text: The aims of The Ballet Association are to give active support to the Royal Ballet Companies and to promote interest in all aspects of their work.
  A member of each of the Royal Ballet companies to be invited to be Honorary Presidents. The Director of the Royal Ballet to be invited to be Patron of the Association. The original Patron and Honorary Presidents to be invited to become Founder Patron and Founder Presidents on their retirement from office. Successor patrons and presidents to be invited to become Vice-Presidents on their retirement from office.
  The annual subscription will be renewable on 1st October and will be determined by the Committee of the Association and ratified at the Annual General Meeting.
  The Annual General Meeting will be held each October to elect Officers and Committee members, to receive the annual Chairman's and Treasurer's Reports, and to transact any necessary business. 21 days notice as a minimum, will be given of the meeting. 14 days notice, as a minimum, will be given of any General meeting at which a special resolution is to be proposed. 14 days notice, as a minimum, will be given of any Extraordinary General Meeting requested in writing by 10 per cent of the total membership.
  The Committee of the Association will normally consist of nine members, elected at the Annual General Meeting. These will include a Treasurer, Membership Secretary and other officers deemed necessary by the Committee to carry out its duties. Should the need arise, the Committee may co-opt additional members.
  The committee will meet not less than five times a year and five members will constitute a quorum. In the Chairman's absence the Deputy will take the Chair.
  All proceeds will be used for the objects of Clause 2, with the exception of legitimate expenses. In the event of dissolution, funds remaining after settlement of all outstanding debts, will be donated to charities related to the Royal Ballet Companies.
  The Association will publish a regular newsletter and have an authorised website, www.balletassociation.co.uk. Reports of meetings will be made available to members and published on the Association website, only after they have been authorised by the speaker(s) at the meeting. Reports may be published on other websites at the discretion of the Committee of the Association.
  Wikipedia will tell you his birthday was yesterday but Demetrius “Hook” Mitchell has today as his birthday on Facebook so I’m wishing the man who Gary Payton ...(Read more)
  Wikipedia will tell you his birthday was yesterday but Demetrius “Hook” Mitchell has today as his birthday on Facebook so I’m wishing the man who Gary Payton once said was better than him, Jason Kidd, JR Rider, Brian Shaw and Antonio Davis some cake with candles today.
  You might be thinking “Who the hell is is Hook Mitchell?” And “Is GP exaggerating a bit because him and Hook were childhood friends?” Well, those other names Payton mentioned, including Jason Kidd, seem to be in agreement.
  “He was by far the best player to come out of Oakland,” Kidd said. “There is no comparison to me, Gary Payton, Antonio Davis, Greg Foster or Brian Shaw.”
  “Hook could handle the ball with the Marburys and Iversons of the world. And he had the pure competitiveness of a Michael Jordan.”
  Not mentioned yet is the fact that he was only 5’9″ and arguably the greatest dunker in the world BVC (before Vince Carter).
  ”He jumped over me once, and that was my last time volunteering,” Kidd said. ”You actually could see the bottom of his sneakers.”
  The stories of him taking flight are also legendary: Stories of him jumping over cars and trucks, dunking on 7’6 Manute Bol at a pick-up game or throwing down a 360 over seven trash cans. His dunks were so popular in high school that a local hustler used to pay him $100 for every dunk he had in a game. But, the stories that dominated Hook’s life were tragic ones: The story of him being abandoned as a child and growing up in the West Oakland projects with his maternal grandmother. The story of his surrogate brother being gunned down and then Hook scoring 45 the day after at Contra Community College. Then there’s the story of him getting a scholarship to go to South Carolina State. Before making it there, he was involved in a car accident that left a friend dead. Marijuana was found in the car and his probation wouldn’t allow him to leave the state.
  Then in December of 1993, he was arrested for the murder and robbery of a 65-year-old man. 10 months later, those charges were dismissed.
  He wasn’t so lucky in December of 1999, when he was arrested for robbing a Blockbuster. The Police didn’t find a gun on Hook but he did have $4,500 in his pocket, which was the amount stolen from the video store.
  ”This is a purification period for me,” he said to the New York Times in 2000. ”I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. I didn’t think before I acted.”
  Four years later, Hook was a free man with a try-out for the Warriors, a deal with Reebok, an article in Slam Magazine and a documentary called Hooked.
  In May of 2011, Hook was released and as evident by the following video, the 42-year-old still looked like an athlete in his prime.
  Outside of sightings here and there, not much has been publicly said about Hook’s current whereabouts. But, last I heard, on June of 2015, Hook is doing OK and can still jump.