Re: [AGA-mcm] Proposal tacitly accepted by AGA

[" Mike Hellweg" <mhellweg511@charter.net>]

I apologize if I'm repeating what others have said over the weekend, I 
haven't looked at my email since Thursday and Scott's was the first email I 
saw that really caught my attention.

BTW, Scott and Karen - it was great to see you both at the NEC.  I wish I 
could have spent more time talking to you - but there are so many friends up 
there that I barely get a chance to say hello to everyone and the weekend is 
over!

I think Scott makes some good points - having participated in planning a 
national convention I don't believe a really successful convention can be 
"thrown together" in just a few months.  Realistically we should have 
already scrapped the idea to do something this year and be working on 2006.

A few things to consider:

Many companies ask their employees to plan vacations in December or January 
for the coming year.  We've missed that window - by nearly 4 months now. 
That already cuts attendance.  Even people (hobbyists) who get "flex time" 
may have already planned vacations and weekend getaways and used up much of 
their time for the year.

Speakers also may already be committed and we may be struggling to find 
some.  I'm already booked for the entire year, and have four commitments for 
Winter/Spring 2006 already.

Also, we're looking at some pretty high prices on everything from airfare to 
getting around to the cost of the hotel, not to mention the cost of the 
convention itself.  If my calculations on what it would cost me are close to 
correct, we're talking about around $800 to a thousand bucks per person if 
each person flies in, rents a car, registers for the package, and stays in 
their own room at the hotel - not to mention the money folks would spend at 
the convention in the Vendor's room, and for meals and incidentals.

Sharing cuts the cost a bit, but it's still WAY too high for a short notice 
convention.  For a convention with a year's notice (such as the very 
expensive AKA holiday condo vacation/convention last year) - it's not really 
a problem - people have time to plan their budget accordingly.  We have to 
remember that not all hobbyists are at a point where they can just throw 
that money out there to attend a convention, especially if they only have 
4 - 5 months to plan for it!

Finally, we're at the point where it's too late to advertise heavily to get 
information out there in time where it will be useful to the general 
hobbyist - and that is the group we need to be considering if we want to 
grow attendance and the size of the AGA.

Again, I apologize if I've said something that someone else brought up in 
subsequent emails.

Mike



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