Subject: dlvorg Schedule and such ...
From: Annie (annie)
Date: Sun Jul 09 2000 - 00:47:41 CDT
In this mailing:
Welcome
Scheduling and timing
New month - new thoughts!
My own schedule thoughts
My own activity thoughts
Group photo thoughts
Meeting room, big sisters, etc.
Schedule comments
Mom's day comments & more
Web Sites
Administrivia
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Welcome:
We had a number join this list from the last mailing of the regular
DLV list. Welcome, your comments and feedback are most appreciated.
Please don't be afraid to suggest things that are new, daring, and
different. :)
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Scheduling and timing:
As we've stated before, there is agreement that we should not put off
setting and announcing the DLV 2001 schedule. With this in mind, I would
like to propose the following:
1. That we discuss and debate as needed the rough DLV 2001 schedule (as
in which calendar days, not a detailed hourly schedule) on this list
between now and the end of July with the intent of announcing the dates
to the main DLV list in the Jul-Aug summary.
2. That we announce a one-month "Call For Discussion" regarding the
schedule to the main DLV list in the Jul-Aug summary, with the intent
of making the final decision by September 1.
We've had some great discussion and proposed schedules over the past
few weeks. Let's get a concensus and get ready for DLV 2001. :)
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New month - new thoughts!
>I'm in two minds about whether DLV would actually clash with N+I. Since
>I actually dress the entire time I'm in L.V., including the attendance
>at three or four days of conferences (seminars, show, exhibits,
>keynotes, etc) the getting dressed up afterwards wouldn't really upset
>me. Being too tired too, would be a definite hindrance.
>OTOH since I'm a foreigner (from New Zealand) my biggest problem is if
>one of my clients decides to attend N+I and I have to "host" them. Its
>easier to make excuses about being unavailable pre and post conference
>then during a conference, and even then it is too easy to start getting
>caught out by the deceit.
I've thought of doing part of N+I en femme, but just decided not to. I'm
always introducing myself to vendors and colleagues, handing out cards
(YES, I am VERY sure to grab them from the appropriate stack) and having
them scan my Reg-Ident card, which clearly has my boyname, title, and
company on it.
>I suspect I'm the only one with this as a real problem however, and on
>balance I think separating N+I from the DLV program makes more sense.
One potential problem for me is that if I am not the departmental person
who goes to N+I next year, my schedule may be tight, as to avoid having
too many people gone at any one time.
>Having a Monday or even a Sunday finishes works well from my perspective
>in that I can still get back to NZ and have some sort of work week the
>following week. (It takes 18 hours travel and the lose of a day across
>the dateline to get home).
>The pre N+I schedule also has some merits especially for those wanting
>to extend their time en femme. N+I is primarily Tuesday through Thursday
>with increasingly more seminars on the Monday and only day 2 of
>tutorials on the Friday. So a pre-N+I Wed/Thu-Mon schedule might work
>well. This also avoids the Mothers Day problem.
>Apart from Annie and myself are there actually any others that attend
>N+I?
I know we've had others at times. This year, the only one besides the
two of us that I'm aware of was one of the local ladies, but again, I
didn't ask around.
Majority of the people at DLV 2000 were drive-ins or fly-ins, mostly for
the weekend.
>Maybe the focus of the formal DLV should be quality of events and then
>informal activities can be scheduled either side of the core three-five
>days.
>For example
>Thu EV Dinner
> Formal get together
>Fri AM Golf (Had to get that in)
> Shopping
> PM Activity?
> EV Show
>Sat AM Activity
> PM Sight Seeing
> EV Show
>Sun AM
> PM Dam Tour?
> EV Formal farewell get together
>Now early attendees (Tue and Wed) and late attendees (Mon, Tue) can do
>their own things as well. If its set up with some Pre DLV and Post DLV
>organiser to manage those days then those wanting an early start or late
>finish can get their way.
>I'm perfectly happy with four days but then I usually dress and live as
>a woman from the time I'm in LV to the time I leave so its really just
>four days out of 9, 10 or 12 in this years case.
>I fully support the idea of a central or preferred hotel especially of
>this will mean more people arrive at the key events on time! :-)
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My own schedule thoughts:
The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning toward suggesting we
try the pre-N+I schedule for DLV2001 and see how it works.
It eliminates the Mothers Day issue totally. We do have one of our
regulars who reported a major family hassle with this, so we must
consider it. It also eliminates one "excuse" to not attend.
It allows those who wanna attend N+I and DLV to do so on one ticket.
Plus, it gives people a good "excuse" to be in Las Vegas over the DLV
period. :)
I think we should concentrate the bulk of the DLV activities in the
period of Friday evening thru Sunday evening. No matter what we do,
that's when the majority of the people are gonna be in town. It's
natural for people to want to leverage the weekend for a mini-vacation,
such as DLV, and that will happen naturally no matter what appealing
things we may schedule for Thursday or Monday.
Before we extend the DLV period any further than it has been the past
couple years, I would like to be sure we populate the schedule with
quality activities that will encourage people to make the best of the
DLV schedule.
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My own activity thoughts:
IMAO, one of the most important activities we have, tho it is seldom
cited as the most "exciting", is our traditional welcome get-together
at Goodtimes on Friday. This allows our people to interact and to get
to know each other, to bond. This simply can't happen while attending
a show or eating at a restaurant.
I'm gonna suggest we keep this on our first "prime" evening, that being
Friday, and that it be the featured event of the evening.
In 2000, this was our second-highest attended activity (the first being
the Frank Marino show). It's always received very good feedback.
I don't want to move the official welcome get-together to another
evening, simply for the fact a number of our people will miss it.
I think we need to keep the tradition of having the big dress-up
evening on Saturday, like a show or something equally high-key. The
type of show (FI, legacy, contemporary, comedy, headliner) can be a
subject of discussion at a future time.
Daytime activities are somewhat of a stumper for me. I would like to
find something which would get a good turnout for Saturday afternoon.
We've done such things as shopping trips and strip tours. They have all
worked out, and people reported they enjoyed them, but attendance has
always been suboptimal. Turns out many of the people did the same things
(shopping, casino hopping) on their own, instead of joining the group.
I realize many of our people are not (yet) comfortable doing the casual
thing. However, I have a feeling there's a magic bullet here. Comments?
Dam tour has always worked well, and Sunday afternoon seems to be
perfect for it, as long as it's ok with Deb. Again, no major griping
about the boymode request.
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Group photo thoughts:
One of the best things to happen this year, imao, was the suggestion to
get everybody present for a group photo including as many people as we
could.
For those who were not there or have not seen this, it happened at the
Friday welcome get-together and the pic appears here:
http://www.geekbabe.com/dlv/dlv2000/who/
As I think back with 20/20 hindsight, it would have been great if we
could have had everybody who attended the Frank Marino show take just
a minute or two and pose in the lobby right after the show.
Now, thinking ahead to DLV 2001, I think it would be a good idea to plan
for group photos at possibly two times, in order to get most everybody
included in one or the other or both. (It's gonna be impossible to get
EVERYBODY in any one place at any one time.)
Settings could be something like the welcome get-together on Friday, to
catch everybody casual or as-you-are, and again at the big dress-up
activity on Saturday.
I'd like to announce the group photos as a kind of official activity. Of
course, it should always be "ok" to opt out of them, as desired. (We did
have a few people I clearly remember at the Goodtimes that nite who do
not appear in the photo.)
Comments?
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Meeting room, big sisters, etc.:
>Personally, I just don't think a meeting room is going to get used much.
>It may function as a closet to hide out in, but that is the attitude we
>want to help girls break out of. Experienced girls will be out
>partying, so it would be pretty lonely at the meeting room with no
>one to talk to.
I agree. As I think back to DLV 2000, I wonder what we would really use
such a thing for.
>I was introduced to a couple of girls from 2000 who seemed to be new at
>going out. I seem to remember more from 99. Anyone else have a sense
>of this?
My recollection is we had more first-timers in 1999 than in 2000.
>I have always liked your "big sister" idea to help new girls be more
>comfortable by giving them someone to talk to and go to the events with.
>Have many people taken advantage of this?
This past year, we had no "emergency" big sister calls. One in 1999.
We had only two people this year that I would put in the Nervous Nellie
class. Both survived. :)
We did, however, have a number of no-shows this year. This has happened
each year, and I'm kind of at a loss about what to do about them.
>Also, even though you already do a great job of emphasizing it, we can
>continue to remind people that they can do a night or two in boy mode to
>increase their comfort level with DLV girls and the LV scene.
We've had people do boymode all years. You are correct that we must be
sure everybody knows it's socially ok to do that.
>The key
>(and I know I'm preaching to the choir here) is to get these girls out
>on the town to see that you can have fun in a dress with minimum hassle.
I agree here.
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Schedule comments:
>>However, I see something like starting the Thursday before N+I and
>>winding up Monday as being a valid option. This would avoid the
>>Mothers Day weekend altogether, making the DLV dates the 3rd. thru
>>the 7th. or so.
>I agree with the idea that picking dates far in advance of DLV is a good
>idea. I like your suggested dates.
The more I think about it, the more I think centering DLV around the
weekend before N+I is our best option.
>Regarding a longer DLV, I DEFINITELY like it, but what do other people
>think about starting earlier?
If anything, I think we maybe had it scheduled a bit too long this year.
We had very few people stay over Tuesday. This leads me to believe that
due to any of several factors, that length of DLV was not really wanted.
Maybe it was the lack of any majorly exciting activities that steered
people away from scheduling more time for DLV.
>I'm a serious party girl, and like DLV's
>rolling party concept. The longer, the better. But, we should keep
>emphasizing (particularly to new ateendees) that you don't have to
>commit to the whole thing, and that most people don't. Just show up for
>the days you can.
Yes, this is true. However, our society is focused on the 5 day work week
with the two-day (fudged to three-day) weekend. I think whatever we do,
we will get the bulk of the people from Friday thru Sunday.
Instead of simply increasing the quantity of DLV days, we may wanna look
at quality activities for those before and after days in the hope of
increasing the participation on those days.
(This also implies getting volunteers to make things happen on those
days.)
The Thursday, Monday and Tuesday activities this year were simply filled
in by me a couple weeks before DLV since nobody had volunteered to take
on anything on those days.
>Maybe a longer schedule would look something like this:
>Wed May 2: Pre-DLV get together
>Thur May 3: Official DLV start event
>Fri May 4: DLV Day 2
>Sat May 5: DLV Day 3
>Sun May 6: DLV Day 4
>Mon May 7: DLV Finale Night
>Tue May 8: N+I Conference Start
>Alternative: Do a big finale thing Sunday night, and call Monday a
>post-DLV get together for DLV people still in town.
This may be a valid option. Comments?
>The question is: should we just accept that Sunday and Monday will have
>lower attendance, or can we come up with some type of blow-out idea that
>will get non-N+I people (like me) to use vacation days and stay in town
>through Monday?
I think it's a given that we will have most of our people from Friday
thru Sunday. A big-gun event on Sunday evening may be what we need to
get more to stay one more day and leave Monday, stretching their
weekend to four days.
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Mom's day comments & more:
>Here are my comments about this mother's day thing. For the last three
>years I have called my mom from Vegas and wished her a happy madre's
>day. For the last two years I told her that I was meeting some of my
>crossdressing friends in Vegas. And she always tells me to be careful
>and drive carefully. Even when I take the plane she says that. Mom's!
This is what we've been hearing up until this year. People have so far
been able to work around it AND keep peace in the family.
>Now comments on a place for all to stay. I meant to say this before, but
>I didn't. I was really disappointed when I found out that most of the
>contignent from Arizona stayed at the Hilton at reduced rates. Why
>didn't they ask if anyone else wanted to be included in this deal? I
>went to one of the rooms and it was a nice room for $50, the price I was
>told.
This was announced in the list on March 26, under the title of "Las Vegas
Hilton Deal". See http://www.geekbabe.com/annie/dlv2klist/
+>Our "base of operation" for the conference will be at the Las Vegas
+>Hilton, as most of our members are planning to stay there. We have been
+>able to garner a FABULOUS rate, that if you wish to pass on, would be
+>fine. Attendees should call the LVH DIRECTLY on their toll free number
+>at 1-800-732-7117, and ask for the Spring Package special.. $49 per
+>night, plus 2 for 1 dinners, gaming specials, etc. Pretty good , eh?
+>They are limited, however.
+That's really a good deal, especially if it covers the weekend as well
+as the weekdays. I also suspect this might not be available the week
+before, since LV Hilton is one of the host hotels for Networld+Interop.
There was also another special announced, at the Imperial Palace.
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Web Sites:
DLV main page http://www.geekbabe.com/dlv/
Michelle Jenkins http://www.idis.com/mpj
Tina http://home.att.net/~tinatawdre/
annie http://www.geekbabe.com/annie/
Julie http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/9289/
Rickie's Place http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/rick121
Margeth http://www.geekbabe.com/margeth/
Melissa's Magic Realm http://www.geocities.com/melissa_t17
The Cactus Rose Club http://www.geocities.com/crc_az
Debbie Sage http://intermind.net/~sage/
Vicki's Little Page http://hometown.aol.com/vickits44/myhomepage/index.html
Mindy http://www.fortunecity.com/village/freedom/785/
Bea http://BeatrizZ.tripod.com/
Any others? If so, send them in (just hit REPLY).
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Administrivia:
This is the Diva Las Vegas 2001 organizational list.
Diva Las Vegas 2001
Dates to be announced
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
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