conference choices

[jen kristel]

Thanks Adam
Duly noted. Funny thing is I almost deleted the line about "there must be a way" I know there is a way, and we need to be supportive to the team that is working so hard right now.
Keep in mind that my first letter was a glowing one of how I loved being at the conference. (which actually there wasn't a response to) I actually decided to look at the other side of the conference. (do we call it the shadow side? the gray side?) after Adam spoke so eloquently.
Nature sounds good.

Cheers
Jen



Jen Kristel, M.A.
Expressive Arts Therapist
Playback Theatre Director/teacher

"Be the change that you want to see in the world" Mahatma Gandhi





From: ablatner at verizon.net
To: list at grouptalkweb.org
Subject: conference choices
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 17:06:19 -0500










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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