[Plan22] Convention Debrief

[Brian Buhrow]

	hello fellow convention planners.  Here are a few notes from my experience as the AV
person for the convention as well as the primary one responsible for the bridge between the
main ballroom and the Zoom room.  Also, some notes on the virtual voting system since my
presentation on Saturday afternoon.  These notes are in no particular order, just the order I
happen to think of things.
Also, I threw in a few extra items as I happened to think of them.

1.  For hybrid conventions, it would be very helpful for the person doing the hybrid bridge to
coordinate with the official Zoom host ahead of time so as to make sure they're in place when
the meetings begin and to verify the audio quality in both directions, both for the ballroom
and for the Zoom Room.

2.  It was very helpful to have a phone conference with the hotel AV people before we met with
them in person on the day of the board meeting.  While it didn't resolve all of the issues we
ran into before the in-person meeting, it did mean I was able to prepare more thoroughly for
the meeting and anticipate many of the issues we did encounter.

3.  We really need to get the agenda finalized in a timely manner before the convention begins;
at least a week (7 days), and, preferably two weeks.

4.  In preparing for the convention, we really need a better handle on the capacity and
configuration of the hotel further in advance of our arrival.  While we did fit in this hotel,
we certainly taxed their available resources; that's something we need to be more aware of as
we go forward in the future.

5.  We should braille the hotel menus in advance of the convention.  this is something we used
to do as a mattrer of course.  We should do it again, adding the posting of said menus to our
convention web site for each year.  This would have helped relieve some of the hotel staff and
would have allowed them to serve us faster.

6.  Let us devise a system of in-person voting that does not require the use of color coded arm
bands.  Color coded arm bands are inherently inaccessible and we are smart enough to come up
with a system of voting that does not require sighted assistance to manage.

7.  Some years ago, we had all of the general sessions on Saturday and Sunday with no general
sessions on Friday.  this allowed members who work or who could not afford to attend the entire
convention to attend the convention without missing any general sessions by attending only on
Saturday and Sunday.  I spoke with several attendees over the weekend who observed that they
really wished we would consider moving back to that schedule.  I think it's worth discussing,
since, I too, as a college student and when I first began working full time, would often come
to the convention late on Friday so I didn't have to miss as much work or to pay for so many
nights at the hotel.

8.  After examining the virtual voting system after Saturdaay's  presentation and test votes,
I've determined the cause of all of the issues folks encountered during the test votes;  the
technical shortcomings we ran into have been fixed and I have some ideas on how to correct the
issues caused by us not really understanding the dynamics of running a vote.  The question is,
how do we want to proceed with testing throughout the coming year?


I'll write more as I think of it.

-thanks
-Brian