The Great Balloon Chase was organised by The Lanark Space Agency (LASA), a group of Perth-area residents.  Many others helped out...

LASA is:

Rick Szijarto

Peter McCracken

Marc Baillon

Mark Czubak

Shawn Thompson

Stephanie Gauthier

LASA organisers are parents of past and present students of Perth Children’s House Montessori School, and this project included educational and fundraising components for students there.

A number of amateur radio operators, including members of the Lanark and North Leeds Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) were integral to the project, providing expertise and equipment:

Barrie Crampton	Brad Smith	George Sansom	Bob Sharpe
VE3BSB, organiser	VE3BSM	VE3GWS	VA3QV

• Luc Pernot  VE3JGL
• Hap Chafe VE3MW
• John Bunker VE3JAC

Other local volunteers:

Rebecca Worden

Barbara Szijarto

Laszlo Szijarto

Lynne Belle-Isle

• Jeannie Hendry
• Jan Mavraganis
• Vickie Chen
• Paula Coleman

Outside help:

We received considerable assistance from a number of companies, people and organisations.  They were (in no particular order):

Tony Rafaat – the teacher in Hanna Alberta that inspired us with SABLE-3

Perth Manor Boutique Hotel – donation of a contest prize, a night’s stay

Maximilians (Jan Mavraganis) – donation of a prize, dinner for two

The Source (George Hanna) – donation of special cold-resistant batteries

Aire Liquid – loan of a helium regulator

CGIS (Jim Peden) – printing of the contest map poster

Images Inter Alia (Luke Cochrane) – poster mounting

Lake 88.1 (Brian Perkin) – for coverage

Perth Fair Board – for use of building & facilities

Home Building Centre – for providing an opportunity to sell contest tickets

Henrick’s Independent – for providing an opportunity to sell contest tickets

Town of Perth (Jan McFadden) – for help in arranging a contest permit

Perth Courier – for coverage

Robert Mazur VA3ROM – Thunder Bay ham that did extensive flight data analysis

Heikki Hannikainen – for providing the tracking website aprs.fi and providing tech. support

Owen Lawrence – for pre-launch research

Mike Maines – for pre-launch research

CJOH and CTV networks – for coverage

Stanley & Retta Giguere – finders of the payload, who went out of their way to track us down

David Corrigan – local guide that planned a recovery expedition for us

Eric Foster KE1LB – Maine ham that showed up to help us find the payload

Maine Morning Sentinel (Darla Pickett) – for coverage