charlene again, and next year's convention (fwd)

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

I'm a little disturbed by this message below.  Charlene is saying that if
we don't have a certain response (she doesn't say how many) by October 8,
she may c*ncel the convention.  Kathy and I were about to make our
non-refundable reservations for the conference.  The idea that Charlene
could just up & canc*l it one month before the event is quite annoying.  
[Sorry, can't use the word ca*cel because it bounces the mail back to me!]

I would like a decision by the board on whether it is OK to let this 
happen. 

I haven't written back to Charlene on the matter yet.  I sort of doubt an 
APD posting is going to cause massive signups, but I also have no idea how 
many we need to have sign up.  It's that whole "secretive" thing again.

I should also add that there is no incentive to sign up early.  There is
no discount for pre-October 8th.  Most of the people I've talked to are
really annoyed about the high price, late timing, etc, which you've all
heard from me already.

Kathy keeps saying we need to confront Charlene on all this.  I'm on the
fence for doing it now, because I'm not sure what good it will do at this
phase, but strongly in favor of doing so right after the conference.



On a related subject, I noticed the big response to my post of the CAOAC
note last week (sarcasm).  I had a similar offer made to us last weekend
by Kevin Plazak of the Sacramento Aquarium Society.  They are hosting an
annual convention called "FINDIG".  It was 2 weekends ago.  It was kind of
like 3 conventions in one; they had circuits for Cichlids, Livebearers,
and Rainbowfish.  The venue was shared, so the overhead was lower.  He has
offered to have the annual AGA convention as part of FINDIG next year, and
I offered to present it to the board.

Kevin also mentioned a few things that I don't think we are really 
utilizing in our current convention, i.e. Marineland speaker program.

What I'm looking for with THIS issue is some input: does it make sense to 
partner with one of these "meta-conventions"?  Do we lose anything by not 
going on our own?  Do we gain anything?

Thanks,

  - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 08:03:13 -0400
From: Charlene Nash <ecn@tennis.org>
To: "'erik@thekrib.com'" <erik@thekrib.com>

Hi Erik, be thinking of the equipment list needed for the conference. I have
no carryover in my head from last year so tell me what I need to bring and I
can make sure the Aquarium will let me take it to Texas. If not, we may have
to rent at the hotel's exhorbitant prices! Also if you could put a note on
the website and maybe send one to the APD encouraging people who want to
attend to go ahead and register. If everyone waits til the last few weeks as
usual, we may have to cancel. If we don't have a substantial number by Oct
8, we can cancel without penalty but after that it is very expensive (unlike
the lax Clarion hotel here). We would encourage folks who want to come to go
ahead and register soon to help us know the numbers we can expect. Thanks
Charlene


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