Hotel Hell

Hotels have become the bane of my existence lately.

Our fall square dance event was to be held at Hilltop House in Harper's Ferry, WV, where we've been having our event for 13 years and where we have a contract until 2011. Despite assurances from the hotel last November that their upcoming renovations would have no impact on our event, we learned in January that the hotel is shutting down entirely for 2-3 years so we're now scrambling to find an alternate location for November, 2008.

Not good.

Our winter advanced & challenge square dance event is using the Crowne Plaza in downtown DC for a host hotel. Despite assurances from the salescritters that they would not undercut our negotiated room rates the event with last-minute internet sales, they have indeed begun undercutting us by $30/night on the Internet. We are currently in discussions --the expression "negotiating in bad faith" is coming up a lot-- to obtain satisfaction on this.

Seriously not good.

We booked the Marriott Wardman Park for our April, 2009, international convention and signed the hotel contract in June of 2006. This week, a proposal has begun circulating that the GCA move its caller school from the three days prior to the convention to the days after to avoid overlapping with the CALLERLAB convention in Kansas City, MO. This scheduling change has all sorts of implications good & bad but the big one for me is requires us to re-open our contract with the hotel --presuming the hotel hasn't already booked & sold the space in question.

Very not good.

On the good side, the Harper's Ferry location search is well under way and we should have a decision in a few weeks. For better or worse, the ACDC event is less than a week away and our options are limited: if the hotel doesn't play ball, there isn't much more we can do but scream bloody murder and say nasty things about them to the BBB. Either way, we're certainly not going to use them again. And as for the GCA caller school, I'm trying not to get to excited about the nightmares this presents until the GCA board votes on the proposal; any worrying on my part may be entirely wasted if the proposal is voted down.

And The Ship of Life Restabilizes Once Again

This morning didn't start overly well. Not too bad, but not well.

I started the day feeling light-headed and generally not myself. As much as I would have liked to have crawled back into bed to sleep it off, that wasn't an option.

And I dropped off cuyahgarvr at the airport on my way to work so he could have a few days in Cleveland with the kids and attend his dental appointment. We'll be on our own until Thursday. :-(

And folks at the office were calling me even as I was driving from BWI to the office with Very Important Matters. Once I got to the office, I found still more Very Important Matters waiting in e-mail. sigh

Now, later in the day, my light-headedness and dizziness has dissipated: I'm feeling very well. Venting on LJ --see prior posts-- helped lower my blood pressure a great deal, thank you very much. The Very Important Matters are now dealt with, or at least completed as far as I can without the participation of various other managers.

In short, I've caught up on the backlog and the afternoon is looking good. Perhaps I'll go for lunch soon.

And The Ship of Life Restabilizes Once Again

This morning didn't start overly well. Not too bad, but not well.

I started the day feeling light-headed and generally not myself. As much as I would have liked to have crawled back into bed to sleep it off, that wasn't an option.

And I dropped off cuyahgarvr at the airport on my way to work so he could have a few days in Cleveland with the kids and attend his dental appointment. We'll be on our own until Thursday. :-(

And folks at the office were calling me even as I was driving from BWI to the office with Very Important Matters. Once I got to the office, I found still more Very Important Matters waiting in e-mail. sigh

Now, later in the day, my light-headedness and dizziness has dissipated: I'm feeling very well. Venting on LJ --see prior posts-- helped lower my blood pressure a great deal, thank you very much. The Very Important Matters are now dealt with, or at least completed as far as I can without the participation of various other managers.

In short, I've caught up on the backlog and the afternoon is looking good. Perhaps I'll go for lunch soon.

2008 Plus Class #1

Our first Plus class of spring, 2008, went very well tonight. We have only seven new Plus dancers but sufficient angels to spread the newbies more or less evenly over two squares.

I was particularly impressed how some of the former Mainstream dancers have progressed since I last called for them. Yes, there was some hesitation on certain calls but no worse than some of the angels. :-)

This week, we covered some easy calls to build some confidence; these included "acey deucey," "teacup chain," "ping pong circulate" and "fan the top." We'll pass these calls along to Dayle for this coming Thursday's Mainstream/Plus club night.

2008 Plus Class #1

Our first Plus class of spring, 2008, went very well tonight. We have only seven new Plus dancers but sufficient angels to spread the newbies more or less evenly over two squares.

I was particularly impressed how some of the former Mainstream dancers have progressed since I last called for them. Yes, there was some hesitation on certain calls but no worse than some of the angels. :-)

This week, we covered some easy calls to build some confidence; these included "acey deucey," "teacup chain," "ping pong circulate" and "fan the top." We'll pass these calls along to Dayle for this coming Thursday's Mainstream/Plus club night.