In a message dated 1/16/2004 10:53:04 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Apparently the IOLI Convention Committee is in an advisory capacity only, and only if asked. I will propose a Bylaw change the next time I go to IOLI Convention, you can be sure! We need Convention and Class Guidelines! I am still in a happy state of ignorance about the convention due to the fact that I haven't received my bulletin. I have no opinion about how this convention will turn out . However, the subject has been raised before that the convention has become very large and very important to the membership and that customs devised in earlier days might no longer be ideal. When we had 200 attendees in New Jersey in the previous NJ convention, I thought it remarkable that roughly 10 percent of the membership attended the convention. The most recent New Jersey convention had an attendence probably closer to 25%, which I consider an incredible figure. It seems oddly anachronistic that for an event so important to the members of the organization that there is so little input from the National Organization. One thing that has not been addressed in this conversation is whether it is fair to put one small group out there to take all the responsibility for a national convention. The local sponsoring group is not only making all the decisions but it is taking all the financial risk for a venture that now involves a lot of money. When a local group puts on the convention they don't have the benefit of having done so every year. When I used to give children's birthday parties I learned something every year and every year they got better and more trouble free. If I tried to put one on now that I haven't done it in a while it would be a disaster. (I count the year when I devised the "party tarp" a decorated painting tarp to cover the carpet in the dining room as when I was hitting my stride.) I am eternally grateful to the volunteers who give up two years of their lives to put on one of our conventions, but they are really out on a limb all by themselves and I am not sure it is fair to them. What do other comparable organizations do? Devon
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