DLV 2004 Ends on Mothers Day

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This posting is from: Monique
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Sorry Girls if this sounded blunt...wasn't meant to come across that
way. The calander for 2004 just isn't working with us for DLV'04 and
Mother's Day. In the same breath, however, I thought we all voted and
agreed upon the dates for DLV'04, if I'm not mistaken.

Monique

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This posting is from: Monique
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Denise and Everyone,

I understand and appreciate your comments. I don't think anyone of us on
the DLVOrg group wish to see DLV become a 'traditional convention'.
Yet, as DLV grows in numbers in terms of attendees, we are going to
encounter dress code issues, COP's, etc. Annie has stated in previous
discussions before that if there is to be a 'traditional convention' in
Vegas, those of us that wish to organize such a thing are free to do
so. I would suggest that would not work.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but, the DLV model works and works
well. Yes, our numbers are growing and it's up to Annie, ultimately, to
decide where to cut off the registration #'s so DLV does not become a
'convention'. I'm sure I can speak for Annie and our entire group that
DLV is a 'Vacation' and not a 'convention', and me for one, hopes and I
will work with ya'll to keep it that way.

DLV is a unique gathering, yes Denise, of friends. Yet we are also
outreaching to our first time or second time sisters that may only have
the chance to get out once a year. Are we going to deny them of that
chance? I tend to look at the 'bigger picture' and not only provide an
avenue for 1st or 2nd time sisters to get out, in mainstream public for
that matter, but as Diva being a place where a sister/brother can let
her/his hair down, relax and have an enjoyable time. Also, in the same
breath, we need to make sure that we do suggest guidelines with respect
to dressing, RR, etc. issues so that those new sisters/brothers have
just as an enjoyable experience and vacation as the rest of us enjoy
and embrace.

Annie put it so well in the last DLVOrg mailing this week....all the
energy we are putting to the negs could be better put to the positives
and organizing fun and wonderful times for DLV'04. That is what I
intend to do from this point forward and I suggest we all consider
doing the same :)

Huggs to ya'll,
Monique Monet

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This posting is from: Sarah Charles
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Ladies and Gentlemen,

Although I voted for the April time frame, primarily for temps that
would be a few degrees cooler, I'm just happy to have DLV at any time to
attend and participate in. Mother's day is important and I'm fourtunate
that I'll probably be home to celebrate that special day with my family,
but I'll not miss a chance to spend some time at DLV with people who
share something else that means a lot to me.

Everyone's situation is unique and I'm sure if we had selected the April
time frame there would be others who could not attend. I don't know of
a better way to pick the time than how it was done. And, unlike our
friends in the great state of California, I'm very, VERY reluctant to
vote for the recall of Gov. Annie. Her hand has been light on the
wheel, allowing the rest of this "interest group" to pull the DLV along.
Besides she has Vito and Charlie to take care of the problem children.
To those who will miss out on this coming 2004 DLV, I hope to see them
in 2005.

On the other issue of the day, I doubt that I'll participate in the nun
thing as a nun. My bride would have my hide and I'd prefer to keep it
in tact. I agree that just nuns could be a problem. However, I may
bring along my nurse's dress to render medical assistance to those
injured in their swath. I would think that with diversity, that
activity would not reflect on DLV or CDs in general. Maybe we need a
Hare Krishna or two to escourt the nuns, or maybe a couple "men in
black" or a masked wrestler? If it is going to be street theatre of the
absurd it may as well look that way. This I could understand and
support.

Sarah

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This posting is from: JoAnn
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Well stated.. JoAnn

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This posting is from: Densie
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> On the other issue of the day, I doubt that I'll participate in the
> nun thing as a nun.

It's not going to happen anyway, at least not as a scheduled activity,
but bring the nurse's dress anyway. If nothing else, you can wear it
to Rocky Horror.

Oh, just found out. Tony has volunteered to dress as a Hare Krishna,
so maybe the nun thing is on anyway. ;)

-densie

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This posting is from: kumiko yvonne watanabe
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Hi!

I guess I will also step up on the soapbox. I must apogize in advance
if this will sound blunt, for it probably will be blunt.

I will sadly miss the fellowship with Rosada and Tina and everyone else
that cannot make it to DLV 04 due to the mother's day weekend or for
other reasons. Everyone who attends DLV brings a unique presence to DLV
which adds many wonderful facets to what DLV is all about. Your presence
will be missed and felt by all attending DLV 04, and DLV will shine a
little less without their presence.

On the topic of changing the dates:

As others brought out during the discussion of possible dates, for 2004,
there was no real good dates that will work with everyone. But the dates
had to be set within a timetable to allow everyone to plan their
'vacation' schedule. Dates have been determined and made. Others may or
already have made plans and have used those dates to attend DLV '04.
Changing them now will jepordize others from attending by messing their
schedule up.

The dates were discussed in the DLVorg group. It was no secret, and
anyone attending DLV with email access could have joined in the group
and added their opinions in the discussions. The dates were also
brought up in general dlv email listings and there was a time period for
discussion before the dates were determined. (Annie please correct me
where I'm wrong). This has been the process for quite a few years.

However, a decision was made, popular or not, but much thought was put
into it to accomadate as many as possible. If the dates change everytime
when a group cannot attend for some good reason, with the size of DLV
growing, we may never be able to set a date that is comfortable to
everyone. I'm not trying to sound cold or uncaring. For those that
decide not to go, for good reasons, its understandable. Your presence
will be missed.

If there is enough stating that the dates change, do we really really
need to change the dates or work around them to make it possible for the
most to attend? Can there be any other possiblities than changing the
official dates?

A good alternative was brought up, which was to adjust the dates to go
to DLV as much as you want to, and leave friday or saturday if needed to
go home to celebrate mothers day.

How many (numbers) are affected by Mother's Day and won't attend or if
they attend, can only in the earlier part of the week? Is this the
majority of all attendees? If this is a majority, then something has to
be done to allow them to attend, or DLV 04 will be a very small group.
If this is OK with everyone, then there is no problem.

Also if this is the case, to those that are affected, please step up to
the planning plate. DLV is very flexable. How about those unable to
attend Mother's day weekend try to start planning second-track events
during the early part of the week (or for the weekend before DLV for
that matter) for those that can attend at that time? For instance some
pre-pre-pre DLV events or get togethers, or shows.

A saying was told me that if anything is that important enough to you,
you will do it, or you will do what you need to or whatever has be done,
to make it happen. What do you need to do to make DLV happen for you?

As far as the DLV concept changes:

My understanding, Annie is one of the founders of DLV, is at the helm of
DLV, and has done, to me, a beyond excellent job, spending untold many
many thankless hours on this event. If the DLV concept was designed to
be before or after a tech convention, and a 'vacation' and not a
'convention', then so be it. These are the parameters we will work with.

If someone else or a group wants to change this basic concept with this
growing group of attendees and try another modifed concept/convention/or
whatever during the time of DLV or at another time of the year, Annie
has always given the go ahead and plan their own thing.

Comments Annie?

As far as activities:

There has been alot of discussion on activites. Please, lets not kill
the creative process to find new activities that people want to do. Yes,
continue to bring out any concerns that should be addressed with any
event. But temper stating your final judgement and comments of a event
before it happens, and suggest positive changes.

Anyone and everyone can come up with an infinity of 'possiblilities' of
what can happen, but in reality it may never happen and could also very
well happen. We don't know the future.

If a event is offensive, help make it less offensive, if it has bad
points, remove or replace the bad points by suggesting positive changes.
Offer some positive alternatives or suggestions to help improve it, and
help make it a event worth attending even by you, instead of just adding
and dwelling to the negative attributes of any possible event.

JUST negative criticism, appropriate or needed or not, can be taken like
a rejection, and can discourage the person suggesting the event and/or
prevent this person from suggesting (and possible attending DLV) any
other possible new event in the future of DLV which could very well be
very good ideas. This can also scare others (who see only negative
comments) away, who may themselves have other good ideas for things to
do, but may never come out and suggest them, fearing getting only
negative comments and rejection.

Stepping down from the soapbox.... nuff said

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This posting is from: Tina Tawdre
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Hi Yvonne,

My goodness, that was indeed blunt. You hardly sounded like my old
Little Sister. But that's OK. :-)

A healthy debate on this topic is exactly what's needed and what was
missing from the original planning, where too much discussion centered
on how hot each week was and not enough on more important
considerations.

>The dates were discussed in the DLVorg group. It was no secret, and
>anyone attending DLV with email access could have joined in the group

And objections were raised then during the planning process, but this
issue seems to affect more of the general membership than it did members
of the ORG group. After the general dates were announced as final on
8/31 several people (independent of me) started to wake up to the
Mother's Day conflict and the first objectsion started coming in on
9/12. I only started talking about it again when I saw that there were
others being affected also.

We've seen several people who are negatively impacted by these dates.
With 8 months still to go, you can predict the impact of Mother's Day
with clarity. In this entiere month of September so far, I haven't
heard anybody say they would be negatively impacted by flipping the
dates to 2 weeks later after Inter-Op. Only 1 person has said that they
have even scheduled their vacation time at work. The ORG scheduling
discussion centered around the questionable idea that there was a
noticable heat difference in 2 weeks. In the notes I saved, I can't
find references to anybody saying they couldn't do those later dates.
Would this change actually hurt anybody or are we tilting at windmills?

In the past, IIRC, we've always talked in terms of scheduling your
travel (making reservations, buying non-refundable tickets, etc) as
occuring around the first of the year, after official hotels are set.
That advice bears repeating. Is it remotely possible that anyone is
buying airline tickets 8 months out?

>However, a decision was made, popular or not, but much thought was put
>into it to accomadate as many as possible. If the dates change
>everytime when a group cannot attend for some good reason, with the
>size of DLV growing, we may never be able to set a date that is
>comfortable to everyone.

But that's exactly what we already do - schedule around special
interest groups, some very small in number. My point is that more
current and potential attendees are affected by this Mother's Day
issue than any other "special" group.

There hasn't been a significant amount of elapsed time since the dates
were announced. I've addressed lengthy comments on this 'schedule set
in stone' fallacy to the ORG newsletter, which I imagine will come out
again pretty soon.

><snip> Can there be any other possiblities than changing the
>official dates?

>A good alternative was brought up, which was to adjust the dates to go
>to DLV as much as you want to, and leave friday or saturday if needed to
>go home to celebrate mothers day.

Then you're missing the best days. Why spend all that money just to
turn around and go home when DLV is hitting full throttle?

><snip>
>Also if this is the case, to those that are affected, please step up to
>the planning plate. DLV is very flexable. How about those unable to
>attend Mother's day weekend try to start planning second-track events
>during the early part of the week (or for the weekend before DLV for
>that matter) for those that can attend at that time? For instance some
>pre-pre-pre DLV events or get togethers, or shows.

To include the previous weekend with official activities would make DLV
nine or ten days long. And if you publicize these pre-pre-pre
activities enough so that a sizable number of people show up, then
you're moving the focus away from the proximity to Inter-Op (the tech
convention) that drives much of this planning discussion in the first
place. If you're willing to consider that much of a slide, why not
slide in the opposite direction away from Mother's Day and start either
the week of or the week after Inter-Op? To my mind, the key to have the
biggest turnout at the end of DLV is to have it end on a weekend that
isn't Mother's Day.

><snip>
>As far as the DLV concept changes:

>My understanding, Annie is one of the founders of DLV, is at the helm of
>DLV, and has done, to me, a beyond excellent job, spending untold many
>many thankless hours on this event. If the DLV concept was designed to
>be before or after a tech convention, and a 'vacation' and not a
>'convention', then so be it. These are the parameters we will work with.
>
Sounds good to me. Let's just do it AFTER the convention and avoid
Mother's Day.

And, for the record, I haven't proposed any DLV concept changes and I
haven't heard anybody else do that either within the context of this
discussion.

Best Regards,

-- Tina

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This posting is from: JoAnn
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To Annie and all of the "sisters" who look to the "positive"---

Could not agree more with your response Annie---Let us move on and start
the fun of the"planning a great week" with an"excitment plan" for all of
us. JoAnn

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This posting is from: annie
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Yvonne writes:

>The dates were discussed in the DLVorg group. It was no secret, and
>anyone attending DLV with email access could have joined in the group
>and added their opinions in the discussions. The dates were also
>brought up in general dlv email listings and there was a time period
>for discussion before the dates were determined. (Annie please correct
>me where I'm wrong). This has been the process for quite a few years.

You are correct. This has been the process we've used since 2000, when
planning for DLV 2001.

Another good point is that the planning process and the decision-making
process is open to all. We can't force anybody to participate, but the
invitation to do so has always been there.

>If there is enough stating that the dates change, do we really really
>need to change the dates or work around them to make it possible for
>the most to attend? Can there be any other possiblities than changing
>the official dates?

I think there's a win-win possibility here, but it will take some
cooperation, and yes, some compromise by both those who are happy with
the agreed-upon dates and those who are unhappy.

There were suggestions here to consider adjusting the dates.

There is now a motion to do so that has been presented to the DLVORG
group. This will appear in the upcoming mailing of the ORG list, which
is the correct forum to decide upon organizational aspects of DLV.

>My understanding, Annie is one of the founders of DLV, is at the helm
>of DLV, and has done, to me, a beyond excellent job, spending untold
>many many thankless hours on this event. If the DLV concept was
>designed to be before or after a tech convention, and a 'vacation' and
>not a 'convention', then so be it. These are the parameters we will
>work with.

DLV was not designed to coincide with N+I, but it has done so. I think
there's still a misunderstanding of the degree to which N+I influenced
the votes for the agreed-upon timeframe. It's my distinct impression
that only a minority of those casting votes for the 3-8 (or 17-22)
timeframe considered N+I to be a major factor in their decision.

>If someone else or a group wants to change this basic concept with this
>growing group of attendees and try another modifed concept/ convention/
>or whatever during the time of DLV or at another time of the year, Annie
>has always given the go ahead and plan their own thing.

>Comments Annie?

Well, since you asked. :) :)

There are a few well-established principles that have been with us
since day two. :) Those being such things as the venue (Las Vegas),
the approximate timeframe (spring), and yes, the fact that we are not
a convention.

It's been brought up a number of times that if we would adopt the
FanFair clone model for DLV, and promote maximum growth, DLV could
easily become larger than any of the existing conventions.

I don't question this at all.

It's even been implied that it should be our duty to grow DLV as much as
possible.

This I do question.

Over the past couple years I haven't heard nearly as much of a calling
to morph into a convention as I heard during the "middle years" of DLV.
I think those who at the time were only familiar with the FanFair clone
model now appreciate DLV for the singularity it is.

The reverse has in fact happened. Organizers of conventions have told me
that they want to plan more DLV-like activities in their events.

But to get to your point ... if a traditional t* convention in Las Vegas
is a priority for enough people, then it will happen. However, I still
cannot see such a convention replacing what we now know as DLV.

I've found evidence of (at least) two attempts to start a more or less
traditional t* convention in Las Vegas, neither of which really took
off.

On the other hand, we're not the only ones doing the V-not-C thing. We
do seem to be the one with the most web exposure, but there are others.
There's one coming up for H'ween, in fact. (If you're interested, look
around, you'll find it.) :)
. . . . .

>There has been alot of discussion on activites. Please, lets not kill
>the creative process to find new activities that people want to do.
>Yes, continue to bring out any concerns that should be addressed with
>any event. But temper stating your final judgement and comments of a
>event before it happens, and suggest positive changes.

I do think that we need to concentrate (more) on activity planning,
particularly the larger general-interest activities such as shows,
dinners, larger Quality Social Time<tm> activities, etc.

Our day-to-day and hour-to-hour sequence of activity is the "guts" of
DLV, and I do think it warrants our prime focus of attention. There's
already a rich and diverse set of special-interest daytime activities on
the plate, more so than in any other DLV to date. We do need to start
thinking about our evening activities a bit more, though.

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This posting is from: Monique
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Hi Back at Ya!

This message is very well stated and I'm in total agreement. Thanks for
sharing your input with the DLVOrg group. It IS appreciated :)

Monique

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