What Tim says is very true, we are in a survival mode
and costs have to be watched.

Since the content of the convention necessarily has
little change year-to-year, annual conventions for
the whole existing membership don't make much sense.
But the whole membership does not attend, because
of the rotation round the country. What we really
have right now is the cost of an annual convention
for the vendors, but the potential attendance of only
one-third of the already small membership each year.

A suggestion: if a few vendors experimented with either
Oshkosh or another major EAA event instead, would the
still-high costs be better repaid by the much larger
audience ? And instead of preaching only to the choir,
there would be the rest of the congregation who might
be encouraged to singalong ?

Ian



At 05:48 06 March 2004, Tim Mara wrote:
IMHO.......
I have made my case to many in the SSA and others...I
hope the powers to be
are listening....
I think the SSA does OK with the conventions....at
least, it's the feather
in their cap to have their name known and seen as the
spotlight feature for
these events.....and the cost to the SSA (and I speak
here as the office
itself, not specifically the organization (us) as a
whole...) are relatively
low.
As a small vendor (we are all small vendors if we are
selling sailplanes and
sailplane related supplies...big fish, very small pond)
the costs to attend
these events are very high....every turn you make in
one of these convention
centers you'll find someone with another charge. Aside
from simple
exhibition space costs itself, if you need a table.it's
$150 +, a chair
$60...electricity on a simple extension cord almost
$100...telephone service
or internet hook-up..forget it, either of these might
cost you $500 for 3
days!..on and on....I shipped boxes of items to display,
the cost to ship
big boxes by UPS or FedEx insured costs lots of $$........then,
on top of
this the convention center charges you $50 +++ just
to receive the
box!...convention centers are expensive, convention
center hotels are
expensive, travel is expensive.....I honestly can't
say being there can or
does ever generate the business necessary to cover
the cost to do
these.....not being there probably also has a negative
effect as it then
looks like you're not really in business if your customers
don't find you
there.....
Personally, I don't really go to the convention with
the intention of
selling products there (it's far easier to do this
and ship from here) but
many non-soaring businesses do, I go there hopefully
just to show what's
available, to let visitors touch and see things close
up and compare for
themselves so there's really no profit for these events
to cover these cost
directly from the convention itself.....and, like most
of us, we miss
customer calls from our places of business when we're
there...It's also not
easy to give good answers to everyone who stops by
and some visitors get put
off by this too...it can't always be helped.
The nuts and bolts of this are that there really isn't
enough new or
exciting stuff to put on display every year to make
these really worthwhile
for the vendors..or, more importantly, for the members
and visitors who
attend these events....
I have suggested we do these every 2 years....every
year is just too much
(IMHO)...nearly all of the exhibitors I spoke with
agree.....the SSA I hope
will listen......We have essentially the same speakers
giving mostly the
same (sales pitch) talks as they did the year before
and the year before
that too.....granted, there are new and fresh speakers,
a few new topics to
ponder and my hat comes off to those you do prepare
and work hard to try to
make their talks interesting and entertaining......many
are there though to
self serve and have their own infomercial under the
guise of some technical
topic....most of us see through this.
I really think a great event for the conventions would
be a used glider
sale.....we could easily have dozens of anxious sellers
with their gliders
on display and hundreds of anxious buyers with a single
shopping center at
their fingertips to compare in a single place....the
SSA could (I think if
they don't have the proper tax status get the NSM,
SRA or SSF who might have
access to this status to run this) even auction off
gliders donated by their
owners as charitable (read: Tax write-off) contributions.....now
that would
get some excitement going!.....and new owners do add
life to the sport!
Moving gliders between owners and want-to-be-owners
also helps the
sport....just my idea...
anyway...I may not be popular with some for these comments...but
it is my
(our) sport and organizations...I think we all need
to make these opinions
known....to our fellow members, and our officers as
well....
sorry to be so lengthy......I could go on.I won't
Respectfully
Tim
Wings & Wheels
www.wingsandwheels.com


'Jim Culp' wrote in message
...

Questions of costs and benefits,
and preferences:

Who benefits from annual SSA national convention?


Do glider and electronics vendors benefit by annual
show, vs the cost to them to go?

Can you, vendor, afford to go annually and is it
cost/benefit
justified?

Can you, SSA member, afford to go annually?

How much debt or cash or debt do you lay out to go
to SSA convention considering registration fees, dinners,
party fees, hotel, transportation, incidentals: As
a vendor? As an SSA member?

Would you be satisfied with an every other year convention,
as a SSA member or as a vendor ?

Who makes out well by annual SSA conventions?

Does SSA make money? If so, how much?

Does host club or committee make money? If so, how
much?

Are annual SSA conventions sufficiently well attended
to justify annual efforts?

How many full registrants were in Atlanta AirExpo2004?

Year before that?

Understand, I love the conventions. Good, yes.

Can I go annually. No way.
Can others?

Would every other year be just as good, and regional
or state soaring efforts could host 1 or 2 day sessions
like the Soaring Symposiums and similar efforts did.


Would anyone, and any vendor suffer if there were
every
other year SSA National Convention? Would SSA suffer?
How?

Your ideas, preferences?

Kindest regards.

Dancing on clouds,
Keep it up!

Jim Culp USA
Asw-20c/Std Libelle
Gatorcity Florida