The problem is the paradox that has been created. I am reminded of the
story of the Board of Directors of a train company trying to decide whether
to have the train stop in Centerville at 3:00 in the afternoon. To solve
this dilemma they sent someone down to the train station to see if anyone
was waiting for the train at 3:00 p.m. No one was there waiting for a
train, so they decided that having it stop was not necessary.
It is amazing that Terry could get over a 100 to sign up with virtually no
advertising. Now that we have had one big successful event (not to slight
the earlier events) that is great advertising in itself and we should
easily get 200 to attend the Oporto event. The problem is we keep going
down to see if anyone is waiting for the train.
People are waiting to see if APIS '98 is a go before arranging flight etc.
Melody and I are getting screwed because of this insane system of setting
up this event. We commit and are now told that it is essentially dead.
Other people are saying "Whew, glad I didn't do what they did."
The simple answer, and maybe it is not still too late, is to commit to the
event and it will go. If you can't commit now, then let's scrub it and make
other plans.
At 01:21 AM 4/15/98 +0100, Carlos Gasparinho wrote:
>Dear APIS Goers,
>
>DOES ANYBODY READ ANYTHING??????
>
>I have just arrived in Portugal and apparently nobody read any of the
>messages sent from California.
>I strongly resent Karl Koenig remarks. His messages were answered and he
>was the one that ignored the replies. I had more people with me when the
>messages were sent ( more than once ).
>I also informed everybody that all messages sent to Portugal had been lost
>due to a hard disk failure and asked several times for anyone that had
>contacted me previously to do that again.
>
>several requests for cionfirmation were sent and people were asked to
>please confirm who would be coming to Portugal.
>The reason for this was I believe clearly explained:
>
>THERE IS NO SYMPOSIUM WITHOUT PEOPLE TO ATTEND!!!!!!!
>
>I WILL NOT ORGANIZE A SYMPOSIUM THAT WIIL REQUIRE A LOT OF EFFORT FROM
>EVERYBODY INVOLVED, NOT TO MENTION THE EXPENSES IF THERE IS NO ONE TO ATTEND.
>
>Until now 12 ( TWELVE !!!!! ) people have confirmed and only four have sent
>the required payment.
>
>This is simply ridiculous. I looks more like a game than serious peple
>interested in participating in anything.
>
>The names of those that have already confirmed and payed are:
>
>Melody Bostick and Richard Sullivan
>Jesseca Ferguson
>Mary Pat McNally
>Jack Fulton
>
>Several other people have strongly shown interest and I have a goo reason
>to believe they would attend, but a I said the total only reaches 12.
>
>I think that you will agree that this is very little to start with,
>specially if i want to obtain the support of not only the Centro Portuguese
>de Fotografia but also of other potential supporters and sponsors.
>
>Any airline would laugh at me if I tried to obtain special rates for people
>attending the Symposium and would then present this type of expectations.
>
>Best
>
>Carlos Gasparinho
>