Subject: dlvorg Activity feedback and such ...
From: Annie (annie)
Date: Mon May 20 2002 - 23:08:09 CDT
In this mailing:
Org List
Limo Tour feedback
Leah writes
Annie's activity followups
Mindy writes
Survey feedback
Touchy touchy
Administrivia
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Limo Tour feedback:
Aiko writes:
>As far as coordinating the Limo Tour, it was probably the easiest of
>all the venues. The limo company did not require a deposit for a six
>passenger limo. Therefore, it was very easy to reserve or cancel limos
>as needed. It seems that a six passenger limo is much easier to enter
>and exit than an eight passenger limo, especially in a long dress. The
>venue was also easy to plan with the input from Tina, Mindy, Yvonne,
>Monique, Rhianna, Gina, Debbie, and of course you (Annie).
>Each limo had a volunteer hostess or hostesses, which made my job
>really easy. The route/stops were the only items needed to know ahead
>of time. The limo drivers, hostesses, and LT participants took over
>from there. It seems that each limo group had a good time seperately,
>and also as an entire LT group.
>The ability to pay for the venue at any DLV function seemed to be
>appreciated by the participants. Since Yvonne and I were at all of the
>events leading up to the Limo Tour, that was not a problem at all. We
>did have one girl pre-pay due to her arriving on Thursday.
>I would suggest continuing the final call for payment 24 hours in
>advance. That would still give time or order or cancel a limo, if
>necessary, or gain a few more riders, as needed.
>I had a few comments that the LT was too short, but I think another
>hour might make it too long. However, if each rider in a limo wanted
>to chip in approximately $8/hour for limo rent and driver tip, I see no
>reason that each limo could not go longer.
>Each limo seemed to have a group of friends that wanted to ride with
>each other, so that would also make it easy to extend time as they
>want.
>On the downside, we spent a lot of time after the LaFemme show waiting
>around MGM and attracting attention to our group. Less time between
>the show end and limo arrival needs to be coordinated.
>Also, there needs to be a mid-tour "potti stop" to help eliminate some
>embarrassing moments and the "mass exodus" when we arrive Downtown.
>Any other comments/suggestions to make this venue more enjoyable?
I really don't have any suggestions to make this more enjoyable, as for
the second year straight I have to admit it was my favorite DLV
activity.
I do have some comments.
I think the convenience of payment added to the overall turnout and
satisfaction. That was well organized and well implemented.
As for the length, I think it was about right. I might suggest that if
people want it slightly longer, arrangements be made in advance to stock
potent potables, thus getting into the quality drive time immediately.
However, I thought it was kind of a trip to pull 5 limos into the
parking lot (I liked the way those drivers always managed to park in
formation) by the liquor store and watch the expressions on the faces of
the civilian onlookers. :)
Yes, the choice of photo stops was excellent. (/me puts foot in her
mouth saying slim and none)
I do think the radios helped. I know there was quite a bit of clowning
around on them. I think it would have been better to have one in each
limo, but it was not a show-stopper to have some without them.
Timing ... We really did not know when the show was gonna get out, nor
did we know how long our people would take to get their act together and
get out to the entrance, or how long it would take the non-showgoers to
actually show up. I thought the timing was about as good as it could get
under all of those circumstances. IIRC, the limos were just a bit on the
late side, but I don't see this as a big deal. We can review the timing
issue when we decide what activities the limo tour in 2003 will follow.
Bio-breaks ... I got the feeling some of our people were a bit shy about
using the ladies room at the MGM and held it. I know one of them
remarked about this at the liquor store stop, and I told her to just
go into Hamburger Mary's and use the facilities there. Maybe one of the
photo ops could be combined with a visit to a known t-friendly place so
those who need to relieve themselves and are too shy to use mainstream
facilities. There was a mad rush at the 4 Queens, and I understand some
of our people overflowed into the mens room.
I would like to again thank Aiko and Yvonne for coordinating this, and
for one of my most memorable DLV memories. :)
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Leah writes:
>Yeah, we got a little spread out this year but as you mentioned
>earlier, one reason was that because on Friday Carluccio's was
>unavailable which would have been a natural to walk across the parking
>lot afterwards to Goodtimes..... I will nail it down good and early for
>next year so we don't have a similar problem.
>Other than being short-staffed early on, the two events I
>coordinated...... Hamburger Mary's and Sasha's...... seemed to work out
>just fine otherwise. Honestly, I didn't notice that Goodtimes was
>crowded, maybe a little at that back corner by the pool tables but
>there seemed to be plenty of room otherwise.
Personally, I didn't think the service at HM's was bad at all. A rush of
50 people in a short time is gonna slow down any restaurant of that
size, despite staffing levels. I thought the food and service of HM's
were both great.
I think Sasha's is still climbing the learning curve regarding staffing.
Whenever I've been in Sasha's, it seems like it's in one of two states,
totally empty or totally packed. I think it's gonna take a while for
them to get a feel for their staffing levels. On Saturday, for example,
they were grossly understaffed, even behind the bar.
>Some of the logistics problems seem to be dinner and then to the show.
>My question, is it better to stay in a tried and true venue for dinner
>rather than try a new place, especially with a bunch of girls for the
>first time?
This year we had a mix of familiar places (Milano's, Palace Station) and
new places (Sasha's, HM's) for meals. I really think all of them worked
out well, even though there seemed to be some minor issues with most all
of them.
>Would hate to see a problem that would ruin someone's evening. I am
>talking about pre-show buffets in this case. Not knowing the
>acceptance level of the show venues might be a problem...... hopefully
>not. Riviera I am sure would be accepting for dinner.... maybe that
would be an option prior to La Cage next year.
Before DLV ever happened, Riviera had the reputation of being one of the
most GLBT-friendly places on the Strip. Hey, they host a FI show, they
are gonna see our people in there, and they know it! Yes, some of our
people reported comments and cat-calls in 2000, but I haven't heard any
of those reports this year.
I've stayed there several times (even during Rodeo Finals), played in
their casino, eaten in the buffet, etc., no incidents at all.
Their buffet is very "ok", if somebody goes in there expecting the
Bellagio buffet, they will be disappointed. I would put it in the same
class as the Sahara buffet, maybe one notch higher, and about one notch
lower than the Stardust buffet. It's certainly much higher than the
vomitoria at Circus or Westward Hole.
For some reason, the lines at the Riviera buffet don't seem to be as
nasty as those at the Stardust.
Doing a buffet followed by a show might work, but I see the necessity of
some slack time in there, which might spook some of our people,
especially the newer ones. It will be difficult to predict such things
as lines and how long people will take to eat. We'll have to time it to
be sure people can enjoy their meal and still make it to the show on
time. I think this will necessitate a block of waiting time. Some will
be ok playing in the casino or waiting in the bar, but I can see some
of the newer ones being uneasy.
Comments?
>Another thing comes to mind..... there seemed to be confusion as to
>whether rides would be available before each event..... mainly, where
>and what time can we get picked up. I ran around pretty good this year
>(500 miles for the week) and was thinking that maybe next year we can
>put a set time for pick up with each event. If dinner is at 7, cars
>are leaving the Sahara and IP or wherever at 6:30 for example.
Might be a good idea to make this the policy. It's what I told those
riding with me to do.
>Looks like everybody got around pretty well though overall. Seemed to
>be show nites where this occurred so maybe even just posting it for
>those two events only might be helpful.
Shows are the one thing where being fashionably late will hurt you. I
know on Thursday and Saturday, people were definitely checking with me
as to what time and where.
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Annie's activity followups:
Here are my notes on the things which I coordinated, either by design
or default ...
+Apr 30 Tue 5:00pm Welcome Dinner
We buried the place. As much as I hate to say this, we're probably not
going to be able to use them again except for smaller groups.
+May 04 Sat 12:30pm Mall Crawl
This seemed to work. I had a vanload, plus there were 3 other groups
there. No problems reported, and I did not see any of our people getting
bad stares, etc.
This year I had no problems at all getting our people to shop
individually or in small groups. Previously people had tended to form
larger (4 - 8 or so) groups, which did stand out.
+ 9:00pm La Cage (Frank Marino)
We did have a bit of confusion. Previously everybody's met at the box
office on the main floor to buy or pick up tickets. This year they were
shoo-ing those who already had reservations to the satellite box office
on the second floor to pick them up.
Everybody did seem to congregate in the staging area with no problems
and most of our people were seated together in the forward section.
I'm sure this show will be on our agenda again at some time, but I dunno
if the demand is such that we will do it next year.
+May 05 Sun Morning 1:30pm Side trip, Valley of Fire
I didn't observe a single problem here. Well, other than the lack of a
7-11 out there in the desert. :) Full van and one full car following.
Largest turnout we've had for such an activity. We were 10-15 minutes
late for the Palace Station buffet, causing some of the group to go
ahead in before us.
In conclusion, I thought this was our most successful DLV so far, not
only in terms of numbers, but in enthusiasm, the lives we touched, and
the degree to which it changed our peoples' way of looking at our
community.
Again, I want to thank everybody who did their part to make DLV come
together as well as it did!
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Mindy writes:
>well here is a rundown of my activities.. in general there were only a
>few minor problems..
>Golf: this went fairly smooth. everybody who signed up showed up and
>either paid in advance or made arrangements to pay on the golf day.
>everybody arrived in time to play and have a short meeting prior to our
>tee time. there were no reports of any incidents involving proper
>behaviour and our groups kept up with the flow on the course rather
>well considering the differing levels of ability.
>the only thing i would change next year would be to schedule golf on a
>day we do not have an early activitie scheduled (such as the dinner at
>sasha's this year). even with that it seemed that most of the gals
>managed to make the dinner that wanted to. also to avoid any on line
>minor flame wars next year the rules for the tournament will be
>published before sign ups begin.
>swim party: again only minor problems. the biggest was many gals
>feeling they had to make a choice between the swim party and other
>activities. we had a good turn out and as i had anticipated even
>though we took the limit off the activitie neither my home nor the
>available parking was taxed. most people preferd to feed the kitty and
>this worked out just fine. the cost to me of the activity was within
>10 dollers of what i had planned for. because of the number of
>activities each year i dont see any way to avoid double tracking the
>swim party with other activities so i think we will just have to live
>with this.. i dont plan any major changes to the way i did it this
>year..
>so activity: according to diane everything went fine. the only feed
>back i had was all positive. again i dont think there will be any
>changes next year.
>high tea: dodged a bullet with this one. several days in advance i
>saw a large number of possable no shows for this event and managed to
>get the 4 seasons to drop the payment in full for no shows. we had a
>good turn out and it appears that next year will be bigger. several
>gals expressed regret that they missed it.. we will consider a deposit
>for this activity next year and may move to the belligo just to get a
>little change..
>boardwalk reception: this was the biggest problem and resulted from a
>missunderstanding with the head of security.. i have had a talk with him
>about this and such a problem will not happen in the future.
>still under discussion is use of all fem restrooms or pre announcing
>with one will be reserved for out use. this is a matter of educating
>the boardwalk staff and may include discussions with the general
>manager. given that no regular boardwalk clients made any complaints
>and they are now aware that sex crimes by tg's in mainstream public
>restrooms are virtualy unheard of i think this will be no problem.
If I had my say in this, I would insist that no conditions on the use of
the facility be stated. If a particular out-of-the-way restroom is to be
reserved, I would prefer that it be an option for our people who are a
bit shy of using one that is more public, and not a requirement.
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Survey feedback:
>A couple if questions if its not too much trouble.
>'Do you belong to a support group back in your hometown?'
Ok, consider it added. :)
>Also, I'm real curious about this, but if it's too hard to add these,
>don't worry. I am very curious.
>'Have you ever attended SCC?'
It's really not that difficult to add, the hard part is figuring out
what to add. :)
What I can do is add a matrix itemizing the most popular t* events
(FanFair, Southern Comfort, etc.) and get numbers for all of them.
>If you want timing, it took me just a tad over four minutes to fill it
>all in. I was thinking about three minutes, but when I got to all the
>money questions, I had to do some real hard thinking.
Thanks for the feedback on this. Yes, I know it is rather lengthy, but
I think it will give us some very valuable information. I kind of set
5 minutes as a target time, so I think we're in the ballpark.
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Touchy touchy:
>I too want to drop the "touchy subject" discussion as quickly as
>possible but am sorry to say that since I have not heard any
>authoritative proof I cannot approach one of the girls involved whom I
>became acquainted with. Being "observed" to me just means some guy is
>hitting on her or merely making conversation and well, that happens
>more than enough in this town.
I don't think we'll ever have proof in the strict sense or even in the
common sense that this occurred. We do have something that has feathers,
a bill, quacks, and waddles, but we don't have formal proof that it is
indeed a duck.
>And, I sure do hope conclusions weren't
>reached based on the way someone was dressed.........:(
I don't think this happened. For the most part, I think our people did
dress in an appropriate manner for each activity. (I think I did get one
person slightly p*ssed at me when I gave an honest opinion when she
asked me what was appropriate to wear to the mall.)
>At any rate, I agree with a code of conduct or at least some mention
>that illegal behavior will not be tolerated, whether it be solicitation
>or drugs. This at least gives the option of asking someone to not
>attend any more DLV functions if they are caught engaging in either
>behavior.
We have the better part of a year to think up the methods we're gonna
use to get this across. I think a brief "blatantly illegal behavior
will not be tolerated" note on our FAQ and on the registration screen
will get the point across.
I'm hoping peer pressure will be all the enforcement we need.
. . . . .
>on the subject of the sex for pay incidents i was not present or aware
>of them until well after the fact. i agree that a simple note to those
>involved and a mention in our rules of conduct should be enough. you
>mentioned all the activity people have the ability to eject or have
>ejected anyone showing unacceptable behaviour.
I really wasn't present either, but I sure heard about it after the
fact. The more I think about it, the more I think that no purpose will
be served by confronting anybody about previous incidents, and the best
course to take is to let people know that it will not be tolerated.
. . . . .
On a slightly related topic, in an off-line conversation, one person
mentioned that she thought it was not our best image to have some of our
people playing kissy-face so obviously in public. Other than peer
pressure ("Hey, get a room, you two!") I dunno what we can do about it.
Comments?
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