At the present time there are several reasons for not getting started 12 months before the event, as follows:

I commend the Massey's for volunteering their time and energies in support of the 2004 Convention Pre-Registration duties. To my way of counting, the two of them spent countless hours over a three month period receiving emails, letters, telephone calls from members wanting to attend the Convention, attend the Banquet, play in the poker tourney, play in the blackjack tourney and other such things I can only guess about.

To suggest that they do this year-round is unreasonable and serves no real purpose. Is there an advantage to being able to sign-up now, versus signing-up in the manner which seems to work pretty well so far, i.e., several months before the event?

But your suggestion does not stop with the Massey's, it would also necessitate the year-round involvement of the following volunteer positions:

Convention Chairs (The Steffners)
Banquet Chair (Wayne Thompson)
Convention Exhibit Chair (Joe Shaw)
Convention Registration Chairs (Brenda Black and others)

Wayne of course is a Club Officer and his duties are already year-round, but I'm sure he likes to take a break from some elements of Club management on occassion.

There are also other Officers that your suggestion would have an impact on, they are Mike Quinlivan and Ralph Myers. Since the Club's on-line payment mechanism is an off-shoot of the on-line membership system, pre-registration payments get routed to Ralph, who in-turn processes to Mike. Ralph, Mike and the Massey's are then in frequent communication to reconcile payments for which people, for which events, etc., etc., etc. I trust this answers your question. If not, you are free to repost it on the Club's BBS, where it becomes an official record of Club business.

Joe, please answer a question for me:

What is the value added by starting the process any earlier than what is done now?

And for the record. I recognize you as a Club member and I also recognize that in some of your previous posts you have included your email address. Not always, but it's been there.

Also, have you given any more thought to volunteering your time and energy towards the Club's activities, as I suggested in my last response to you?

Jim Follis
OLCD CCGTCC, Inc.