[20011] in APO-L
Summer vs Winter Nationals
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Edward Vehlow)
Tue Jan 26 18:44:33 1999
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 18:44:21 -0500
Reply-To: Richard Edward Vehlow <vehlor@RPI.EDU>
From: Richard Edward Vehlow <vehlor@RPI.EDU>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
OK- since I have proposed relevant legislation in the past on this, I should
jump in.
I am a proponent of a summer conference, or a summer national event to
supplement the traditional Christmastime conference. I have proposed relevant
legislation at the past two conventions- the first one failed and I still
don't know what happened this past time with my reworded second attempt. Look
for a 3rd in 2000. In the meantime, some thoughts:
About the only plus I can see to Christmas over summer is interference with
school and work. However, it's not as strong as you might think. First off,
not everyone gets off from work automatically during all of Christmas week.
(I don't- I have to take vacation days). Also, students off might go to work
for the 3 weeks they are off in Christmas- I have seen many examples of this
over the years.
If you work in the summer, as most probably do, you'll have to take off time
to go to Nationals agreed. How many on the list though never take a summer
vacation at all? Probably not many. The majority who do would take time off
anyway from work to travel. And how many of you have NEVER gotten leave of a
couple of days of classes for a special function or trip? You're probalby
only dealing with a minority of students in summer classes anyway- 30% or so.
Most of those would have to pay extra to take those summer classes, hence the
chances to attend Nationals from a strictly financial standpoint are a bit
slimmer.
A lot of people also have family responsibilities for the holidays. How many
of you put APO ahead of family? How many of you should put APO ahead of
family? How many of you budget family and APO with equal importance? How many
try to put family first?
Well, you answer that as you feel and as you will. My personal answers would
be: No, none-at least not me, not often, to the best of my ability, yes. Now
a Christmas week or two for the average student is probably not a bad
commitment at all. But for the staff who you elect to serve you, they have to
sacrifice a lions share of this week year after year after year (many regions
have conventions in the xmas weeks in between Nationals) andmost of these
older folks have families, most members of whom are NOT APO members. For the
love of the fraternity, they will probably never complain to you. And even if
you always have Christmas week free, wouldn't you want to leave some of your
Christmas holidays free to do other varied activities? Believe me, painful as
it was at times to not go to Nationals this past year, this was only the
second year in the past 10 that I had no official APO activity during
Christmas week, and I made the most of it with both work and play at a
fraction of the cost, and it was a bit refreshing. I am not on staff, at
least right now, but I am an extended active- much longer than the average
brother, but I am sure that even the 18-month brother has Christmastime
concerns not totally unlike what I've said above.
For me personally, summer has always been overall a better time for me than
Christmas week, and I had summer jobs then, been at summer school, and have a
career now. If I was to pose this question to my family, I think they'd
unanimously agree from their standpoint. My own stipulation on a summer
convention would be that in each summer it were to be held, the date changes.
For example, it could be July 14-17 one year, August 1-4 the next, June 25-28
the time after that, and so on. That ensures that some brothers won't always
be locked out because of a consistent set of dates falling on a bad weekend
for him/her. I personally have all my family's birthdays between May and
September inclusive, so varying the 4-day period from year to year helps me
work my personal schedule a lot better.
If we use the summer work/school argument, then why don't all the other
collegiate-based conferences do the same thing and load 'em up at
Christmastime? And if they don't do it at Christmas, how can the participants
(students, alums,staff,etc.) travel to them when they have to go to work or
school?
I can easily get an Excused absence from a professor to attend a special
function if I have to. If it's a fraternity event, an approach the right way
would work: a National Convention of a collegiate organization fostering
leadership and community service- how could theyt say NO?
For conventions I go to at work- they are always held during the week. True
they are usually paid for, but if I attended them on my own time, or if I was
self employed, the registration fees alone can easily be greater than the
COMPREHENSIVE total cost of an APO national convention.
That brings me to the next area: Finances:
True, hotels may drop rates for Christmas week in most cities, but if you
ever want to have a conference in Florida or Vegas or elsewhere in the
touristy South or in a winter sports area like Aspen or Salt Lake, you'd
probably pay at least as much as the summer if not a lot more. Regardless,
here's the kicker- for probably 65% on average of all attendees, the biggest
single component in the cost equation is AIRFARE, and there usually ain't as
much airfare wars at Christmastime as there are during the summer. Now if I
have to spend $10-$15 more a night for my share of a room for 5 nights, yet I
save $100 on the airfare, that's a savings of $25-$50. And for my money in
the summer, odds are I can do a whole lot more in my stay, especially for
rest and relaxation.
I ask you all: how much more would you be willing to pay for a choice
destination or a destination in a more amenable season/climate than to pay
bargain-basement prices for a cookie-cutter room in a downtown hotel in
winter weather?
Now I ask you all, what is more important to you: hotel cost or airfare cost?
Why is it that I keep hearing at every convention the importance of the
lowest cost hotel room, which is usually a difference to the average guest of
$20-$40 from the highest priced bid candidate, when the cost of travel to the
destination is often just glossed over, and the differences in travel can be
easily be $100 or more, far more than the room?
It's travel costs that often force students to drive 1000-2000 miles to these
conventions. I have nothing against driving across this great land of ours,
but damned if I'm gonna do it in snowy sleety December and risk my life to
save $200-$300. For those old enough, look back to St Louis 1990- we had at
least two serious accidents, one of which caused serious injuries to
brothers- lucky no one was killed. This past conference, you had a major
snowstorm pass through in the first few days of the New Year, hanpering
travel. For those flying, it meant a couple of extra nights in the airport or
airport hotel- no real biggie. For those on the roads, it could've been a
crap game. Now god forbid if at a future convention, we have a carful of
brothers driving in snow (nonstop to get to the conference in a timely rapid
manner I might add) get into a serious, paralyzing or fatal accident. Are we
THEN going to sit here on APO-L the following January saying, "My God we've
got to do something! How could we have let this happen? Is there any way we
can run conferences under better (onthe average) conditions?"
A summer convention would offer better driving conditions overall, and you'd
probably see a greater percentage of participants take to the road, saving
more money off travel, and perhaps even taking in a few other sites or
destinations along the way, if they have the time, to make the trip even more
memorable.
>From a historical perspective, we have had 2 National Conventions in the 50's
that were in the Summer- I remember reading it in the national history book.
I believe they went back to a winter conference because of a dropoff in
attendance, but there's a lot of differences between then and now:
1. Economy of scale- the fraternity was a lot smaller then, especially in
convention size, and a dropoff of 100 or more attendees was several times
more serious than the resultant 5%-10% fluctuation today.
2. Agrarian base: more summer jobs back then probably required 60-80 hour
weeks on the farm tending crops with maw and paw than today's data processing
9-to-5er or flexible cashiering hours at Spencer Gifts or the Electronics
Boutique.
3. State-of-the-Art in Communication: back then it was all phone and printed
page through the snail mail. Research into travel rates was limited and there
were much fewer "sales" and seasonal promos as there are today in the
cutthroat travel industry.
4. Role of conventioneer: 40+ years ago, most conventiongoers were voting
delegates, there mainly for business. In today's coed fraternity, the
majority of attendees are nonvoting delegates out for the experience and to
meet new friends, maybe more and have fun on the town- and I'm sure the same
also would go for the voting delgates if they get a chance.
So things back then can't really be directly applied to today's situation.
But one thing is clear- back then, the brothers had their own situation
regarding a winter convention vs. a summer convention and decided to TRY IT
OUT, to TAKE ACTION, to LEARN BY EXPERIENCE, and actually have 2 Summer
Nationals before they, for their oen 50s-era reasons, went back to Christmas.
Consequently, the thing that irks me most of all regarding not just this
idea, but most I have seen proposed my me AND others, is that people are
unwilling to even entertain change. Now the debates on Toast Song,
gentleman's agreements, etc. are heavily emotion and tradition based and
that's one thing, but when it comes down to strict procedure and change to
the mechanics of the organization, the nay-saying begins in a heartbeat.
Maybe some of my ideas are wrong, but before one is so quick to judge,
shouldn't research be done, figures obtained and experienced people be
interviewed? Even I know that to strengthen my argument, I'll have to go out
and get facts on my own. But why are people so afraid of possible CHANGE,
even when logic heavily favors that change? We are a fraternity of DOers and
MOVERS. The feedback I seem to see quite often, even in the face of
adversity, is things may or may not be fine now, but why change it? A good
risk management program is one thing, but the paranoia to accept a little
procedural risk for the possibility of a better convention, or other
component of APO operation, can end up doing more harm than good, in my
opinion.
That said, let me tell you that I have worked compromise in to my past ideas.
I have proposed alternating summer and winter conventions. More recently, I
have offered the idea of keeping the winter convention as it is but adding a
summer event more informal and for service and fellowship only (no
legislative sessions, etc.). But apparently, APO is afraid to EVEN
INVESTIGATE THE POSSIBILITY, or so the National convention has decided in the
past. I'll leave the details of my idea to another post on another day
further down this discussion.
Well, i should end this, if you even made it this far. But we have the
question of a summer nationals before us- so I challenge you to look at this
and other ideas cast before you, with a more open mind towards the
possibilities. Think instead of why we can't how we CAN.
And here's a kicker to close. I don't have the bylaws in front of me, but
from what I've seen or haven't seen, THERE IS NO BYLAW WHICH RESTRICTS
NATIONALS TO CHRISTMAS WEEK!!!! meaning that all it takes is for a bidder to
propose it to have possible action. A legislative action by itself is not
necessary.
Discuss. :)
In Leadership Friendship and Service,
Richard E Vehlow
vehlor@rpi.edu
