On Mar 16, 2005, at 23:46, Vasna Zago wrote:
Geesh, Tamara, sometimes there's no making you happy, eh? ;->
On the contrary... I'm easy to please, as long as my pocket-snake (which bites whenever I dip im my pocket for cash) remains sleepy... :) Mild as milk and twice as bland - that's me :)
Anyway, I have a few comments. One, is that it's impossible to find a decent
hotel room under $100/night these days.
Granted.
Lots of my faculty go to conferences all over and room rates are running about $150-$180 per night.
Some of those conference rooms are not paid by attendees, but by their "firm". Less so in the case of teachers (who are less and less likely to go, even though the conferences might be vital to them), but for certain sure in the case of the big cheeses (currently on trials for fraud)... The hotels have beenn trimming their rates to people on "business accounts" for years, as have the airlines.
Secondly, conference fees normally run in the $350 range, so IOLI convention registration fees currently are dirt cheap.
I didn't even think of questioning the registration fee - I feel we get a heck of a lot for it (though I'd happily drop the "goodie bag" for a $25 discount) - but now that you mention it... :) The "normal" conferences you're talking about are for *professionals*; IOLI conference, in contrast, is for people pursuing a hobby. We are not attending a conference and the workshops because - armed with all we learn there - we hope to make big bucks in the future... We go for personal enrichment, yes, but it has a different face :)
Thirdly, I work at a university, and they don't "do" conferences anymore.
Like some other people have said - depends on the school. Washington and Lee (the local U, *mostly* undergraduate) started to promote "summer activities" some 20+ yrs ago, as a means of getting money; parts of the U *had* to be open all year round but most of the paying students (undergraduates) went home for 3 months.
I've never known them to do *business* conferences, but they do all sorts of "stuff" - Alumni College (older people - alumni and spouses - coming back for some mental reinvigoration) , Summer Scholars (kids in junior year of highschool thinking of going to college getting a taste of it), various sports "camps" (one to three week long), and Arts Fair (4 weeks of art classes for kids between 6 and 18; 4 hrs a day, no food, no lodging, just classroom space). Given an early-enough booking, they *might* be willing to put up a lace conference. It wouldn't be as good for them as the other enterprises - I don't think any of the faculty could be employed as teachers, for example. But lace is still culture, and qualifies as adding to the cachet :) And there ar other colleges (junior) around, with fewer resources and, therefore, fewer scruples...
BUT, in comparison to other professional conferences, IOLI is still a terrific bargain.
In comparison to (other) *professional* conferences, yes... But we *are not* professionals; we are housewives, dabbbling at a hobby... We are not sponsored - in any part - by our place of employment (if we're employed at all); we have to shell out of our own pocket, no taxpayer money involved...
As to when the tours happen (mid week, late week), the times and length of
classes, etc., it's all up to what the convention planners want to do. And, as
we can tell from the messages, here, whatever one does, SOMEBODY is not going
to like the arrangement.
You can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but not both; sure. But the profile of workshops offered at the Conferences has changed over the 16 yrs I've been a member of IOLI; the 3hr and the 6hr "workshops" seem to have disappeared (RIP <g>), and the 12hr and the 24hr ones have become prominent. Presumably, because *intensive* was what most people wanted. So, who knows... If enough people object to paying for a night in a hotel room so that others can attend something totally unrelated to lace (a horse-shoe toss or whatever), then the "attraction" will also be moved in such a way as to accomodate the tourists but without putting the onus on the lacemakers.
Just my two cents, ma'am.
Heck, with the dollar in the dumps, I never bother with less than a quarter... Ma'am :)
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
- To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
