CALL CENTRE MANAGER

Name: Denise Ilsley

Age: 24

Denise Ilsley hopes to be successful and very rich - nothing wrong with that, we reckon.

Another smiley member of our friendly team, she likes wine, food, holidays, relaxing and pampering - but not necessarily in that order.

She would love to travel the world - satisfying her hunger for shopping, of course - and adores Mexican food.

Denise says you can keep the moths though, she can't stand the pesky little critters.

GENERAL MANAGER

Name: Donna Bishop

Age: 26

VBF stalwart Donna Bishop - AKA Donna the Bomber, thanks to her Mum - loves nothing more than a good old English chip.

She also likes camping, dogs, cats and chocolate - but she couldn't eat them all at once. Show her a crab at your peril, she promises she would run a mile.

Fact seekers will be interested to know Donna once met TV heartthrob Tim Vincent (and assures us she kept her hands to herself) and hopes to go to America before she hits 30.

She likes to decorate and read crime/horror novels, but not at the same time.

Name: Kirsty Prince

Age: 18

A self-confessed drama queen, Kirsty is one of the babies of the VBF team, which is ironic really, because one day she hopes to train to be a midwife.

Perhaps she’ll follow her love of art and end up creating masterpieces for the rich and famous?

If she has her way though, this won’t be until she’s travelled the globe (preferably by hot air balloon), experienced a Pirates of the Caribbean-style adventure (preferably with Jonny Depp) or met comedian Peter Kay (preferably over a Chinese and a nice chilled bottle of lemonade).

With her bubbly, smiley personality and very positive outlook on life, maybe Kirsty will make it happen but, in the meantime, she’ll certainly brighten up the day of any lucky customers who she speaks to.

Just don’t mention spiders, velvet, clowns or boats – her four fears???

Shaun Thorne

Shaun Thorne has been working as a professional Crew for the past 3 years with pilot Martin Collinson. He has a natural instinct for finding the balloon which can be very useful. Following the balloon out of Central London is particularly difficult as the balloon is obscured by the tall buildings for much of the time.

Having a good grounding in ballooning through the crewing, Shaun decided to develop his career by gaining his Private Pilots Licence. Through a determined effort to build up his flying hours this winter, Shaun is now half way towards gaining his commercial licence.

Shaun has recently moved from London with his wife Kim to York so that he can continue to develop his flying career and maintain a balance of quality time against the rigorous demands of a busy flying schedule.

Peter Philpott

Peter Philpott started crewing for a company in Australia. On returning to England three years ago, he began crewing part-time with Pilot Martin Collinson. Last year he decided on a career change from the world of IT and began working as a full-time crew.

Peter has combined this career change with the goal of qualifying as a commercial pilot. He recently gained his Private Pilots Licence following a week of intensive flying in Italy alongside all the Virgin Balloons that came out to fly our Competition Winners. It was an amazing week with the opportunity to fly with many of the company pilots – and gain first hand the tips from some of the best pilots in the world.

Peter has a natural flair for cooking, which is handy, because at 6’4’’ and 18 Stone he has a large appetite. Along with the rest of the team there seems to be little else we do apart from sleep and eat when the weather is good and the flying gets busy.