[TheForge] ABANA Election Results

[Ralph Sproul]

Ron,  You say it's to expensive as a volunteer, but were you aware that
there are about 40 comped positions for a conference?

ABANA needs folks to run the set up crew including a manager, 3 welders, 3
riggers, 3 forklift drivers, and then there are the site crews with usually
three volunteers each to cater the demo sites and demonstrators needs, and
then the gallery crew has comped positions, and some other positions are
comped as well.

By comped I mean, room, meals, and tuition to the conference.  Many of the
guys I worked with on the crew had signed on in LaCrosse.  They are retired
and liked the idea of donating their time to the cause........and being able
to go to the conference by ride sharing.  It was a riot to see the four guys
from Minnesota show up in Monty Bygd's Suburban .......jump out and
go......"we're here - what can we do!"  There meals, rooms and ticket to the
conference were paid for the week they donated, and they did some serioius
work.........but they also had some serious fun!

When you have a talent like welding or rigging of equipment into place, or
the ability to safely operate a forklift -  your skills are needed and you
can go to the conference with some of it paid, in swap for your hard work.
I found it to be very worth the time, but I've done it twice and might just
come as a spectator next time (where there is such an active crew in the
Northwest area).

Ralph

----- Original Message -----
From: "rw" <rw at itech.net>
To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] ABANA Election Results


> Ralph, I'm inspired by your response.  Your points seem valid to me.  It
> also says a lot about the human condition.  Most folks do not know what
they
> "really" need.
> However, I have attended only one ABANA conference (Alfred, NY in I
believe
> 1978) as a spectator.  Why?  Too expensive for me.  It would still be too
> expensive as a volunteer.  I wish it were different.
> Ron
>
>
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