BALLOONING WITH WICKERS WORLD

The Latest News from Wickers World Call our central office on 01889 88 22 22

Wickers World Goes From Strength To Strength... Most recent news at the top, old news further down the page.

January 2007: Alpine Adventures by Balloon Chateau D'Oex is an unspoilt, beautiful, mountain village in the Swiss Alps. It is also one of the most popular venues for winter ballooning, attracting pilots from almost 30 countries for a two week event in late January. The scenery is breath-taking, and the flying conditions very reliable, making this one of the best events in the world of ballooning. Pictured here is Wickers World director Jon Rudoni and family, a couple thousand feet above the village. Interested in taking a flight in the Alps? With over 20 years of attending Alpine balloon meets, we can help! Just call us on 01889 882222. November 2006: 26.2 Miles In The Big Apple! Encouraged by his success in London, ops. manager, Jon Rudoni (and his brother, James), has just clocked up another athletic success in the ING New York Marathon. Once again raising funds for the Anthony Nolan Trust, Jon and Jim have collected a total of almost £7000 between them. We now look forward to Jon spending a quiet winter in the office with his feet up! The supreme athletes! (The kids, that is...) June 2006: All Records Broken! We've just had our busiest month ever! Over nine hundred passengers flew with us in a four week period. After a wet beginning to the season, "flaming" June lived up to its reputation and delivered fantastic flying conditions day after day."Well Done" to all of our pilots and crew, who really gave 110% to keep going through this exceptionally busy month. April 2006: London Marathon result! Congratulations to company director and operations manager, Jon Rudoni (40), who completed the London Marathon in a very respectable 3 hours and 43 minutes. Raising money for the Anthony Nolan Trust, Jon would like to extend a big "thank you" to everyone who sponsored and supported his effort. He's now threatening to run the New York marathon in November! Quit while you're ahead we say! December 2005: Our best year ever. Both voucher sales and flight numbers reached an all-time high in 2005. April 2005: New Balloons Join The Fleet We are pleased to announce the addition to our fleet of another sponsored balloon. However, the sponsor is not a new one! Stan Robinson Limited have decided to sponsor a second balloon with our company, and we hope that this is an indicator of a happy client! Cunningly, the balloon is an identical design to the original one, and so spotters will need a keen eye to tell which is which. The easiest way to identify the two balloons is by their resistration marks; the original is G-MOLI, whilst the new one is G-SNIF. All UK registered aircraft begin their registration number with a "G", but the MOLI and SNIF parts are personalised and relate to our operations manager's young children, Molly and Joe (the poor lad's nickname is Sniff!).   Additionally, we have bought an absolutley beautiful little three-man (sorry - person), balloon for those couples needing a more romantic exclusive flight. The design of this new balloon mirrors the look of our very first balloon over 20 years ago - see us below flying it in the Swiss Alps! May 2005: Look out for us on the new BBC show "A Picture of Britain". We are one of very few companies certified to fly for the Beeb, and so often get hired to provide balloons for TV programmes. On this occasion we flew David Dimbleby and the film crew on a flight from Ely in Cambridgeshire, and then out across the Fens. As you might expect, David was great fun to work with, although he was quite a nervous passenger to begin with. The footage will appear in the episode of the programme entitled "The Flatlands", which should air in June sometime. The balloon used was the one in the picture above, G-TUTU. January 2004: Wickers World joins B.O.B! Balloons Over Britain (better known as BoB!), is a consortium of carefully selected UK hot air balloon operators that markets our flights on a national scale. BOB now represents the interests of 15 different balloon rides companies, spread geographically throughout the whole country. Through BOB we now deal with a total of 51 voucher agencies, including such well known names as Red Letter Days, Activity Superstore, WHSmith Plc, Argos, and various credit card loyalty schemes such as Nectar Points. BOB has been coaxing us to join their group for many years now, but we have only recently decided that the time was right! Of course, BOB is only a group of "like-minded" companies, using their combined might to secure larger, national, contracts - each company within the BOB group remains completely autonomous and master of its own destiny! Hence, customers booking directly with us (as perhaps you are considering), will not only benefit from our great service, but will also make a considerable cost saving compared with customers coming from sources such as WHSmiths, Argos etc. March 2003: Almost a year after acquiring Worcester Balloons, we have added another small balloon company to our portfolio. We were approached by Tim Bucknall, owner of Cheshire Balloon Flights, before Christmas 2002, and negotiations have continued throughout the Winter. The absorption of Cheshire Balloon Flights into our organisation marks another significant step in our expansion. After 18 years of operating from Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, we now find ourselves covering a region that stretches from Eastnor Castle in the South right up to Chester in the North. Our team of commercial pilots has now expanded to five, so that we have pilots and balloons operating from each of our locations on a daily basis (subject to weather of course!). At the administration end of the business we are recruiting more staff at the moment, to deal with the increasing numbers of customers. The balloon fleet now numbers 12, and in hot pursuit we have a total of ten recovery vehicles for the ground crew. Maintaining the balloons, vehicles and associated equipment is almost a full time job in itself!   OLD NEWS Follows: March 2002. Following negotiations throughout the Winter, we can now tell you that Wickers World has purchased another midlands based hot air balloon company. Worcester Balloons is now a wholly owned subsidiary of our business. Worcester Balloons Worcester Balloons was established in 1991 by John & Joanna Barber of Malvern. The flights operate from Eastnor Castle and Worcester Racecourse. Following our acquisition of the company, we have expanded the fleet of balloons operating in the area, and have taken on another sought after commercial pilot in the form of John Albury (who was part of the Breitling Round-the-World team) to help with the flying duties. John & Joanna have moved on to other projects, and we wish them both every success in the future. We are particularly pleased to have gained a base in Worcestershire, as both of the founders of Wickers World, Andy Rawson and Jon Rudoni, once lived in the county; Jon having grown up on the Malverns and Andy living there in the late 70s! It's great fun to be flying over all of those favourite old landmarks again! We now look forward to a period of harmonisation between the two companies, as we bring Worcester Balloons into line with the rest of our operation in Staffordshire. Here's to a successful future! News from 2001. An £80,000 investment in your safety and comfort! We are extremely pleased to announce that two more brand new passenger rides balloons joined our fleet last year. Both of these new craft are based at Shugborough Hall to further enhance and improve the service that we already offer to our customers. Stan Robinson, the first of our new clients, is a nationwide haulage company that won "Haulier of the Year" in a competition that put them up against many of the largest and perhaps better known distribution companies in the UK! Congratulations, Stan! The firm is based at Seighford, Stafford and can be contacted on 01785 282501. Their fleet of 130 trucks are based at depots in Devon, Stafford, Glasgow and Durham. The Stan Robinson hot air balloon has a volume of 250,000 cubic feet and stands almost 100ft tall! Constructed largely from special hyper-last fabric, the balloon should have a life of at least five or six years. As with all of our balloons, this one has also been made by Cameron Balloons of Bristol - the same firm that made the successful round-the-world balloon for Breitling in 1999. The second of our new balloons also has the same specifications as the Stan Robinson one. The client, however, is the Stafford Land Rover and Mazda car dealerships. At the time of writing, the balloons have already made about 160 flights from Shugborough Hall and have become a regular sight in the evening sky over Staffordshire! As owner of the Land Rover dealership and partner in the Mazda one, Mr Denis Bunning has been the inspiration behind this strikingly designed balloon. The scheme allows for the corporate colours of both car manufacturers to share the same balloon, so that depending upon where you are viewing from, you may see either a Land Rover balloon or a Mazda one!

Members of the British Balloon & Airship Club (the BBAC) since 1983

Wickers World is a licensed CAA operator. Licence no: BL027.

Appointed UK sales agents for Cameron Balloons Limited.

BA BO Founder members of the British Association of Balloon Operators.

BoB offers a Nationwide Network of Balloon Flights.

Please visit the rest of our web site by use of the navigation bars at the top and bottom of each page, and find out why we have become the most popular balloon flights operator in the region. We are confident that you will recognise the high quality and excellent reputation of our company, and we look forward to flying with you or your loved ones soon.

Wickers World Ltd, The Hawthorns, Great Haywood, ST18 0RA Telephone: 01889 88 22 22