The 'Wall of Fame'

If you've ever come into our store and walked back by the pirate ship, you'll see dozens of certificates on the wall, each featuring a YoYo Joe's yo-yo club 'Wall of Famer.' 

Believe it or not, the 'Wall of Fame' is actually older than YoYo Joe's Toys & Fun! The 'Wall of Fame' started back at Mitchell's Trains, Toys & Hobbies about 5 years ago. We started hosting a weekly yo-yo club meeting at Mitchell's and part of yo-yo club was a big trick chart with 25 tricks on it. As people came to yo-yo club, they learned the tricks on the chart. After successfully performing the trick, it was checked off and they got to move along to the next trick on the chart. The tricks get progressively harder. If they finished the chart, they were officially inducted into the Mitchell's 'Wall of Fame' and their photo was put on the wall at Mitchell's. 

We moved the 'Wall' over to YoYo Joe's when we opened back in November of 2008, and since then the wall has exploded! The original 12 members of the wall at Mitchell's are still enshrined at YoYo Joe's, but 28 people have joined them by finishing the chart at YoYo Joe's. 

The wall features lots of interesting names, ranging from local kids who worked on the chart over time to National and even World Champions who stopped in at YoYo Joe's during the past 2 1/2 years. Two of the current US National Champions grace the wall at YoYo Joe's (National 1A Champ Sebastian Brock and National 5A Champ Migeul Correa). Also on the wall are the four best yoyoers ever to come out of Delaware - former Yomega pro Justin Weber from Newark, Team YoYo Jam member AJ Kirk from New Castle, former US National and World 5A Champion Tyler Severance, also from New Castle and 5A Legend Jonathan Robinson from Wilmington! The youngest member was 11 when he finished the chart, the oldest is just over 40. Oddly enough, there are no girls yet on the wall - but there's several who are getting close! 

Well, we just inducted two new members of the Wall-Of-Fame - Stu Branoff from San Francisco, who stopped in over the holidays and YoYo Joe's yo-yo club regular AJ Busch from Philadelphia. Congrats to the newest members of a legendary group! 

 

YoYo Joe's Yo-Yo Club video!

Check out this video that David, Jared and Jesse from YoYo Joe's Yo-Yo Club put together last week. 
Which reminds me, the largest yo-yo contest in the region takes place on June 19th at Aldersgate United Methodist Church on Concord Pike. YoYo Joe's is proud to be the host of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Yo-Yo Contest, one of eight regionals in the US. Winners at MAR will qualify for the US National Yo-Yo Contest in Chico, California in October!

Duncan crew at YoYo Joe's Toys & Fun tonight

Mark Hayward, Seth Peterson and Brandon Jackson from Duncan will be at YoYo Joe's Toys & Fun tonight from 5-7 to hang out with YoYo Joe's Yo-Yo Club. Come meet them.

Check out this video from their performance on Eyewitness News on the CW morning show where Mark gives us a shout out as "World's most favorite toy store." Wow. Thanks, Mark.

Click here to view video

We're SEVERE-ly excited!

Tyler Severance was employee number 2 at YoYo Joe's. He was one of two people who came to work for us who previously worked at Mitchell's Trains, Toys & Hobbies. If you shopped at YoYo Joe's last holiday season, you might have seen Tyler. He was the Yo-Yo 2007 World Champion in the 5A division. For previous mentions of Tyler in the blog, click here.
Since Tyler left us, he graduated from William Penn High School and headed out to Arizona, where he's following his dream, working for yo-yo manufacturer YoYo Factory.
YoYo Factory has just released the signature model yo-yo for Tyler - the SEVERE. We were delighted to receive the first of these last week (already sold out!). I tried out the first batch and (maybe I'm biased), but it's my favorite metal yo-yo! We're also thrilled to be receiving an exclusive color combination of the SEVERE this week. We're the only store in the world to offer the blue & orange YoYo Joe's edition of the SEVERE. We expect it to arrive any day, and I will update the blog with ordering info when we get it in.
Congrats to Tyler and YoYo Factory.

Banner day at Yo-Yo Club

We started our Yo-Yo Club in January. It was an immediate hit, with dozens of kids showing up on the first day. Since then, 130 people have started on our "Yo-Yo Club Advancement Chart" - a list of 25 yo-yo tricks of advancing difficulty. If the yoyoer has the tenacity to finish our chart, they get inducted into the Yo-Yo Joe's "Wall of Fame" - their picture is posted on the wall above where Yo-Yo Club meets.

Of those 130, only one had completed the list. Only one until Saturday - when three, count 'em, three kids finished the list. David Yoncha - who was at our first Yo-Yo Club meeting, Mark White - who started about a week after David, and Jesse Miller - who starting coming this spring - all finished the chart on Saturday. The three joined Jared Verratti - who finished the list several months ago.

This brings our 'Wall of Fame' membership to 20 - we grandfathered the 11 people who were in the Mitchell's Yo-Yo Club 'Wall of Fame' and it includes five professional yo-yoers who stopped in at YoYo Joe's and reeled off the tricks to join the wall. All in all, our Wall includes former Mid-Atlantic Regional, US National & World Champions!

Yo-Yo's make the national spotlight...

Just over a month ago, the Washington Post did a cover story on yoyoing, spotlighting former YoYo Joe's employee Tyler Severance as well as other YoYo Joe's Yo-Yo Club members. If you missed it, check out my blog post here.
Since then, yo-yos have been prominently featured on the cover of last Friday's Wall Street Journal and also on Monday's edition of the Today Show.

Will Jared be the first to finish the Yo-Yo Club Trick Chart?

YoYo Joe's Toys & Fun Yo-Yo Club meets each Saturday from 4-5 pm. Since Yo-Yo Club started in January, over 100 people have tried their hands at the Yo-Yo Trick Advancement Chart - Jared is the first person to get to the final trick - Slack Trapeze. Can he finish it? Will he be the first inducted into the YoYo Joe's Wall of Fame? 

YoYo Joe's yoyoers profiled in Washington Post Magazine

The Washington Post Magazine's cover story (registration required - unless you check out bugmenot.com) this week focus' on two local yoyoers - former YoYo Joe's employee and World Champion Tyler Severance (left) and Vice-President Joe Biden's favorite yoyoer Jonathan Robinson. It's a great article that was written with care. Writer Rebecca Bengal contacted me last year talking about doing a story on a regional yoyoer. The story features a cool video shot at the Maryland State Yo-Yo Contest in Perryville. The article also talks about both Mitchell's and YoYo Joe's. Great press! 

Rebecca told me there's more pictures in the paper edition of the magazine, so I'll be picking up a couple copies tomorrow. 

YoYo Joe's 1st Yo-Yo Club Meets on Saturday

We're thrilled to host our first yo-yo club at YoYo Joe's on Saturday, January 10th 4 pm to 5 pm. Yo-Yo Club will meet each week at 4 pm on Saturdays. Yo-Yo Club is free, just show bring your yo-yo. Try your hand at the YoYo Joe's Yo-Yo Club Advancement Chart - starting with the basic tricks and moving onto advanced tricks. All ages & skill levels are welcome. 

We started yo-yo club at Mitchell's almost ten years ago. In that time, we've had many club members go on to compete and place in US Regional, National and World Yo-Yo Championship contests. We even had one Mitchell's Yo-Yo Club member go on to win the 2007 US National and World Championship! 

Meet the people at YoYo Joe's - Tyler Severance

This is first in a series of postings introducing the people who work here at YoYo Joe's Toys & Fun - First up is Tyler Severance. 

Tyler is a senior at William Penn High School in New Castle. He worked with us over at Mitchell's and we brought him along for the ride. He's really stepped up his game with his gift-wrapping skills over the past couple of weeks. 

Tyler started showing up at Mitchell's Yo-Yo club with his brother Danny years ago. Here's a shot of Tyler from a couple years back...back when he was but a long haired lad. 

Danny and Tyler are both terrific yo-yoers, and Tyler actually won the 2007 US National and World Yo-Yo Championship in the 5A (or counterweight) division. So, he's a former World Yo-Yo Champ! He's retired now (you know, he's all of 17 years old), but don't be surprised to see him yo-yoing at YoYo Joe's. Tyler will also lead the YoYo Joe's Yo-Yo Club, which will start meeting in 2009 on Saturdays - a great place to learn awesome yo-yo tricks by one of the best yo-yoers in the world. 

Here's a video of Tyler's World Championship winning performance at the 2007 World Yo-Yo Contest.