conference choices

[Adam Blatner]

Responding to Jen and others, and especially "there has to be a way." I'm very sensitive to that phrase, because in politics the actual choice in many problematic situations often is between the bad and the dreadful. I think this is true for health-care coverage, and another example: In a recent Economics magazine, talking about the drug war, their suggestion was legalization because it was "least bad" solution.  Interesting: Least bad. 

    I'm clear that there are always trade-offs, and the idea that the wisest people in the universe can come up with solutions that don't have significant costs is unrealistic. Unless you not only have specific suggestions, thinking that the Exec Committee or Obama or whoever---"they" (as in "why don't they....") can come up with satisfactory alternatives is a major cause of unnecessary politicial stress. 
      If the trade-offs are laid out,  you get these three advantages, but that comes with these four disadvantages... now how do you weigh it?--- then we have a conversation. (This is definitely not aimed at Jen, but speaks to a tendency in grouptalk and public discourse to assume that where there's a will there's a way. This is an extremely misleading platitude with a germ of truth sometimes.) 

       The exec committee or Obama etc. don't have for-sure answers. Even Roosevelt after 8 years of fiddling with the system didn't really solve the depression until there was a massive infusion of wartime money and tough discipline. What Roosevelt and Obama and our elected officials in the ASGPP get credit for is stepping up to the plate and wrestling sincerely with the problem.

     As Linda Condon noted, the Exec committee is certainly not stuck in any conserve. Some elements of the conserve still are useful, other ones maybe, maybe not, but each has to be evaluated on its own merits in the present; and that's true for new ideas, too. 
    
    I think the Awards deal is being seriously re-thought. I wonder what the actual issues are. Do hotels require at least one major dinner? 

    As for moving beyond the city into far suburbs, my own thinking is that conferences thrive on the attendance of students and trainees in the city or locale where they live and can commute. If it's too far out of the way, there aren't enough of those, and that demographic constitutes a significant number of volunteers as well as attendees. 

    I know the drama therapy and other folks are wrestling with similar concerns, especially in this era of financial constraints. 

   Jen may be right about using a university venue, and I suspect that the Exec council is having their conference team (the new people) explore such alternatives. It's just very important to give feedback or suggestions that are very specific, rather than to assume that some conference-finding-super-hero can give us all the best for the least cost. That flim-flam has been peddled by politicians, and feeds the tendency of people to think that if we just shop enough we can get twice as much for half the price. On the whole, you get what you pay for.

Sorry for my rant, but it's meant to align folks with the Exec council rather than promote a sense of entitled sulking that what they sincerely work to come up with is "not good enough."

       I do hope less expensive possibilities are explored, but there are limits to cost-cutting. I now live on shrunken savings, so I'm equally concerned about cost!  Warmly, Adam
   
   responding to   



  ... but I think there has to be a way in which more people can feel that they are able to attend without ripping through their wallets in the process.... 
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