[dlvorg] Welcome Volunteers! Starting the DLV 2016 planning ...

In this mailing:

Org List
Welcome volunteers
These mailings
New volunteers
Our jobs in the immediate future
Our 20th annual event
Recurring suggestions and issues
DLV 2015-2016 electorate
Administrivia
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Org List:

This is the DLV 20156 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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Welcome volunteers:

Ladies and gentlemen (and we have four gentlemen among us this year),
welcome to the DLV Volunteer Group!

This is the first "real" mailing to the DLV 2016 volunteers.

You can expect these mailings to come out every 1-2 weeks as needed,
with the frequency increasing after the first of the year.
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These mailings:

The ORG list, as we call it, is moderated by Annie, Beverly, and JoAnn
and is edited by Annie. Everyone is encouraged to submit to this list on
about any topic that has to do with the planning of our DLV 2016 event.

For those of you who are new volunteers, please feel free to get your
feet wet and share your ideas.

Almost everything we have done, currently do, or will do is open for
discussion. Your input on about anything is appropriate and appreciated.

We try to make decisions by consensus, but if there's no consensus, we
make a motion and vote, using a kind of modified "Roberts" on-line
method. Those eligible to vote are those who are on record as
coordinating or assisting with at least one activity during the last two
DLVs.
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New volunteers:

We want to give a special welcome to new volunteers. We want to let you
know that your efforts will be truly appreciated and that we are here to
advise and assist as needed.

You may be asking yourself things such as "What can I do?" and "How can
I do it?"

There are two very easy ways for a new volunteer to get his/her feet wet
without doing any "heavy lifting" or excessive busy work.

1. Volunteer to help out (in a meaningful way, of course) someone who is
planning one of our major activities. A veteran voluntter will show you
the ropes and let you know what you need to do to assist.

2. Coordinate a session of one of our smaller or recurring activities,
such as happy hours, "Lunch With" sessions, smaller evening dining
activities, afternoon socials, late evening dancing, etc. In may cases,
all you will need to do is to agree to be there (on time), greet the
others, and make sure things go smoothly.

If you want to go all-out and dive right into the deep end and do
something a bit more challenging, please feel free to do so. In past
years we've had a number of cases where a first-year volunteer has taken
on a mid-size activity quite successfully.
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Our jobs in the immediate future:

Well over 90% of our job is the planning and scheduling of the various
activities which make up the DLV event.

We ask that each volunteer contribute in a meaningful way toward the
planning and implementation of at least one DLV activity.

We encourage our volunteers to be proactive and self-starting.

If you have ideas for things that you think our people would enjoy
doing, even if they are far out or unusual for a TG event, please share
your thoughts.

Please feel free to make preliminary plans and contact vendors and such
independently. Just be sure that you don't commit to anything ($$$$$)
until you have the "ok" from the group here.

We've found that breaking up our planning year into two phases works out
quite well. At first we concentrate on strategic items, such as how we
do things, the overall format of our event, etc. Then around the first
of the year we switch into tactical mode and focus on such things as
programming and scheduling.

If there are any sweeping changes that need to be made, we need to do
them as early in the cycle as is possible.

As for very specific topics and tasks that we will be taking up in the
weeks to come, here are some of them:

1. Selection of the dates for the DLV 2016 event. We will be introducing
this topic shortly.

2. Discussion on making our event more affordable. This is another topic
which we will introduce shortly.

3. Election of the "Odd Year" Administrative Committee member. This will
be introduced next week.

4. Any further follow-up, rehashing, analysis, etc. of our 2015 event or
any previous events. Good things that must be repeated, things to avoid,
things we can improve upon, etc.
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Our 20th annual event:

Diva Las Vegas 2016 will be our 20th. annual event! :)

A TG event which lives for 20 years is the exception to the rule and is
something we should value and celebrate!

(A point of semantics here. DLV 2016 will not be our 20th. ANNIVERSARY.
That will occur in 2017, 20 years after our first event in 1997.)

We should do something special for our 20th. year.

The floor is open for ideas along this line.

Ideas bounced around so far include such things as a momento like a
commemorative pin or t-shirt, and special activities that mark our 20th.
year.

Other ideas are most welcome. Comments?
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Recurring suggestions and issues:

This section is mainly for those who are new to the volunteer scene.

Here are a number of historically recurring suggestions and ideas which
have been brought up many times.

These are being brought up now so we do not take the time and effort to
go down the same paths as before and have the same discussions and
conclusions as before.

We're not summarily rejecting these, but simply avoiding yet another
re-hash of what has been hashed and re-hashed over and over.

If anyone can provide some novel and highly-compelling evidence why any
of these should be reconsidered, please feel free to do so. (One such
item was indeed adopted last year. See below.)
. . . . . . . . . .

1. The rented hotel ballroom.

This has been brought up many many times.

It's often been presented to us as a goal, as if we've "made it" when we
can afford to rent a hotel ballroom.

It's been brought up as a desideratum in the context of if we would get
a bit more cozy with vendors, they would help us to rent a hotel
ballroom.

It's almost always presented with the idea of a catered meal and some
kind of entertainment.

Our observations over the past 19 years clearly show that this is not
what our people want! Our people want something more on the town and in
the mainstream for our major gatherings.

Our opening celebration in 2010 at Firefly Plaza and our various Bahama
Breeze gatherings over the years are good examples of what our people
like for the maximum-attendance gatherings.
. . . . .

2. Registration fee.

The hotel ballroom is often brought up along with the suggestion of
charging a registration or participation fee. "If you would charge a
SMALL registration fee, you could afford to rent a hotel ballroom."

There have been countless other suggestions for a SMALL (and it's always
"small") registration fee, such as to be able to buy blocks of adjacent
seats at shows, to be able to send out tourist literature to attendees
in advance, to be able to rent an "office" or hospitality suite (see
below) or more fairly reimburse volunteers for expenses.

It's been a suggestion many times as a deterrent to no-shows.

Many of these suggestions for the use of common funds, such as seats all
together at a show, or a hospitality room, or reimbursement for expenses
such as name tags might be good things to have, but adopting a fee
structure would introduce a whole new dimension of complexity, including
such things as accountability, responsibility, and liability.
. . . . .

3. Locking in a week/month.

This is along the line of "DLV will always occur during the second full
week of April" or something like that.

Again, it's been discussed countless times. At every go-round, nobody
has been able to name any particular week between mid March and mid May
that is guaranteed to be free of the popular religious/family holidays
such as Easter, Holy Week, and Passover, and high room rates driven by
larger conventions such as NAB.

If any one can name a particular week in the spring when Easter will
never occur and when NAB (or other room rate spikes) will never occur,
please do so.
. . . . .

4. Length of the event.

Our first year, 1997, we had a three-day event. We had a four-day event
in 1998 and a five-day event in 1999. In 2000 we went to a six-day event
and in 2004 we went to a seven-day event.

In 2007 we went back to the six-day event.

Why?

Volunteer workload limitations.

The pattern is very predictable. Each year we do a good job of planning
most of the schedule, and when weak spots are noticed we call for
volunteers to help with (usually smaller) fill-in activities. In almost
every case it's not been those who are doing little or nothing who
answer the call, but those who are already doing multiple other
activities.

Last year we reached this "saturation point" earlier in the cycle than
in most previous years.

We really do not have the capacity to expand our number of days until we
have the volunteer capacity to avoid "doubling up" to fill in weak
spots.

This (do not expand) was affirmed by the ORG list discussion last year.

Here's the Big Burning Question:

Who, among the proponents of an expanded event, is/are willing to be in
charge of recruiting additional volunteer help? :) :)
. . . . .

5. Other missions, functions, events.

Expanding our scope to holding an event twice per year is an occasional
suggestion.

We've had suggestions to expand into local (LV area) outreach, to adopt
charitable causes, to put on benefit events for worthy causes, to become
more sociopolitically active. {dot dot dot}

Again, proponents of an expanded scope, need to be willing to be in
charge of recruiting additional volunteer help. :)

A great win-win which we've had a couple of times, along the line of
benefiting worthy causes, is to do a DLV activity in support of such
cause. A good example is the side trip and excursion to the Shiloh Horse
Rescue Project a few years back. We had a very enjoyable side trip and
the Project received our $upport.

One common "forest for the trees" situation is that our people often
overlook one specific very worthy cause, one which has benefited many
people in our community and continues to do so. That "cause" is, of
course, Diva Las Vegas. :)
. . . . .

6. A hospitality suite or office.

Most other TG events have some kind of a physical headquarters, office,
hospitality suite, or some kind of common area. This is usually located
in the primary hotel hosting the event.

This would be a Good Thing to have. It would be a Very Good Thing to
have!

The very nature of the model of our event (no common pool of funds,
etc.) presents some challenges to opening such a facility, such as:

If it is to happen, it has to be located such that it's very convenient
to the majority of our attendees.

Somebody has to staff it. At least one volunteer needs to be present at
all times that this is open. Again, this is a volunteer capacity issue.

Somebody has to pay for it. Such a facility would certainly run into the
high three figures, most likely into four figures, for the duration of
our event.

The closest we've come to this was for DLV 2007. A boutique out of
Chicago was planning on attending and having a temporary studio in one
of our suggested hotels, which was to double as a hospitality suite.
They decided to withdraw when they realized that they could not make the
numbers work.

A few years ago one of the local vendors (no longer active in our
program) hinted that their shop could be used as kind of a headquarters
and hospitality suite. At the time, (at least) two other firms would
have likely jumped at the chance to be designated as "DLV Headquarters",
but none of these were in any way convenient to the locations where
DLVers were staying.

If anyone has any idea of how to make this happen (without adopting a
registration fee, of course) please feel free to say so. :)
. . . . .

7. SO activities.

It's been a recurring suggestion and discussion item.

We've had in the past a number of "SO Only" activities, two of which
were well attended and scored highly on the survey.

Most of these were planned with "traditional" SOs in mind. A few of them
did note "male SOs welcome" in the mailings.

These then kind of morphed into "SO and Partners" gatherings, none of
which were particularly successful.

Our attendee base is extremely diverse. Many of the partners present do
not fit into the traditional "Spice" definition of what many expect a SO
at an event such as this to be.

Other TG events are starting to see this as well.

The desire to reinstate activities geared to SOs has been stated many
times but never in recent years has gathered much steam. If anyone has
any ideas along this line, please say so.
. . . . .

8. Special Group Rates at a hotel.

This is one item that will be retired from this list.

Why?

For DLV 2015, Beverly did succeed is getting us a meaningful discount
for lodging at the Flamingo.

Hopefully this will be repeated for DLV 2016!

We also had two previous cases where rates offered gave us a meaningful
discount over cold-call or web rates were made available to our group
with no strings attached. First was at the St. Tropez (now Rumor) a
number of years ago. Nora arranged this simply by chatting with the GM.
Most recent was at the Artisan. Cynthia did more or less the same in a
conversation with the GM of the property.

Thanks again to Beverly for making this happen! :)
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DLV 2015-2016 electorate:

These are the individuals we show as having voting status for the DLV
2015-2016 year. These are the ones on record as coordinating or
assisting with at least one DLV activity during DLV 2014 and/or 2015.

If you believe that you should be on this list but are not, please write
in (just reply to this mailing) and scream loudly.

Aejaie
Annie
Bev
Bob
Cami
Danielle
Delaney
Dennis
Dionne
Gina
Ginger
Holly
JoAnn
Katie
Laura
Linda
Marilyn
Marisa
Michelle
Pamela
Randi
Robyn
Sara
Sarah
Sherry
Sue
Stacy
Valorie
Vanessa
Vera
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Administrivia:

This is the Diva Las Vegas 2016 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 2016
(Dates to be announced)
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Archives of this list appear on the web at:

http://www.geekbabe.com/annie/org16arc/

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Received on Wed Jul 15 2015 - 07:02:07 CDT