IC08 Conference report

 

San Diego State University has open dates the summer of 2008 except the last weekend of July. I’m proposing August 7 as the beginning date of our conference. Is there opposition to this date?

 

The campus is in downtown San Diego and very close to just about everything. We’ll do a site visit in April or May. I’m extremely encourage by this campus. They are building an underground trolley system that will take you from one campus to another. Sea World and other points of interest are in walking distance. And for golfers, Torrey Pines! Can’t wait for that free day.

 

Bob Venosa has agreed to supply the logo for our conference.

 

Pato Banto has agree to perform the opening and closing of our conference. I explained my vision and he said, “I won’t let you down.”

 

My co-chair.  Remember the e-mail that went out on SocAdmin last year with a subject line: Where are the Youth? One of my personal missions is to find them and get them involved. I am proposing a young co-chair. His name is Phil Taylor and he is 35. I’m attaching a letter to you from him. I let him know that although I want to work with him for various reasons, I respected you enough to help make the final decision. If he succeeds the way we envision, he will have involved at least a few of the youth who can fulfill leadership type positions in our movement in various ways. He believes it is time for the youth to step up but realizes many of them simply do not have the skills. That is another discussion. Neither one of us aspires to get flocks of youth involved, but we do expect a good start.

 

Phil has the wherewithal to travel for site visits, has experience in IUA conferences, created workshops, has practical detail of smaller conferences (under 300). And – wants to be a loving bridge between the IUA, Foundation and us. He is taking a personal risk to be involved in our conference. But he’s willing to take that risk.

 

Once we confirm the date I’ll begin assembling the conference team. Robert Burns has given me a good list of names in the California area.

 

Thanks everyone,

Susan