In this mailing:
Org List
This mailing
Low-visibility heavy lifting
Hustler Club
Identities and phones
Name tags
Newcomer Orientation
DLV HQ
Our core values
Our electorate (corrected)
Administrivia
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Org List:
This is the DLV 2015 Organizational Mailing List (dlvorg_at_geekbabe.com)
Replies to this message will be forwarded to the DLVORG list and not
the DLV-Announce or DLV-Discuss list.
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This mailing:
This mailing contains the carry-over discussion material from the
previous year's ORG group. If anyone wishes to visit or re-visit the
ORG mailings from 2014, they are on line here:
http://www.geekbabe.com/annie/org14arc/
There are a number of discussion items which have been introduced or
carried over. Please continue to discuss, as this is the time of the
season to deal with issues that are more general or strategic in nature.
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Due to a technical error, four individuals who qualify for voting status
were inadvertently omitted from the list sent out in last week's
mailing. (This is why we post this and ask for any omissions!)
We're asking all volunteers who believe they should be of voting status
to please double-check the listing below.
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Low-visibility heavy lifting:
Kandi writes:
> First to Cami and Kandi, who did a lot of low-visibility busy
> work checking out venues for our gatherings. These are two
> individuals who voluntarily took on a job that not very many of
> our volunteers are willing, let alone eager, to do.
I really appreciate receiving this praise from Annie. She & I met on the
first day of DLV2012 which was my first-time attending. She helped me
realize the progress I had made to create my own style. She helped me
with a walk-behind that same day and showed me how to test that I was
passable. I learned how important DLV attitudes are to the success of
this program.
I was pro-active to volunteer and it was fun for me to explore new
clubs, restaurants and stores. I too, was looking for more mainstream
venues.
What I gained out of volunteering was how I expanded my comfort zone.
I also want to thank Cami who is fearless en femme for letting me tag
along with her for some of these adventures. I needed help to come out
of my shell and get the courage to not worry about what everyone is
thinking.
The experiences I had and lessons learned helped me start-up my own new
business, 2bShapely.com
I hope I can pass my experience forward to help other DLVrs.
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Hustler Club:
Vera writes:
Drop the Hustler Club?
I'm with you Linda, at least on one count.
No, the Hustler Club I thought was one of the more fun and relaxing
venues that week. And I'm not saying that just because I was one of the
stage performers doing my raunchy number F%^$ Me! (which i love doing
BTW). And only because of the nature of the beast, I really enjoyed the
male dancers. I wasn't that excited about the female dancers, but again
that's the nature of the beast. Female erotic dancers just didn't do
anything for me, but let me tell you, that Johnny Utah, Oh my! I wanted
to go home with him, but then I thought I got a really great guy to go
home with after coming off cloud 9 I was on that night... LOL!!!
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Identities and phones:
Kandi writes:
As a fellow tech guru (but different specialty), I appreciate the
tremendous job Annie is doing to provide technical support to DLV. When
studying Human Factors in Information Technology (as per her email
comments) it is helpful to have Use Cases for the Users. It is clear
Annie has done her homework for this. The Low Information Attendee
baffles me, as well.
There is one Use Case I want to mention here. Many of us create separate
and private identities for our en femme persona. A trick that I use, as
do some others, is to buy a cheap candy-bar type phone to carry around
in my purse. Should the purse find its way into other hands, I have not
lost my male identity & etc. along with it. There is no explaining to
do! These candy-bar phones dont have internet capability. They are
inconvenient in many ways compared to smartphones. Mine was free with
pre-paid minutes. I can give out this phone# to anyone who wants to
contact Kandi but have no path back to my male persona. This may not
cover the Low Information Attendees but might help with planning.
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Annie responds:
What I might suggest is that you post something like this in the
Discussion Forum as a suggestion for next year, for those who are a bit
shy of using their regular cell phone.
For this year, about 72% of the registrations had a cell phone number
attached. If this can be increased, all the better.
I'm sure that most of those "candy bar" phones have text capability.
The personal cell phone I usually carry actually has a web browser in
it. I would bet that many of the "candy bar" phones do too, but they are
limited. I was actually able to use mine to set/clear activity
reminders, but it was a bit clumsy.
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Name tags:
Annie writes:
Do we want name tags? (Do we? I don't know? What do you think?)
If so, how can we more effectively provide the attendees with name tags?
IMAO, the current system, the one where we have one "kit" and various
designated check-in locations, needs to be examined and evaluated.
How can we more effectively encourage attendees to wear them, in
particular at our larger functions?
The production and distribution of name tags is one of our most
labor-intensive endeavors! It's also one of the most expensive in terms
of $$$ that we have to come up with, mainly for the tag holders.
This year, as in all years we've produced pre-printed tags, a very
significant percentage of the name tags went unclaimed and were
discarded. Vera and Dennis put a lot of effort into making and
distributing these and it's a shame that many of them are unclaimed
and/or unworn.
Even when we had multiple check-in kits and multiple copies of the name
tag inserts, quite a few of them ended up being unclaimed and eventually
discarded.
Thoughts and ideas, gang?
One suggestion was that we move toward more of a permanent name tag,
either as "once a valid name tag, always a valid name tag" or to get
fancy and do more durable plastic tags, similar to those used as
employee ID badges or conference badges. Yes, one suggestion was to have
a photo on them.
Is this (permanent durable name tags) something we want to look in to?
Of course there's the big burning question as to who pays for them. :)
One price that we've been quoted is $3.50 per badge at a quantity of
100.
Another suggestion was to provide a name tag image and have the
attendees print them and bring them along. My Big Burning Question, of
course, is along the line of how many of our people would actually print
them?
Comments?
. . . . .
JoAnn writes:
Name tags while often stated as I "don't like them" are a way to meet
new people and personalize a greeting. So we should think of positive
things which encourages our membership to display one's name tag. So
let us hear of from our volunteers ways to suggest getting us to wear
the name tag.
Let's have ideas over the next 2 weeks, then let the topic drop for now.
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Newcomer Orientation:
We would specifically like to hear feedback from the new volunteers who
were first-year attendees in 2014 who attended the Newcomer Orientation
Session at the Bahama Breeze on Monday of DLV week.
We posted a query in the Discussion Forum seeking feedback from those
who attended the Newcomer Orientation. We have not received that many
comments from those who attended the session as new attendees.
This was the first year that we had any kind of a formal presentation to
the newcomers. We had over 30 present at this session, constituting the
majority of the new attendees for 2014. In terms of turnout and level of
participation, it was most definitely a success.
We want to have more feedback regarding the effectiveness of the session.
Was it worthwhile? What opportunities for improvement are there?
Comments?
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DLV HQ:
Kandi writes:
> A hospitality suite. ...
> If anyone has any idea of how to make this happen ...
I have a suggestion on this one for us to consider. Rather than have a
DLV HQ for all the good reasons stated above, let's think about
designating 'touch-points'. A touch-point is described as a place where
DLV'rs can stop in to get info.
I spoke with Cindy @ Bare Minerals and she helped several Low Info
Attendees (we need an acronym for this, LIA's). Cindy would be glad to
provide DLV'rs with info if she is kept in-the-loop. Bahama Breeze might
be another touch-point.
The DLVORG provides these places with info & updates on a mailing list
which they disseminate, as required. They receive the benefit of
increased traffic into their business. Big Sisters would also become
touch-points since they will be kept informed, as DLV2015 rolls along.
We can decide the criteria for what locations receive this designation.
It could be fun to 'dress it up' as a treasure hunt or wild goose chase.
The distributed nature of this arrangement with the multiple (12-16)
sources of info could make this feature a robust resource.
. . . . . . . . . .
Annie responds:
Thanks Kandi/Dionne.
All, let's hear your thoughts on any possibilities of convenient and
workable touch-base locations and such.
The idea of a daily "touch base" location has been brought up before.
JoAnn proposed this a few years ago using our featured vendors to have
a daily meet point. The major issue with this is that none of those
vendors were convenient to where most of our people were staying.
What I am hearing from those who have expressed a need for this over the
years is for a consistent and convenient location, regular open hours
covering the majority of the daytime hours, and continuous staffing by
knowledgeable DLV volunteers.
Convenience and consistency are what I'm hearing are the most desired
attributes of something like this.
If we look at this last year's schedule, we did have three recurring
open activities which could have been easily used as a touch-base if
anyone wanted to. Two of these were consistent in venue and located
within an reasonable distance to all of our suggested hotels. Those are
Katie's Koffee Korner, Lunch With, and Dancing At Paris. None of these,
however, offer any hours of coverage other than the scheduled activity
timeslots, meaning one very early and the other quite late in the
evening.
In 2010 we tried a "Hotel Hostess" program where each suggested hotel
would have a designated "Hostess" on site. One feature of this was that
there was to be a daily recurring on-site get-together at a regular
time.
Although this was well-planned, it suffered from volunteer capacity
issues from the get-go.
Let's continue to discuss ideas along this line.
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Our core values:
Kandi writes:
> We try to run a very transparent organization here and something
> like this runs quite contrary to our core values.
I responded to this with my thread: Commenting on Comments on the MyDLV
Forum
http://geekbabe.com/dlv/mydlv/mainforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&;t=2905
What I didn't say there was how insulted and angry I was by this topic
being raised. So much so, that Annie had to post it for me {as External
poster}! I have great respect for my fellow ORGs and appreciate your
efforts and friendship. Your support has helped me grow in confidence
and enjoyment. You all are the best benefit from volunteering!!
Since I calmed down, I want to discuss this one. How are our core values
being communicated to the attendees?
Can we do a better job here? Do we need a whistleblower point of
contact?
Should we ask attendees to opt-in when registering for vendor type
events? Would a disclosure be appropriate that Attendee emails are
forwarded on the vendor? Your opinions are welcome.
. . . . . . . . . .
Annie responds:
First of all, I don't think we have a demonstrated need for any more
formality WRT commercial activities. This comment was clearly a one-off.
Not often, but occasionally, we get anonymous or discreet comments via
e-mail, and that method of reporting things out of line is always open.
Nothing earthshaking has been reported this way in recent years.
As I re-read the original comment ...
+Are we morphing into a sales opportunity rather than a vacation?
+I'm beginning to wonder if some of the organizers are getting some kind
+of kick back from vendors/service providers.
I am first hearing the concern that DLV is becoming more commercial. I
know that we've had commercial activities from the very earliest days so
I really don't agree that there is a shift in the commercial direction
in and of itself.
I am sensing an expansion and a shift toward more and more mainstream
vendors in recent years, as I also sense more general shift in the
mainstream direction for our event as a whole.
As to the second part, the suspicion of kickbacks, it's close to
patently absurd in our context, but not unknown at other TG events. I
have first-hand knowledge of inappropriate use of funds at one other
specific TG event (anyone's ears burning?) :) and another volunteer has
remarked that she's seen it at another.
Unless someone can show any traceable evidence of impropriety, I think
we need to close this topic and move on.
In any case, I don't want this singular one-off comment to in any way
discourage you or anyone else from planning any activities, commercial
or otherwise.
Now as to "core values" ...
No, we don't have an ordinal list of "Core Values" on the web, kind of
like we don't have that oh-so-common "Mission Statement" either.
Many of our core values are obvious.
The one value we've explicitly stated and promoted is consideration of
others, specifically beginning in the months leading up to the 2004
event and continuing forward.
Hospitality, congeniality, and inclusion have been stated in more recent
years.
We value the attendees' enjoyment and comfort at our activities and at
the event as a whole, and we specifically track both of these.
Diversity, equality (egality) are most definitely among our values, as
our attendee base has always been very diverse and we've always welcomed
those who don't fit the stereotype. Our organization is very flat and
there's no obvious class structure or pecking order. We've always
avoided including or excluding based on labels of identity, standing or
lack of same on the transition track, what's between the legs or what's
seen on the buccal smear, let alone such things as race, national
origin, belief system, etc.
Integrity. I think we keep a clean ship! "Take the high road" is often
the response regarding which way to go when a decision has to be made.
Transparency is a value I personally hold. I don't like being in the
dark and I know none of you do either. This group here is always in the
loop whenever key decisions are made. (No, there are no "secret
committees" as was implied in feedback a few years ago.)
Another value I personally hold is that those who do the work should be
those who should be making the decisions.
Another of our key values is recognition. Credit is given for the effort
expended to make our event happen.
We value innovation and creativity. If you compare our schedule of
activities with those of other events, you will see there is quite a
contrast between us and the very predictable lineup used by others.
There are many others, and I think they are quite obvious to those who
view our web site or attend our event.
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Our electorate (corrected):
This is the list of those who will be of voting status for the 2014-2015
season. This list was taken from the final 2013 and 2014 schedules and
is, of course, subject to human error.
If you have coordinated or assisted with a DLV activity in either 2013 or
2014, please look over this list carefully. Please be sure that you and
all of your assistants are listed. Please be sure that "we have the
correct Judy" by checking the first portion of the e-mail address next
to your name.
Please report any errors or omissions.
Aejaie: aejaie@
Annie: annie@
Beverly: msbevw@
Bob: bobmlasvegas@
Cami: cami.desiree@
Dale: bdbirch@
Danielle: rdbadler@
Delaney: eponinedo@
Dionne: webmiss@
Dennis: rbardentucson@
Edy: edyvee99@
Gina: ginarichards1@
Ginger: ginigrace@
Holly: hollyann@
Jill: jillhillcd@
JoAnn: jo@
Katie: wilskatie@
Laura: laura.tommygirl@
Linda: linda@
Marilyn: ah_marilyn@
Marisa: marisaaah@
Michelle: michelle.jenkins@
Pamela: aaalmp01@
Randi: ranshell@
Robyn: bdbirch@
Sara: sara1967ca@
Sarah: sarahc01@
Sarona: batikbearer@
Shellie: ranshell@
Sherry: docrobbysherry@
Stacy: stacycdooo@
Sue: sue_leighton@
Valorie: valorie.sapphire@
Vanessa: vkw423242@
Vera: lvrosada@
Vivian: vivianchen05@
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Administrivia:
This is the Diva Las Vegas 2015 organizational list.
One address for all items regarding this list, additions, removals,
changes, submissions, questions, etc.:
dlvorg_at_geekbabe.com <--- NOTE: all lower case
Diva Las Vegas 2015
(dates to be determined)
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
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Received on Wed May 28 2014 - 05:54:15 CDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Wed Jun 03 2015 - 07:09:18 CDT