'Macca bi You've Got A Friend Competitors strike new friendships at Maybury Night Picnic. ROBERT A. SKLAR Editor I t was an old-fashioned barbe- cue — replete with kosher hot dogs, hamburgers, veggie burg- ers, chips, Coke and all the trimmings. Other attractions for the 3,200 JCC Maccabi Games competitors on Aug. 20 at Maybury State Park in Northville Township included inflat- able games, hayrides, a DJ and live music from the Teen Angels. "I liked it the best of all the evening events because there were lots of things for us to do," said Elise Kahn, 13, a soccer player from Rochester, N.Y. "It's great. I don't want it to end," said Dann Suissa, 16, an in-line hockey player from Montreal. "Everyone is so nice. I love the peo- ple and the ho-spitality." Joanne and Michael Bellet of West Bloomfield and 50 volunteers oversaw the barbecue. "I thought it was terrific," Joanne said. "The kids were well-behaved and kept busy. And we got a lot of cooperation from the volunteers. The only com- plaint I got was that the were too long." From his vantage point, Jeffrey Fox, a Detroit soccer coach, thought the night went well until the busing problems at the end. "This is all the kids want — to be together and hang out," he said. "We're having a fantastic time," said Joel Roodun, table tennis team manager for the 53-member Great Britain delegation. "Detroit has been a fantastic host." Igor Simin and Ronit Vishnia, both 14-year-old basketball players from the 20-athlete Israeli delega- tion, liked socializing at the barbe- cue. "People here are much nicer than in Israel," Igor said. Ronit saw the barbecue as an opportunity "to meet new people our age from other countries." 8/28 1998 28 Detroit Jewish News Kevin Kay, 16, a baseball player from the 173-member Los Angeles delegation, was attending his third Maccabi Games. The park setting was ideal for making friends. "I'm still talking to friends I made two years ago," he said. Not everyone gave Maybury Park Night a glowing review, however. Moira Kessler, 14, a volleyball player from Farmington Hills, said, "The polo games were fun, but the hayride was boring, the dinner choices were too limited and the bus situation at the end was horrible. It was the most unorganized event — and not very fun." She and the three dancers from Long Beach, Calif., her family was. hosting didn't have dinner until midnight, when everyone finally got back to the Kesslers'. Moira much preferred Israeli Night the evening before at the Kahn JCC. "That was really great. I met a lot of people that night, which was well-organized both out- side and inside the JCC. I met a bunch of people I want to keep in touch with." The long delay in getting the teen-agers back on the homeward- bound buses from Maybury clearly took some of the luster off the evening. "If we were to do it over again, we'd have bused all the kids hack to the JCC right away, instead of first trying to gather them by bus stop," said Dr. Alan Horowitz, gen- eral chairman of the 1998 JCC Maccabi Games Organizing Committee. "We also would have started shuttles back to the JCC beginning at 7:30 for the kids who wanted to leave early." 171 Top right: Two athletes relax at the barbecue. Right: Pittsburgh ath- letes arrive at Maybury State Park.