe doing this on Vancouver Island and one of the few in Canada.

We're very excited about laying one of the important bits of groundwork, which is a working relationship with the recreation staff at Gorge Road Hospital (a short and long term recovery hospital). We will receive a small compensation but most of all, will be part of the hospital's organized programming, not a volunteer service.

They're quite excited about his plan to do regular visitation at the hospital, which we are kicking off with a Christmas show.

We have been performing mostly for seniors' residences for about a year and a half and feel we have developed sufficient trust amongst ourselves and faith in our work that we are ready to move into this fascinating and challenging aspect of clowning.

So wish us well, but send us your thoughts and ideas. Have a look at our website, www.thesunshineclownband.com (http://www.thesunshineclownband.com). Share your experiences, too, and let's see if we can't expand the circle of interest on this wonderful website, the Clown Forum.

Jim Ricks (aka Bungle)

Since my last post we have performed at the Gorge Road Hospital in concert for their Crjistmas festivities. It was a blowout! We were hot on the music, with a new keyboard player, Earl Shaw, and the audience was very responsive. It was a great oopener to working with them. If you go to our website, you can see a photo of us at the hospital on our front page and another shot with Miss Goldie Ray and a happy patient on the hospital clowning page.

I hope others share their experiences, since we're keen to share and learn as well.

Bungle

That is fantastic Bungle! Thanks for sharing the wonderful work that you are doing. I look forward to hearing more stories as time goes by.