Denver, Day 6
May. 24th, 2007 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvisWe slept in Thursday morning and enjoyed every minute of it. Ideally, I would have liked to have attended the GCA dance but we really needed the sleep.
The big activities of the day were largely centered around meetings. I attended the IAGSDC delegates meeting on behalf of the GCA, my last time in this particular role. For the most part, reports were all positive: the IAGSDC is healthy financially, we lost some clubs but gained some new ones, the elections of officers to various boards went smoothly, etc.. Atlanta is now our confirmed convention destination for 2011; Tucson & Phoenix put their hat in the ring with a joint bid to host in 2012, as did Vancouver.
I found it interesting that no club expressed any interest in 2013 or beyond. I suspect it's too far into the future for most, but a major reason has to be the increasing complexity and expense of this enterprise, year after year. No small club can put this show on anymore; indeed, it's a struggle for even the largest clubs. A four day long dance event plus three days' prior caller school, a $250,000 budget, an army of volunteers and a number of constituencies with their own sacred cows which dramatically increase the cost... it's become a logistical pain in the ass. At three different points through the delegates meeting, the problem of the complexity and expense were brought up: we have to find a way to restructure this beast very quickly or it will be killed by it's own particular flavour of success.
Personally, I want to convert the honky tonk queen contest into a self-funded entity like the fun badge tours. It costs money to allocate space, room set up, hotel audio/visual systems and such and it has a relatively poor audience attendance: those who want it should be funding it rather than taking it out of the convention base budget. We already do this for the fun badge tour.
I also would prefer to dump the grand march. It nearly doubles our hotel space requirements as we have to have enough space for all clubs in a staging area and then space for their moment in the spotlight with an audience. Since the audience is largely ourselves, it just seems silly. It also means that the floor space requirements written into the IAGSDC convention contract restrict us to premier hotels in first tier cities: if you want to know why a registration is $200+, look no further.
After a short break at the end of the delegates meeting, I was back in the room again for the GCA membership meeting, again my last time in this particular role as my board term expires.
For the most part, this meeting was routine: the GCA's finances are solid, we had 25 attendees at our recent caller school, including 9 newbies. Membership is approximately 100.
The big news item was well known in advance: Nick Martellacci (president), Alan Hirsch (treasurer) and myself (IAGSDC rep) were stepping off the board at the end of our terms. John Oldfield was nominated for president, Michael Maltenfort as treasurer and I nominated![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rlegters for the IAGSDC rep position; all were acclaimed.
After the meeting and a quick dinner, we were back at the Hyatt for the trail-in dance. I hardly spent more than a few minutes in the hall... asbilleyler already reported, the acoustics were atrocious: nearly all music and calling sounded muddy and indistinct. Combined with some astonishingly poor scheduling choices and surprise last minute schedule changes, this convention isn't shaping up quite the way I had wished. I hope things improve dramatically Friday.
The big activities of the day were largely centered around meetings. I attended the IAGSDC delegates meeting on behalf of the GCA, my last time in this particular role. For the most part, reports were all positive: the IAGSDC is healthy financially, we lost some clubs but gained some new ones, the elections of officers to various boards went smoothly, etc.. Atlanta is now our confirmed convention destination for 2011; Tucson & Phoenix put their hat in the ring with a joint bid to host in 2012, as did Vancouver.
I found it interesting that no club expressed any interest in 2013 or beyond. I suspect it's too far into the future for most, but a major reason has to be the increasing complexity and expense of this enterprise, year after year. No small club can put this show on anymore; indeed, it's a struggle for even the largest clubs. A four day long dance event plus three days' prior caller school, a $250,000 budget, an army of volunteers and a number of constituencies with their own sacred cows which dramatically increase the cost... it's become a logistical pain in the ass. At three different points through the delegates meeting, the problem of the complexity and expense were brought up: we have to find a way to restructure this beast very quickly or it will be killed by it's own particular flavour of success.
Personally, I want to convert the honky tonk queen contest into a self-funded entity like the fun badge tours. It costs money to allocate space, room set up, hotel audio/visual systems and such and it has a relatively poor audience attendance: those who want it should be funding it rather than taking it out of the convention base budget. We already do this for the fun badge tour.
I also would prefer to dump the grand march. It nearly doubles our hotel space requirements as we have to have enough space for all clubs in a staging area and then space for their moment in the spotlight with an audience. Since the audience is largely ourselves, it just seems silly. It also means that the floor space requirements written into the IAGSDC convention contract restrict us to premier hotels in first tier cities: if you want to know why a registration is $200+, look no further.
After a short break at the end of the delegates meeting, I was back in the room again for the GCA membership meeting, again my last time in this particular role as my board term expires.
For the most part, this meeting was routine: the GCA's finances are solid, we had 25 attendees at our recent caller school, including 9 newbies. Membership is approximately 100.
The big news item was well known in advance: Nick Martellacci (president), Alan Hirsch (treasurer) and myself (IAGSDC rep) were stepping off the board at the end of our terms. John Oldfield was nominated for president, Michael Maltenfort as treasurer and I nominated
rlegters for the IAGSDC rep position; all were acclaimed.After the meeting and a quick dinner, we were back at the Hyatt for the trail-in dance. I hardly spent more than a few minutes in the hall... as
billeyler already reported, the acoustics were atrocious: nearly all music and calling sounded muddy and indistinct. Combined with some astonishingly poor scheduling choices and surprise last minute schedule changes, this convention isn't shaping up quite the way I had wished. I hope things improve dramatically Friday.
