I am surprised.....

Ok, ...

I was there as a vendor. I found the convention center staff to be helpful, good natured and good to work with while moving machines in and out. As hot as it was, people could have easily been out-of-sorts and they weren't.

I thought the facility was first rate except that my wife who was with me would have liked it to have been not quite so isolated. She reported that there was easy access to the one shopping center but everything else was pretty far away.

We stayed at the Sheraton and had no complaints except that the guy running the little news stand (USA Today is NOT a newspaper!) seemed to be opening up late pretty regularly (or irregularly). A minor problem. To make up for it... We stayed over Sunday night and ordered room service so we could watch a ball game. The deal -- if it takes more than 30 minutes it's free. It took 37 minutes so we ate cheap.

I thought that the banquet being served buffet was going to be a disaster with that many people. It wasn't -- it worked well and the food was very good. On the other hand, the food at the concession in the trade show room was pretty poor. I didn't try any of the other stands. Also the trade show room was COLD.

I thought that the breakfast could have been better thought out. I cannot eat a lot of sugar in the morning and there was usually just one type of coffee cake or muffin. A bagel or just plain bread or rolls would have been helpful. I suspect that dieters also would have appreciated a better selection.

Overall I thought that the symposium was very well done and the folks in Louisville will have some work to do. KC's central location I'm sure was very helpful in drawing the large number of people. It will be interesting to see what happens to the numbers in Louisville.

Bill

Alex wrote:

I was there. I thought the symposium was very good. All of the facilities were first rate. All of the events ran very well. No complaints from me. It was not clear to me where the local club left off and the national picked up. It was seemless to me. That is a good thing.

I stayed off-site to cut down costs. The convention center did seem a bit far from other places to go, but that didn't really matter. Too hot, of course, which is why I live in San Diego now instead of Des Moines.

Joe Fleming - SAn Diego

OK - I got a few complaints that I didn't review the conference adequately. My previous post was targeted toward the KC turners who were the hosts. Many of the features of the symposium are out of their control, so I didn't comment on them.

First of all, this symposium was great. I enjoyed the whole experience. All of the rotations I attended were very well done with only one technical difficulty in one session. Topics were relevant to my turning needs.

The trade show had a very good variety of vendors. There were a number of new lathes on the market. All the major vendors were there, although Packard didn't have any inventory there.

The instant gallery was outstanding. I am always humbled by the number of outstanding pieces and turners. If you surf the web, you will find a number of people who have posted photos.

The surrounding events were good too. The banquet was very nice. The benefit auction raised about $68,000 from around 80 pieces.

The Kansas City turners that hosted the WOW dinner on Friday evening found a very good steakhouse (Jess and Jim's?).

The best part of these events is meeting new friends and reaquainting with old friends. Lots of familiar faces were there. I even had the opportunity to meet up with a scout leader from my youth (30 years ago) who is a turner in Des Moines, IA.

I was the only registered participant from San Diego. I think more turners should be going to these events to expand their turning horizons. I encourage all of you to consider the regional and national symposia available in your neighborhoods.

Joe Fleming - San Diego