Symposium thank yous

With any big project no one person does all the work. This year I was the symposium coordinator, a job I enjoyed and am willing to do again, however I think next year I might step aside and let someone else run the show. I worked with a lot of good people, both round table members and outsiders.

Among the outsiders were a good amount of publishers. We didn't end up ordering from all the publishers we could but this time around publishers seemed much more willing to deal with us. I'm not sure if that was part luck or due to the economy (and publishers looking for every dollar possible). I would like to thank Dino Battista at University of North Carolina Press, Brad Larson at Longleaf, Mary Beth Hass and Jennifer Coyle at Indiana University Press, Christina Lumbis at DaCapo, Kristin Hambleton at Stackpole and John Hussey at Kentucky University Press. There are two publishers though who have been much bigger parts of our symposium efforts, in both years. One are the good folks at the University of Tennessee Press, especially Tom Post and Tom Wells; besides ordering assistance they provided some giveaways for door prize drawings. The other is the Savas Beatie, which got involved in a much larger way this year partly because nearly every presenter has been published by them. I was helped greatly by Ted Savas, Sarah Keeney, Tammy Hall and Veronica Kane; they provided a ton of assistance, going above and beyond just ordering issues.

Our marketing efforts are always a source of concern. As I said the other day I know we will put on a good show, I worry about getting people to see that show. There are quite a few people who helped get the word out about our event but a few people did even extra work, helping to promote next year's event already. I would like to say thank you to Pat Anderson at Learning Academy, Erin Wilson at The Teaching Company, Barb Gibson at Four Mile House in Denver, Beth Godin and Matthew Borowick at Civil War News and Patricia Harris at Civil War Courier.

Additionally some of my fellow bloggers helped promote the event. Jim Rosebrock, John Hoptak and Mannie Gentile posted full descriptions of the event on thier blog and I'm grateful for the help. Anytime I can return the favor they just need to ask.

Among round table members we got a lot of support. Ian Duncanson, Jim Powers, Brad Edwards and Kathy Spruill helped run the book room. Ned Grauel and Gary Kurtz drove our presenters all around town and spent much of Friday at the airport. Dave Townsend was our liaison with the Community College of Aurora, a truly great event partner. We get an amazing event space through that partnership. Ron Berg made fabulous brochures. Any time I asked him for a brochure he'd always create a fantastic brochure well before any deadline (brochures for next year are already made in fact). Mike Lang was a fabulous emcee and also showed his award winning Antietam video during the lunch break, I heard many people say how great the video was. Len Bertagnolli ran our registration table and tallied the results of questionnaire (much quicker than I expected). Joe Serrano fixed up our website and allowed us to sell tickets online, which about a quarter of attendees used. Dave Armagast, Matt Spruill, Larry Peterson, Ray Polster and Craig Osieczanek also helped contribute to the final product, (I hope I didn't miss anyone, please accept my apologies if I did). Brent Brown volunteered to set up a display from his extensive saber collection, which was a nice touch. Also Tim Kissel, of Trailhead Graphics Maps, generously donated a portion of his day's sales to the round table. Its because of members like these that I know we can put on a fabulous event.

My wife was also a big help with the event. I know she got tired of me bouncing ideas off her but she was a huge help. She also got involved in the process by creating some fabulous gift bags that we gave to every presenter and also laying the ground work for our Friday night event. I'm sure she's as glad as I am that the event is over.