I'm sorry to hear you won't be attending in 2006. I'm sorry to hear when anyone in the hobby, anyone interested in the convention, makes a decision not to attend. I understand the diffucilties. I'm sure everyone on the Committee does.
Ideally, we would announce an upcoming convention, for, say, 2006, at the the 2005 convention. But we haven't had that luxury, not yet anyway. Not only are there few clubs that express interest -- only four or five each year -- there are even fewer that have any real experience producing a convention. And most of the expressions of interest come from one or two or three members of a local club who then find it difficult to rouse enough interest in other members to be able to put together a full crew. The harder part is getting together a crew committed to the many tasks involved in producing a convention.
And while long lead times are good for providing lots of time for planning, they also mean that the potential crew one has at the start is less likely to be there later on -- it's hard to hold onto a full committed crew for a year or so. This was a problem that GWAPA faced for the 2004 convention and it made things very difficult for it and the AGA. Time is an enemy of volunteer staffing. Long lead times help and they hurt.
The other conventions you mention have much greater resources to rely on. The competition is much stronger for hosting ACA conventions. NEC has more or less a regular crew that works on a convention -- a crew with lots of experience. IT would be great if the aquatic plants hobby grows big enough to bring such support to conventions.
I think it is certain that AGA will have a convention this year. Exactly when cannot be settled until 'where' is settled.
The problems you mention are real -- AGA has been facing them for quite a while. The options for dealing with the problems are few, unless someone has some new ideas that AGA folks haven't already wrestled with long and hard.
Some of the ideas so far:
Doing conventions every other year. The reduces the number of times the problems come up but doesn't really lessen there severity. We'd have to face them half as often but we'd still have to face them.
Having AGA staff produce the convention without a local host. AGA did this up until 2003. It's a lot to ask of a handful of folks year after year. It's a good way to burn out the active staff.
Increase the lead time for proposals from host clubs. While good in theory, this brings its own problem as I have already mentioned.
Smaller, regional conventions -- most of the tasks are the same. While smaller productions might reduce the severity of some of the problems, it would also increase the occurences.
Finding a professional outfit and sticking with them year after year. This hasn't been examined; we don't know the financial involved, but I doubt we could afford a professional outfit.
Should AGA have stuck with the November 2005 deadline? SF has put in a lot of work and it didn't feel right to dump them. Besides, the seemed so close so often. But we can't hold on indefinitely and a cut off date has been set. There's still time for AGA to put on a convention whether SF comes through or not. Will it have things working against it in 2006, including the things you cited? Sure will. The 2006 convention will especially hard to do because time is getting so short. In that regard it has cost us dearly to go this far, this long, without sewing up a deal for 2006.
----- Original Message ----
From: Mike Hellweg <mhellweg511@charter.net>
To: AGA Advisory Committee <aga-mcm@thekrib.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 1:30:32 PM
Subject: [AGA-mcm] 2006 convention?
Hello all,
I've remained pretty silent as the discussion has gone on, and on, and on, and on about the minutia of the 2006 convention. The San Francisco group has been at it for nearly 12 months and I don't see any final results. According to what we set forth last year, the bid should have been FINAL last fall and we should have made a decision and awarded the convention to someone by then.
Here we are, mid-January of 2006, and we don't have a firm date or a firm location. I've been asked about it when I promote the AGA at every talk that I do. I don't have an answer for people, and I can't even tell them we'll know by a certain date. One of the main reasons for setting this up a year ahead is that most people have to request vacation time at the beginning of the year. That window is now closed. While some of us are lucky enough that we can take off whenever we need/want to, most people don't have that luxury. That severely limits the number of people who can attend the convention.
I've held off as long as I could waiting for a convention decision/date, but this morning I finally had to make a decision and since we don't appear any closer to a date for 2006 than we were at this time last year, I've now made a speaking commitment in November. That makes two hobby related events that I'm committed to in November, and that's my limit for any month. That means my wife (who had to reserve her vacation time in late December) and I won't be coming to the convention.
Big deal? Well, we are generally kinda committed to doing hobby related stuff most of the time. I've now had to make commitments to tie up my time in November. She had to decide what she wanted to do weeks ago. Since we already had their dates, she chose the ACA with a backup date in case she couldn't get that of the Catfish convention. What about people that don't have the luxury of doing lots of hobby related stuff? They have to make a decision, too. This will further limit the number of people who are willing to travel long distances to a hobby event. Sure, there will be some die-hards that will drop everything, but that is a small group of people.
There are five other major aquarium hobby-related events already set up (for quite some time - some for almost a year already) for this year - the NEC, the ALA, the AKA, the ACA, and the Catfish convention. There are also numerous regional shows/workshops. People who may only be able to travel to one hobby event this year have to make their decision and start planning. If they're going to one of the spring events, they have to decide in the next few weeks. That may be it for their annual hobby budget. Since the AGA doesn't even know IF it's going to have a convention, we're going to lose most of those potential attendees as they make other commitments. This will again cut the potential size of the convention. IF the location chosen is San Francisco, it's not going to be an inexpensive trip for most hobbyists around the country. They need to budget for that. They need to plan NOW.
I don't mean to be negative, and I should have written this in November. I hope I'm wrong, but I think we've missed the window again.
Just my two cents worth.