Subject:
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2003 Spring Plans - a reply
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.us.texlug
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Date:
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Sat, 2 Nov 2002 18:31:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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1329 times
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In lugnet.org.us.texlug, Tom Reed writes:
> In lugnet.org.us.texlug, William P. (Pat) Hough writes:
<SNIP>
Perhaps this is my fault.
Pat, Tom, you've missunderstood, I think. Nothing has been set in stone, which
is why I asked for the replies to my original email. If we are to talk to
Boeing we need some concrete things to talk to them about, such as activities
and what not. We don't necessarily have to have details of our activities,
but we need to be able to say to Boeing "we'll be holding a building
competition for the public," or something like that. Actual dates have not
been decided, nor would they be decided until we knew Boeing's schedule. In
any case we need to get back to Boeing with some sort of request and soon.
Speaking of which, I don't know about those other schools, but the NASA area's
school district, C.C.I.S.D. has their spring break scheduled for the 10th
through the 14th of March.
As for our theme, Pat, had I known you would have taken any deviation in the
theme so hard I would have lobbied for a different proposal to Boeing.
However, you must realize that what you do, and what the moonbase project is,
is considered to be Fantasy Space. And as unfortunate as it is, there are few
redeeming features of Fantasy Space when it comes to finding a sponsor.
However, robotics, at least here in Houston, is very much so related to Factual
Space, which can then be related to education. And education is a heck of a
lot easier to sell to any organization looking for community involvment, such
as Boeing. The Robotics part of the theme was added in so that I would have a
much easier time selling the idea to Boeing, as well as a robotics firm which
my father has a personal relationship with the CEO.
In any case, as far as I am concerned, our theme is still 'Space' along with
Robotics. If you think it is unfair to deviate, well, take a look at me. I
deal with Medieval Fantasy. What on earth does that have to do with space?
The only thing I could possibly contribute to the theme is to build space
things for the sake of the meeting. Otherwise all I can do is display what
I've displayed before, which is totally off theme.
As for the competition, feel free to actually submit an idea for the
competition, because that's all I did when I suggested the 'pinewood dirby'
style competition. Before you replied, several people liked the idea, giving
T.J. the notion that so far, those who had replied approved. I didn't think we
could do a robotic competition due to the lack of RCX bricks and the cost to
buy them. I was looking for a cheap, easy competition that we could feasibly
hold. If you have any ideas that would better fit a 'space' theme, by all
means say them. Yes, I have no money, but I'm willing to go out on a limb,
take out a loan, and help this organization which I happen to enjoy being a
part of.
My father thought of other competitive ideas after reading the 'posts of the
nay-sayers.' He suggested on top of the "come, build, compete" competition,
aka the pinewood dirby style competition, that we could also have a "come and
judge our works" competition as well as a "bring your own space themed MOC"
competition. The come and judge our works competition would be a publicly
judged thing that could last the entire way through till the end of the meeting
on sunday. The Bring your own competition could be either judged by us, or by
the public, which all the entries would need to be brought by a cut off time so
that there could be enough time for judgement.
And then there is the biggest concern of all, the lack of people. Let's face
it. We have over 50 (didn't count, fair guess) emails of known AFOLs that live
in Texas. To date we've had maybe 20 total different people of those 50 post
or show up to one of our meetings. That leaves 30 people who either don't care
or are so busy they can't email, post or attend meetings.
Pat, you complained that there is a small circle of people decided what TEXLUG
is doing. Well guess what, that IS what TEXLUG is, a small circle of people.
We don't have a huge number of people to make decisions.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't part of the reason of holding our
meetings publicly to bolster our numbers? To conscript those AFOLs who don't
know about LUGNET? Because of my website, I get instant messaged weekly by
AFOLs and youth's alike who never heard of LUGNET and are very surprised they
aren't alone.
But then again, like Tom said, we could just say no to Boeing. We could hold
our meeting and set up our large displays at someones house... again. I
seriously doubt anyone has as much open room as Jason was able to give us, and
think of what Jason's wife would say if we not only wanted to stay at his house
for a whole weekend of LEGO, but were inviting the public too. And then
there's the idea of some free space, perhaps a church room or whatnot. Ok. I
doubt a church, as charitable as they might be, would allow us to have our
meeting on sunday, it would be too hard to work around mass times. So that
would leave community halls and meeting places. These places would certainly
not have the kind of security that NI had. Most community halls are fobidden
to be locked so that there is access to the entire community. And I also doubt
that we would have anywhere close to the numbers of tables and chairs that we
had at NI at someone's home, at a church, or at a community hall. And then
there is the idea of paying for a room to hold our meeting in. Well, ok, so
everyone who shows up, small or large numbers, must split the cost for a two
day, over the weekend (premium times for events) room.
As far as I can tell, if we want what we had at NI, we MUST go with corporate
sponsorship, or otherwise known as begging for help.
Benefites of corporate sponsorship:
-Large rooms.
-Possible mass quantities of tables and chairs.
-Lockable rooms.
-Possible security guards watching over the rooms.
-The ability to leave our creations in the room and not having to set up twice
or be limited to one day.
-Possible financial backing for contests.
-Room for the public.
-Possible financial backing for advertisements.
If the majority decide that we don't want corporate sponsorship, hey, that's
fine. I'll leave finding a place to hold the meeting up to someone else. My
house has far too much immovable stuff in it to hold a good meeting, and I know
of no free place where I would trust my LEGO over night.
If the majority decide that this is all a good idea, and these are
unnacceptable things to you, well, ok. You don't have to show up. In fact, if
this sort of thing is going to prevent you from having a good time, I'd rather
you didn't show up. I'd rather everyone who shows up to our meetings have a
great time.
I want a repeat of NI. It was such a great event, and it could have been so
much more with more advertisement and more TEXLUG member participation. I
don't know about anyone else, but I thought it was an almost magical thing to
see all those kids seeing all of our work. One father asked me to explain how
I made my griffon's joints so that his kids would know that building with LEGO
was not necessarily a linear thing. We have so much to give the world, why
bottle it up?
And that's my two cents.
--Anthony
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: 2003 Spring Plans - a reply
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| (...) No, Anthony, I didn't missunderstand! My reply was to offer other alternatives as well! (...) SNIP! (...) Frankly, I have a good time just getting together with other AFOL's and seeing what they have done and chatting about it! I didn't get (...) (22 years ago, 3-Nov-02, to lugnet.org.us.texlug)
| | | Re: 2003 Spring Plans - a reply (Even Longer)
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| (...) I have doubts that there should be any blame laid here. (...) I disagree. I'll try to make it more clear. What Tom and I are concerned about is the speed at which all these wonderful ideas were being tossed about, and more so, the speed at (...) (22 years ago, 3-Nov-02, to lugnet.org.us.texlug)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Magna Carta for us Cautious Folks
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| (...) -snip- (...) I have another two cents to add here: I prefer another weekend besides March 29 and 30th! If my Sister holds to her promise, I will be in Vegas that weekend for my 50th birthday! She's told me that I "can't" bail out on THAT! (...) (22 years ago, 2-Nov-02, to lugnet.org.us.texlug)
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