[TheForge] "Official" news from ABANA

[Dan Scheid]

Dave as a horseshoer and a SCA member I think of making things portable.
Right now I'm living on 40 acre with out a land power line we have a 100KVA
3phase generator that will run all day and all night at about 3 gal/hour
producing over 150 Amps at 440. This cost us $10K. Buy that and put it on a
$2K Simi trailer then all you need is to ship to site. Add your compressor
and you have both power and air. In one neat bundle.  Up front cost might be
more but after 1 conference it would be paid for.
Most SCA wars host over 5k person work because the groups have spent years
buy the stuff they need to run the wars and the SCA is a NON-profit group so
if they can legally own stuff so can ABANA.
Dan Scheid
/
Dann, Thanks for your response. My comments are interspersed in your text.
dave m
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On 2/18/07, dann at wctatel.net <dann at wctatel.net> wrote:
> Dave,
>
> Thanks for sharing.  That was a well written response.
> I have been a paid ABANA member  just the last 8 years, but am still
> current.  The idea of the conference costing $400 K for less than 500
> attendies is out of the question many times to expensive.  I attended the
> 2002 La Crosse and thought it was wonderful, like a Worlds Fair, but not
> nearly enough people could afford the $250 gate fee plus other costs.
>
...... Clare wrote that. I think that the numbers are a little off.
LaCrosse had something like 1300 paid attendees and Richmond had
something like 850.

> The last GoM conference that I attended had something like 300 paying a
> $40 gate fee.   Guessing at the costs of bringing a dozen or so
> demonstrators from Europe and Japan in 2002 about blew my mind.  I don't
> think we had 500 members attending  that one either.  My wife and I set up
> our tend out on Goose Island to keep our costs down, and we packed some
> bread and bologna sandwiches.  (We did eat a couple on site meals.)

......It is very expensive to bring in international people. We have
to get them here and back again, feed and house them, hire
translators, deal with taxes and work papers etc.
>
> As mentioned before there were so many demonstrations going on at once,
> that we could only take in a few, or resort to the TV Channel Flipping
> strategy and miss some of all.

...... Think of the problems of having 500 or more people trying to
see one demonstrator.
>
> My wife and I got to see part of the Japanese saw making demo, and part of
> the sword making demo, and some of the German smith group that was making
> that big bird scuplture.  One thing that really I appreciated was see the
> vendors like Kane and Son, getting to meet Sid Suedemeyer.

......All of these things cost.
>
> The point is having a national ABANA conference with lower gate fees.. say
> $75 or less, and keeping costs down but MORE Members attending would have
> a chance of making it worth the venders' expense of coming.

...... Lower gate fees, yes. The vendors do pretty well.
>
> I might be totally wet, but some of the chapters can put on a good
> conference for 300 members that costs less than $20 K.   Why couldn't
> ABANA do a national conference targeting 2 or 3 times that for $50 K.
> One or two "International" smiths would be interesting.  Multiples of
> international demonstrators is one of the Straws that break ABANA's back.

......Just the tents at Richmond cost us $30k. Add to that bleachers,
signs, BIG generators, BIG air compressors, wire, piping, PA systems,
fork lifts, cranes, golf carts, fab tent and supplies, propane, coal,
insurance, 30 walkie-talkies and daily battery changes, port-a-pots
and service, and on and on and that is just for the demo area. Then we
have dorm rooms (most folks do not want to camp out), food services,
(most folks do not want to eat bologna sandwiches for four days) linen
services, class rooms, meeting rooms, gallery rooms, auction arena,
projectors, power point setups, more PA systems, areas for sales, area
for registration, phone lines, computer lines, broadband lines,
security, administration, and lots more that I can't think of right
now..................
We have to change it, it's too much work for volunteers to accomplish.

>
> I kind of wished I had been able to go to  Kentucky ABANA 2004.  The
> dollars of cost just scared me away.
>
> I am also a member of the EAA / Oskosh experimental aircraft group.  My
> local minnesota chapter gets member call for volunteers  to come to
> Oshkosh pre-convention work.
> The cost of attending the EAA convention is many times LESS than I would
> have spent going to Seattle.
>
> Dann
>
>
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