New subject: [SPHBC] AHA Nationals 2007 - ALASKA! (???)

20 Jun 2005

Too late for 2006, but we spoke to Jason Ditsworth from Alaska, and his
club has been pursuing getting an AHA Conference in ALASKA!  From the AHA
reps I spoke with, I'm sure the AHA is dead set against it, (though that's
not what they tell the Alaska reps when THEY ask the AHA about it.)  But
everyone I talked to would go to an Alaska 2007 conference in a heartbeat.
Beth and I would surely make a vacation out of it, and take a couple weeks
on either side of the conference to tour around.
If the Alaska organizing committee for it were smart, they'd even get some
travel agency to help them PACKAGE some tours like that for AHA attendees
who wanted to tour Alaska before or after!  There was even ONE idea posed
in a drunken haze to hold the conference on board a Cruise Ship from
Seattle to Alaska!  Not so stupid really - at 1000 people, the AHA could
rent the WHOLE BOAT!
The stated reasons the AHA is against it are:
1) Too expensive to ship stuff there, and
2) Attendance would drop significantly.
Jason has already addressed the first one - they have a contact that will
truck stuff to Alaska FOR FREE if all the entries and convention stuff is
shipped to Seattle.  As for the second, I think attendance would go UP!  I
think people are dying for an excuse to go to Alaska.
How do you guys feel about Alaska in 2007?  Who would go?  It may take a
letter writing campaign to get the AHA to reconsider.  I think they'd get
more people in a conference in Alaska than they'll get for Florida in June.
- Al
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