Some notes on the early C7 staff interaction and collaberation, as gleaned from my archives:

In September 2000, the staff consisted of about 20 people of various function and brainstorming was the norm, although Cliff generally ignored any threads that didnt fit into his master plan in an effort to eliminate general enthusiasm for those things.

Cracks were forming between Lisa and Cliff with the band selection as early as October 2000. 
Hotel troubles and general lack of motion were also beginning / continuing at this time. On the plus side, staff communication and interaction online as well as at staff meetings was at an all time high. Looks like they were able to get about one meeting a month until the holidays.

I'll let the posts speak for themselves for the most part. 


Here is a recap as posted by cliff of the November Staff Meeting:

---


Lisa will investigate expense/feasibility/interest with Nina Hagen and Gary Numan and Wayne Hussey. Should QNTAL be investigated for tentative expenses?  Daniel Ash and The Cranes probably deserve further inquiry. Mira and Claire Voyant are already being spoken with. Lisa, please send me your band notes. Audra is still interested but waiting on us. Karpathos and Brickbats are confirmed. Diary of Dreams are ruled out because of international travel expenses. They also have bailed on a previous Convergence, and may not be dependable. We are focusing on the big bands now, in order to estimate our overall budget.

Local band night on Thursday may include Unto Ashes, Mors Syphilitica, Judith others. May be done in conjunction with Long Black Veil if we can maintain a suitable degree of creative control. Lisa will be looking into an Alchemy cooperation thing, but also development of a fallback option if they don't bite. Gossamer possibility? Lisa will speak with Todd Sabretooth to clarify our agreement with LBV.

Some money needs to be reserved for the shot glasses, stockings, decor etc.

Claire to create/refine a variety of form letters for Carrin to answer various C7-related inquiries.

Ticket sales can be moved to February if required, though we are still shooting for late January. Matt and Gwen are confirmed for that. They are waiting on survey/idiot filter/non-net.goth filter questions from us. Ask C7 Staff list whether we delay purchases of those who do not pass the test, what types of questions to use. Complete the following phrase "Nice boots..." etc. Add wit to relax those concerned by the apparent elitism. Should we ask Vote_Reform and/or Afterglow for suggestions? The serious questions should be archived for posterity and Convergence research. Award for the creators of Convergence? Alternate to Alaric Awards if unfeasible?

Let's get Irving Plaza deposits done ASAP.

Lisa will make an announcement for a time window for demo acceptance. Lisa will receive the demos at her PO Box .(I'd rather not have bands showing up on my doorstep and giving me impromptu auditions, complete with Ozzy Osbourne-style consumption of bats and snakes. The neighbors would be far less amused than I.)

Christian and Diane Engel will be contacted by Ian and Shea for prospective Merchant captaining. I have a possible fallback option in an old friend, Maria D'Angelo. [Perhaps this is where Ron and Nancy could become involved, in some manner?] Hoping for a bigger Merchant Bazaar, going to need lots of cables. Tables included at the hotel? Charge us for setup and tear down?

Of Merchants we need to put net.goth vendors and uniquely high quality merchants at the head of the line. Not merely first come, first serve.

Bob Westphal will investigate the possibility of using an iBook with Airport technology as an audio relay through our hotel's t1 for the audiocasting of C7.

Ian is preparing text for a preliminary Transportation page on the C7 website, listing how to obtain our discounts and basic hotel <--> airport transit info.

We need to assess the feasibility of the Alaric Awards. What is decided? Who are the judges? What are the categories? Who accepts the awards in the audience? What proportion of categories are to be of online exclusive emphasis? Writing? Usenet posts? Online review? Flame? Paintings? DJing? Etc. [Snip Cliff's extended rant on how to improve the scene.]

Decibel levels permitted at picnic? Visit to The Met possible if Cloisters picnic day is rainy.

[Taping of meetings seem to be a good idea, it helps transcription a lot if I have free time. The tape ran out unnoticed, so please post anything I missed.]
---

Another post from cliff in the thread of the same meeting, already his own personal agenda becoming apparent, despite the overwhelmingly opposite advice from his band liasons:

---

(Lisa wrote)
>while there is certainly no harm in doing research, i think the money we would have to spend on bringing QNTAL >here will be extremely prohibitive...as well as if we spent the same or perhaps a bit more on a bigger, more >well-known band, i believe the drawing power would be more worthwhile, since QNTAL is, in the grand scheme of >things, relatively unknown...

I want to investigate it. They have a truly uncommon sound, and I think at this point they are played in most clubs in larger cities. What does make them of more interest than, say Diary of Dreams, is that QNTAL does have a very strong following in the net.goth community. They appeal equally to the Industrial aficionado as to the medieval-goth fan, which is a pretty interesting mix.

I think it is a long shot, because flying them out from Germany alone is going to be quite pricey... but it costs nothing to talk to them. At least then there would be no lingering doubt.

--- 
 
The first meeting of January and some hotel tours yielded this memo from Cliff:

---



Erica and I visited the Roosevelt and the backup hotel. After going over matters in detail, we are now leaning heavily towards scrapping the Roosevelt and using the backup hotel-- the Warwick. We did not come to this conclusion hastily, though we were doing lots of research in advance to make sure it was worthy to bring up at all.

The Roosevelt's public spaces are grand and vast, but the guest rooms are lackluster. We were misled to believe that the standard rooms could provide sleeping space for four persons, and this does not appear to be the case. The dimensions of the rooms are quite small and none of these standard room beds can suit more than one person of average size. Some of the rooms have two beds, but these are very small. A third person would almost definitely have to sleep on the floor, and there isn't a lot of floor to go around if there is a lot of luggage. At the price we were provided, we now have misgivings about this issue most prominently.

The Warwick is smaller and more intimate than the Roosevelt, and reminds me a bit of the Bienville House with significantly larger public spaces and stronger thematic decor. The Roosevelt is 1920s with a classical theme and lots of marble, while the Warwick is a 1930s hotel with medieval and Victorian imagery with lots of wood. With a bit of work, we believe that we could do everything but the Sunday night dance at the Warwick that we had been planning at the Roosevelt. The strongest feature of the Warwick is that the guest rooms are truly luxuriant, and the price is the same as Roosevelt-- and it actually can accommodate four persons in the standard rooms.

We have not made a final decision about this, but I think it is worthy to discuss thoroughly. It is something we do need to resolve quickly, and in order to be comfortable signing a contract with the Warwick we ought to do thorough research about the locality and everything we had previously done for the Roosevelt. That means we will need to do a march around the locale to document the restaurants and such, map out the public transit options, and if at all possible do new video footage and interior photographs.

At our meeting, someone brought up the observation the habitual convention attendees are seldom picky about bedrooms and don't mind sleeping on floors in a pinch. People sleep little at conventions, and spend most of their time outside of their rooms. Parties are not possible in the standard Roosevelt rooms, but the people apt to throw parties are likely to get suites.

A partial rebuttal to that is that many Convergence attendees are not standard convention people and are used to a higher standard of comfort and convenience. If people pay excessively for cramped and uncomfortable floorspace, we might well get overwhelmed by criticism and complaints-- overshadowing our other work.

The negatives of using the Warwick need to be considered as well. Some people may be uncomfortable with any change unconditionally. The vast public spaces of the Roosevelt are indeed very impressive, and the Warwick is more modest in scale. Some of our events at the hotel may need to be re-tailored slightly to adjust to the differences in architecture of the Warwick meeting rooms.

Let the discussions begin...
---

Dissenting comments were being made publically in the usenet and mailing list forums about the c7 committees lack of responsiveness to any inquries as early as january 2001.

Cliff's take on things at this point, complete with rationale for inactivity:

---


On 1/7/01 at 1:47 AM, vomvamuse@hotmail.com (Vomvamuse .) wrote:

> > >I have heard from other potential vendors that no one is hearing back 
> >from
> > >the committee.  This is not shaping up well, methinks.  I do hope C7 is
> > >not going to demonstrate the reason that NYC never won a previous
> > >Convergence bid.

The following is for staff-only, please do not forward or paraphrase:


As far as I can tell, Carrin has been responding to all requests of every kind.
If people aren't getting anything, I don't know where they're sending the
emails. Some people were sending the wrong command to subscribe to the
listserver, but there was a followup message to a.g.c and other forums and most
(but not all) people seem to have figured out the proper command. I don't think
that this is what is being discussed in this case.

They probably mean that they are getting somewhat vague form letters. The fact
is, we haven't been able to calculate critical costs which impact how much
tables at the bazaar, advertisements, and tickets are going to cost. Without
that information, we can't give them solid figures.

Until the hotel contract is finalized and a (currently non-existent) merchant
coordinator is unearthed, we cannot estimate how much each table rental will be
and how many tables might become available. Until the contents of the booklet
are mapped out, the same issues as the bazaar tables apply to advertisements.
Until we have a budget which less speculatory, we can't set ticket prices. We
can't set the ticket cap without knowing the capacity of the currently-unchosen
Sunday night location, and that makes our budget extremely hard to calculate.
That alone could vary the total gross profit by a range of $20,000, depending on
ticket cost and a lot of other factors.

Some of those problems look like they might be solved soon, but everything is a
bit vague. A good candidate for Merchant Coordinator returns to NYC on the 10th,
but she may not accept-- she does not know what the job entails as of yet. There
are a few backup possibilities but they are full of enthusiasm but have no
relevant experience. 

I am hoping that Jen and others can start working on a tentative layout for our
booklet at the post-Irving Plaza meeting on Monday. (Yes, it looks like are have
a meeting on Monday, time and location not yet set.) I can also bring our
tentative budget to the meeting and see where we can polish it. We can also
discuss our hunt for the Sunday night location, since it looks like we are going
with the Warwick and all of the Sunday options I have available right now have
serious problems. We need more places to consider.

And while all of this is going on, I am racing against the clock to get a Linux
server set up to replace my two Macintosh servers... and it is going amazingly
slowly and agonizedly. Today I spent over five hours trying to set up a POP3
daemon, and it's only half functional at best. Grrr. January and February are
going to be the least favorite months for me, for a long time.


> >*amen*.  Maybe they just assume that no one from the West Coast would
> >attend, muchless have a booth??!!  Conventions or shows on the East Coast
> >take me atleast 6+ months to plan, organize and get the finances into 
> >shape.

I realize this, but we've been working as fast and as best as we can. Nobody is
really at fault, but we have been plagued by delays. We too are trying to
organize, plan, and get the finances in shape. I'm a bit flabberghasted about
the West Coast comment; I for one very much am counting on vendors from the
broadest geographical distribution possible.

> >I must say that even with C6 before I moved to Minnesota in 1998 there was
> >talk of a Dealer's (or Merchant's) newsgroup that people could subscribe to
> >get updated details and to toss around ideas.  That was an excellent plan

It's a reasonable idea, but right now it looks like I will be obliged to
dismantle my server and rebuild it from scratch by the end of the month on a
different operating system. Creating new mailing lists right now is the last
thing I should be doing.
---


And continued reasonings for doing nothing instead of something:

---


On 1/7/01 at 4:50 AM, vomvamuse@hotmail.com (Vomvamuse .) wrote:

> >It's a reasonable idea, but right now it looks like I will be obliged to
> >dismantle my server and rebuild it from scratch by the end of the month on 
> >a
> >different operating system. Creating new mailing lists right now is the 
> >last
> >thing I should be doing.
> 
> 
> I can try to start up the old list on egroups or the like and moderate it 
> until the coordinator is found. Atleast it will quite the throng for the 
> time being.

If we were to start up such a forum right now, there would be a sudden flurry of
excited activity for about four days... then anxious questions for three days...
and angry protests all over the place when they were not addressed promptly by
persons in charge. It will take more than two weeks to have those answers, I
fear.

Right now, we don't have anybody in charge and don't know for certain when we
are going to have answers. Creating an open merchant forum right now just draws
attention to the fact that we don't have anything to give to people but
reassurances and apologies. I would rather we maintained centralization, and
focused on resolving these important uncertainties. 

Why create an forum which is likely to rapidly become a flurry of C7 skepticism,
right when we need to bolster morale?

I am also morally opposed to eGroups, as is any person who pays for listserver
software. :-) The amount of downtime on my server for the lists hosted here
should be nil if things go properly, but I want to make sure there are fewer
files to convert.
---

Continued abstract logic from Cliff on why no communication is good communication:

---


On 1/7/01 at 10:23 AM, TheOneBob@aol.com wrote:

> Not to open up a moral debate here but one nice thing about egroups is that 
> you can keep a running archive so you don't have to keep answering the same 
> questions over and over again. People who join the group late can go back and 
> pick up on threads that they came in too late on.   I am frequently 

Archives lead to lawsuits and similar problems. It would be no technical
difficulty to put together an archive for my mailing lists; but if someone
discussed an illegal activity or an activity which might have legal
consequences, it could draw me into a court case, it could make my hard drives
evidence and theoretically siezable, and it could demoralize subscribers to the
point that they would seek greener pastures.

And yes, things like that have happened on Necronomi.com and similar servers
over the years. So far we've avoided lawsuits directed at us specifically, but
threats of such happen about twice a year-- and I know for a fact that we get
occasional subscriptions from the feds because of specific threads. 

Archives make problems even more likely. You don't want Giuliani's police
detectives searching for clubs which let underaged drinkers in, nor do you want
discussions of who sells the safest heroin at the clubs where everybody has
access to it. Moderators can stop such discussions once they've begun, but if
you have automated and searchable archiving the damage is already done.

There are also some matters which are personal and just shouldn't be put in
archives. A few years back, one of the subscribers to NYCgoth-L died suddenly in
her boyfriend's arms (of a congenital heart defect that few knew about.)
Everyone was devastated, and even though the news was shared with the community
to some degree, it seems tacky to have it on record in perpetuity.


Recently I had a nasty private flamewar with someone over our "no forwarding or
archiving" rule because of this, and I briefly related the anecdote of how the
rule came into existence...


Around 1996, there was a discussion on my server about parenting issues when the
parent in question was a Satanist. It was a mature discussion, and one of the
contributors was so well-spoken that a well intended subscriber forwarded his
message to alt.satanism without his permission, in an attempt to create an
intelligent discussion there. Bad idea. 

The message got archived on Deja News because the author had no opportunity to
add the x-no-archive line. Little did we know, but he was in the midst of an
ugly divorce and a custody battle over his son. The wife's lawyers did a
websearch for the guy's email address and found the message, discussing his life
as a Satanist. He had kept his involvement in Satanism from her, but she had
suspected the truth. The printout was brought before the judge, who decided on
these grounds that he was a less fit parent than the mother and awarded her
complete custody. 

The Satanist explained what had happened, and then ceased participating in
online forums forever. Everyone reading his email was horrified that an innocent
seeming action could have such extreme consequences, and the forbiddence against
forwarding or archiving became the Numero Uno rule on Necronomi.com by unanimous
concordance of the site's moderators. 



And lastly... who said people asking the same questions is always a bad thing? I
think it is a crucial element to the survival of mailing lists. Subscribers come
and go, and people's opinions change. A discussion on "what is goth" last year
will have different participants and opinions next year. The fact that those
threads resurge is, to me, a method of watching the community evolve. 

That isn't to dismiss the value of FAQs of course (FAQmods in particular are
among my favorite people), but the middle path is perhaps best in such matters.
FAQs also make more sense on newsgroups than mailing lists. And people who ask
what KMFDM stands for don't need a FAQ, they need euthanasia. :-)


This is a highly tangential issue; let us take it offlist.
---

A comment to the opposite posted on jan 09:

---
At this point, there are 95 non-staff subscribers to the C7_Announcement list. I
think that does mean we are going to need to put some additional effort into
publicizing this event online. 
---

Cliff's notes on the staff meeting of Jan 09:

---
On 1/9/01 at 10:46 AM, sacred@evilgenius.net (C7 Spokesperson - Carrin) wrote:

> How did things at Irving Plaza go?  and the meeting?

The meeting went pretty well. Very productive. And I got drunk, which of course
is the principal means of evaluating the success of any gathering. :-)

Lisa and Jen and I went over several details with two key people at Irving
Plaza, and got to see the control center in the basement. Bill @ Irving is
rewriting the contract because of our copious discounts and should be sending it
this week sometime. He recieved the first deposit, of $1000. 

We got such a ton of information about our schedule on Friday and Saturday, and
at which point we start accumulating overtime costs, that I've asked Jen to
create a HTML timeline so that we can make better sense of it. The official
capacity of Irving has shifted a bit; now we hear it might be 1000 not 1200.
That is highly important information, because it alters our budget estimates and
potentially modifies our Sunday night location choices. Jen will be inquiring
about this in coming days, and whether we might do Sunday at Irving as an
emergency fallback.

Shea is beginning preliminary work regarding hunting for a Sunday venue for us,
but other people who feel like being helpful ought to pitch in as well. Jen will
be developing an outline of the C7 Information & Events Guide for review by this
forum; once we know its approximate length she will start getting prices from
printers.

Very soon we will have a revised budget. The Irving Plaza figures are almost
totally solid (some things may cost less than we thought by a small amount, the
insurance might be more or less than we were initially given.) We will have
final information on the Warwick prices this week, and the contract--
transportation difficulties prevented Erica from accomplishing all that she
wanted to during her stay in NJ. 

Our highest priority right now is establishing a realistic budget. After the
Warwick and Irving prices are clear, then we prioritize band, and
booklet/laminate printing expenses. Subsequently, we will need to estimate
potential profits and expenses from advertising, merchandise, and factoring how
much Uncle Sam is going to take. 

We cannot sell tickets without knowing how much the tickets will be, and we
cannot know how much the tickets will be without having a tentative budget. Ours
is way too tentative right now, and we are kind of racing against the clock to
get tickets on sale in a timely manner. And we will need to start selling
tickets because we are going to need more money than we have at hand in a couple
of months.

I also brought up the fact that right now my time is highly constrained while I
work on learning Linux so that my servers can make a smooth transition ASAP. The
process is going slowly and painfully. Now more than ever do I need people to
take some work off my shoulders, because the people who depend upon NYCgoth.com,
Necronomi.com, LAgoth.com, and even Convergence7.com should not get
interruptions in their services. The transition has to be done right. Of course
this is terrible timing, but it is nothing anybody could have anticipated. Blah.

I also brought up the idea of making C7 a bit more like Byzantium in terms of
theme and sound, and there were no strong objections to it. Originally I had
wanted to give the feel of C7NYC a precise balance of musical subgenres and
imagery, but at this point I think it would improve the experience of attendees
and that of many staff members to adjust C7 in a more Byzantine direction. I
think the former Byz staffers (who are a sizable portion of the people on here)
will feel a lot of enthusiasm towards this, I think it will synch well with the
theme we have provided, and it will help make C7 a more memorable and unique
Convergence experience.

Other Things Not Mentioned At The Meeting Per Se

Non-Meeting Tangent 1: Martin, Lainie and anyone else who was planning to do
research on merchandise pricing,-- like C7 shot glasses, t-shirts, stockings,
mousepads, and edible undies-- this is your cue to start researching prices for
us. We need realistic figures to plug into our budget. Wacky merchandise is out
there; lots of dot coms used them as bizarre promotional items during the boom,
and now all these manufacturers are looking for new business.

Tangent 2: We _do_ need to set up the method of online ticketing ASAP, even
before we know the ticket price. The guy who is doing it for us will become
unavailable by the end of the month, and if we do everything but plug in the
price that will save us many problems in the long run. If we are planning to
create a questionairre to go along with the credit card entry, we need to start
developing that now.

Ultra-Tangent 3: My liver is in no way used to white wine. The buzz from three
glasses did not wear off until this morning. Is that normal? I can drink half a
bottle of vodka with less impact that that.
---

Other Observations (discussion between Cliff and Ian), with conflicting viewpoints on bands and some cool numbers as well:

---
On 1/10/01 at 12:12 AM, darkpilot@mindspring.com (Ian Dutton) wrote:


> I'm not sure I understand the idea here, Cliff. I was surprised that as many
> 95 people would have already subscribed, given that the event is still far
> off and somewhat nebulous to most people (ie. no dates for ticket sales, no
> bands announced, etc.).

The real attraction at Convergence is the people, not the bands or anything
else. The bands have always been an afterthought for me personally, and it's
true for a lot of the attendees. There is even a segment, albeit small, of the
Convergence population which does not attend the concerts at all but still pays
for tickets so they can attend the other events. 

Being that being on the Announcement list is completely free, my assumption is
that about 80% of that number will be people who buy their tickets within the
first days of them being onsale. My original thought was that they'd sell like
hotcakes, but if we can't even get rapid subscription to a free mailing list
then we might see ticket sales trail off rapidly after the initial flurry. 

That means a lot, because in the long run we might sell fewer tickets than we
expected overall, but also because we are depending on the money from the ticket
sales to pay for our deposits and such after the initial loans that are
currently in the C7 bank account have run out. 

To me, that means we need to hype things up a bit more and publicize using all
means at our disposal. We don't have a lot to say just yet, but once we do, we
should not hold back or be the least bit modest.


> That sounds fine, since we were using 1000 as our target cutoff, right?

No, our target was increasingly becoming 1200. If our tickets cost $60, that
means we have $12,000 less to spend in total-- assuming we'd sell all tickets.
---

Encouragement from Holly:

---

From: goodnight@nycgoth.com
<snippity snip>
To me, that means we need to hype things up a bit more and publicize using all
means at our disposal. We don't have a lot to say just yet, but once we do, we
should not hold back or be the least bit modest.

That's *exactly* what needs to be done.
People want to hear what's being planned. They want to get into the spirit! They want to know every step of what's been solidly booked in terms of bands, hotels, discounts, dates etc. They want to get hyped!

So a *really* important step is to post things every time we know something is 100% booked. People want to see that progress is being made. Otherwise they'll assume everything is being left 'till the last minute.

So by all means, when we have ANYTHING to say, say it.
---

Cliff's reply from January 10:

---


On 1/10/01 at 6:24 AM, daednu@hotmail.com (Daednu .) wrote:


> So a *really* important step is to post things every time we know something 
> is 100% booked. People want to see that progress is being made. Otherwise 
> they'll assume everything is being left 'till the last minute.
> 
> So by all means, when we have ANYTHING to say, say it.

Well, I didn't bring it up in the meeting notes but Shea had a suggestion of a
band whose members she knows pretty well. They could easily be a headliner and
draw us some good attention. She is investigating it now.

On another front, Jen is looking into one Sunday night location which was
suggested earlier today by someone knowledgeable at Irving Plaza. The facilities
are very good from the last time I visited it, but we have no idea about the
price or age policy. It is huge and definitely has a cabaret license. It has a
known negative; it is about eight blocks from the nearest subway stop, but that
subway stop is one which runs right near the Warwick.

Especially if those two items work out, I can easily visualize making a big
announcement which reveal the hotel (with comprehensive web coverage), the
headliner band and one or two others, Irving Plaza and the Sunday location
details. I think _maybe_ that would be sufficient event information for when we
open ticket sales. The rest we can let trickle out periodically.
---

And from Carrin:

---


>
> Especially if those two items work out, I can easily visualize making a
big
> announcement which reveal the hotel (with comprehensive web coverage), the
> headliner band and one or two others, Irving Plaza and the Sunday location
> details. I think _maybe_ that would be sufficient event information for
when we
> open ticket sales. The rest we can let trickle out periodically.
>


I completely agree that we need to start publicizing the hell out the C7 . .
. but I don't think it's fair for that to happen right now.  We don't have
anything to announce!!

Once the hotel is completely official, I'll send a huge announcement out
about that.  However, we need all of the details of that finalized first so
that we can not only say "hey, here is the kewl hotel", but also, "and
here's how you reserve your room".  (I hope I'm not the only one who feels
this way.)

Also, we don't have anything on the website.  I felt kind of strange about
announcing the website before when there isn't anything to see.  But we did
it, and I've read posts remarking about that.

What is the latest on the design for the website?  I know it was kind of on
hold until we knew which hotel, but now that's pretty official.  Do you need
any help?
---

Checking alterative venues from Jan 19:

---


Jen and I checked out the Roxy today. The staff were friendly and sensible,
albeit cautious. They pushed us a bit towards a 21+ event, which we said was
impossible; they then brought the rates above the Irving Plaza range with a
$5000 bar guarantee under 18+ conditions. This makes me wonder if, after two
nights of abusive drinking, the attendees will be willing to suck down even more
booze. 

What also may complicate it is that the main guy there is friends with Neville,
and plans on asking him for his insights into the goth scene. Neville is (at
least I think so) good hearted, but prone to complain about gothclub patrons and
might turn the Roxy people off to us. Hopefully he will present our scene in the
best possible light.

Roxy itself has a very adequate dancefloor, superior lighting, a raised VIP
lounge, two bars, and a somewhat dramatic entrance stairway. Only one DJ at a
time, however. If they want to deal with us and our alternatives are scant, it
will serve our needs comfortably.

---

Reminders about a total lack of information to the public from Holly on Jan 23.

---
Okay all, the natives are getting restless. Coming from a PR standpoint, something needs to be said. I don't care if it's just a bit of work on the website to make it functional. I'll offer my help on whatever I can be of assisstance with. But some kind of announcement needs to be made to let people know we're not sitting around with fingers up our noses.
---

Comments and a suggestion to move forward with information from me on jan 29:
---


As usual I'm not paying really close attention to this stuff only coz I trust you all to do a good job and Im trying really hard not to seem like a doting parent on this shit any more..

*BUT*

This evening over dinner one of my staff DJs was expressing much dissatisfaction with the complete and total lack of information on all aspects of the event. I had to give him the usual line about everyone being busy and not to worry, it's all gonna be ok.

his concerns were valid, however and I became concerned.

So please accept this in the best possible way:

Stop fussing over every dotted i and crossed t, and start putting out regular and timely information, even if to merely repeat the information you put out last time.  you cant stop rumors with silence and you cant spent your time worrying about "security leaks" and other silly shit.

get the info to the masses, get it to them consistently and get it to them starting now.

My unsolicited $5.75 + applicable sales tax, yo.
---

Holly's reply:
---
Yes yes yes yes yes.
I know you're all sick of me saying it....so I'll just say
<aol>
Me too!
</aol>

And as always, anything I can do to speed up the process, let me know.
---

Cliff's reply:
---
There _isn't_ any information we can provide. We are torturously close to
conclusion on so many things, but you are panicking and that's not going to help
matters.

Carrin is posting information on a nearly-daily basis. People must be utterly
blind.

It would be very bad to identify our hotel until the last details are resolved. 

Right now I have enough time to help migrate my servers and during breaks take
care of critical C7 business. I do _not_ have the time to write long emails
explaining why things are not already complete. Not even here.

As it is, my email and webs have been going up and down. If people don't quell
it a bit, I'll shut down my web server entirely until I can rebuild them on the
new server.
---

My reply:
---
At 03:54 AM 1/29/01, cliff wrote:
.There _isn't_ any [new] information we can provide. We are torturously close to
.conclusion on so many things, but you are panicking and that's not going to help
.matters.

Remaining silent on it is doing you more damage than you can imagine or hope to recover fully from cliff. Youre fucking yourself on this. need I be more direct?

.Carrin is posting information on a nearly-daily basis. People must be utterly
.blind.

It's not enough apparently I havent seen anything, though I've only casually looked. has anyone touched the website lately?

.It would be very bad to identify our hotel until the last details are resolved.

.Right now I have enough time to help migrate my servers and during breaks take
.care of critical C7 business. I do _not_ have the time to write long emails
.explaining why things are not already complete. Not even here.

You do not have the armour to withstand the consequences of NOT writing or entrusting Carrin or someone else to write SOME kind of emails. Remember what silence and the resulting uncertainty did to C3?  I do.

.As it is, my email and webs have been going up and down. If people don't quell
.it a bit, I'll shut down my web server entirely until I can rebuild them on the
.new server.

temper tantrums will not help.

I'm not here to be polite, I'm here, as always, to save everyone's ass. Right now I'm telling you exactly how to save yours. BREAK the silence routine. Tell them something, even if it's nothing. even if it's trivial. give them SOMETHING to focus on.
---

Cliff's reply:
---
On 1/29/01 at 4:19 AM, macross@digitalangel.com (Macross Ascendant) wrote:

> Remaining silent on it is doing you more damage than you can imagine or 
> hope to recover fully from cliff. Youre fucking yourself on this. need I be 
> more direct? 

If we tell people the hotel, they'll probably call and try to make reservations
under the non-existent discount contract. The people at the front desk won't
know who this C7 thing is and offer them a $300 a night rate. Hysterical people
will come back to alt.gothic, not understanding what it all means but
speculating wildly. Now, _that_ would be a PR can of worms. That's actually the
_least_ of the several particularly bad things that might happen. 

But the hotel thing should be resolved in a couple of days; obviously nothing
could be done over this past weekend. The hotel people weren't around, I wasn't
around, and some of our committee were not around for a variety of unrelated
personal reasons.

We can tell people that the ticket cap is going to be 1000, if anybody cares.  


> It's not enough apparently I havent seen anything, though I've only 
> casually looked. 

Carrin has been doing a very good job, but it seems as though people post
questions before looking through recent posts. I suppose that the best tactic is
for her to post many short responses rather than two or three big ones. In this
way it will be harder to ignore.

> has anyone touched the website lately?

No. A design has not been settled upon for the new version, but a few of the
writers are working on some text to add. I will be moving it to the new server,
taking down the email forms until I can find out how to do that in PHP, use the
old graphics, and add a few sections about the NYC Subways and Museums. Subways
and Museums aren't the most life-or-death issues for attendees, but at least
it's something.

I haven't been eager to make the switch because doing it means all contact info
for the Committee on the site go away for at least a week. The inquiries we've
been getting via those webforms will spill into alt.gothic, and make the PR
situation stickier. Also, if the forms are set up wrong we could lose some
requests.

At this point NYCGOTH.COM is also static. New events are not being added to it
because I just haven't had the time. I won't have time for it for the coming few
weeks considering the way things have been going, so taking it down soon might
not be such a bad idea.

> You do not have the armour to withstand the consequences of NOT writing or 
> entrusting Carrin or someone else to write SOME kind of emails. Remember 
> what silence and the resulting uncertainty did to C3?  I do.

C3 had actual functional problems. Right now, we have several Acts of God
causing delays at the worst possible time. If we have a little more time,
everything _will_ work out.

The situation is in hand. Things are going to be great. But we can't satisfy
people's curiosity right now, no matter how much pressure we recieve. It
actually is making things _slow_down_ appreciably, so do what you can to help.
We are all acutely aware of the situation.
---

My reply:
---

At 06:06 AM 1/29/01, cliff wrote:
.If we tell people the hotel, they'll probably call and try to make reservations
.under the non-existent discount contract. The people at the front desk won't
.know who this C7 thing is and offer them a $300 a night rate. Hysterical people
.will come back to alt.gothic, not understanding what it all means but
.speculating wildly. Now, _that_ would be a PR can of worms. That's actually the
._least_ of the several particularly bad things that might happen.

So dont tell em the hotel today. tell em something else.

.We can tell people that the ticket cap is going to be 1000, if anybody cares.

Oh they will. they cared last year, they'll care this year. And there's your update.

small? yes. unimportant? in comparison to other items, sure. but to the public, it's news, it's vital, it's real and it's PROOF that shit's going to plan and its gonna happen.

AND - it gives them something to chew on and debate about and flame eachother over while you finish up details on the hotel.

.> I suppose that the best tactic is
.for her to post many short responses rather than two or three big ones. In this
.way it will be harder to ignore.

even if she has to repeat herself, that IS the key.

> has anyone touched the website lately?

.No. A design has not been settled upon for the new version, but a few of the
.writers are working on some text to add. I will be moving it to the new server,
.taking down the email forms until I can find out how to do that in PHP, use the
.old graphics, and add a few sections about the NYC Subways and Museums. Subways
.and Museums aren't the most life-or-death issues for attendees, but at least
.it's something.

again, something is better than nothing. the total lack of any web presence updates is a real big fat glowing ugly ass problem and it's going to haunt you. Regardess of the actual state of affairs, to the masses no web updates == no progress made in meatspace.

.I haven't been eager to make the switch because doing it means all contact info
.for the Committee on the site go away for at least a week. The inquiries we've
.been getting via those webforms will spill into alt.gothic, and make the PR
.situation stickier. Also, if the forms are set up wrong we could lose some
.requests.

Perhaps some dual homing solution can be achieved? you can always use altgothic.com as backup and have c7.com redirect to updated info there until you are confident in your new server's stability.

.C3 had actual functional problems. Right now, we have several Acts of God
.causing delays at the worst possible time. If we have a little more time,
.everything _will_ work out.

Functional problems.. acts of god... call it whatever you want to, right now you have a PR problem, as in desperate lack of. no offense to Carrin intended, im sure she's doing the best she can without spilling too many sensitive beans.  be that as it may, it's time to throw out soem morsels, however small.

.The situation is in hand. Things are going to be great. But we can't satisfy
.people's curiosity right now, no matter how much pressure we recieve.

You dont have a choice at this point. The bullet has left the chamber, bro. It's high time to move your foot.
---

Carrin's reply:
---

From: "Trystan L. Bass" <tryst@toreadors.com>
> 
> Yes, I agree we should have frequent updates posted to usenet & the 
> relevant elists. But if we don't have anything new to report, we 
> don't have anything new to report. As soon as there actually is 
> confirmed news, let's shout it from the rooftops every damn week. But 
> ppl are just going to have to be patient till then. Stupid ppl are 
> going to start stupid rumors & shit bec. they're just that way.


As one of my responses on alt.gothic.convergence states . . . 
"I have been slow to send announcements out because I felt like 
if I kept sending them out saying "it's coming soon" over and 
over, it would become a bit repetitive.  But, in this instance, 
I'll say it.  These things really are coming _very_ soon.  In 
fact, you'll probably be inundated with information before you 
know it."

I ask this question, just how many more times can I say to the 
curious public "it's all coming soon" before they start to become 
frantic over that response?  Telling people to hold on to their 
britches too many time can envoke just as negative a reaction as 
not saying anything.  Who wants to pick which edge of that double 
edge sword get's to cut my throat and overload my email box??  ;)

I have been posting responses to people in alt.gothic* groups.  
Now, does anyone read them . . . apparently not.  I am very choosey 
about which ones I respond back to for obvious reasons.  Many of the 
rumor-mill posts are better left untouched, responding back to them 
with very little information is just asking for a floodgate of 
negative commentary.  Even more than seems to be going around at 
present.

I have also been answering all of the emails that come into me 
requesting information about C7.  The most amusing part about this 
is answering those emails, then tuning in to whichever alt.gothic* 
group they frequent to find a post about how they have tried to get 
information from the C7 staff, but nobody has responded.  Is there 
really anything we can do about this kind of thing?  I don't think so.

On Saturday I spent my entire day researching goth related email 
lists, signing up for them AND sending personal requests to their 
moderators to be sure that C7 related posts would be acceptable.  I 
am doing this to get ready for the coming information that we are 
about to announce.  I signed up for about 30 different email groups, 
and I still need to contact about 1/3 of those moderators (doing that 
today).

This is where we are with regards to getting the information out . . .
and considering the amount of information that we have to officially 
release, I'd say we're doing the best we can.  Once the hotel is final, 
we will release that information.  Once the web design is updated, we'll 
release that info.  But we can't announce things that aren't official!  
That put us in jeopardy professionally and with the public.

Just my $50.75 . . . it's all coming together . . . TRULY!  Not only 
is it coming together, but it's going to ROCK!!!!!  The last thing we 
need is for our staff to start feeling the effects of the panic.  
---

Ian's reply:
---


On 1/29/01 6:50 AM, Macross Ascendant wrote:

>> The situation is in hand. Things are going to be great. But we can't satisfy
>> people's curiosity right now, no matter how much pressure we recieve.
> 
> You dont have a choice at this point. The bullet has left the chamber, bro.
> It's high time to move your foot.

I have mixed feelings here. First off, I haven't had people tugging at me
for information, and not a single transportation question since the first
week after we won the vote. I'm certainly not as visible as Cliff or Mac,
but the other lists I'm on have been quiet about C7 (right now there's a
bunch of chatter about GothCon in NOLA).

Sure, I think we should be more visible. When I was booking concerts in
college, we couldn't advertise before the contracts were signed, and the
university lawyers liked to sign them the week of the event. So we'd put out
all kinds of teasers (You'll Get Love My Way in the Student Center on Friday
flyers the week before Psychedelic Furs, for example!)

We could do teasers, too. How about sending out messages linking to a page
on convergence7.com with a picture - that we would change every few days -
that might be a too-zoomed-in-to-absolutely-identify picture of a part of
the hotel, or maybe a view from the hotel. Just an idea - I'm sure that
others could come up with better ones!

Here's another idea to get people thinking. There are a large number of
events that we could put together group outings too, and qualify for group
rates. We could get suggestions from The Teeming Masses, and see what's most
popular. Shea called about group tickets to see Conan O'Brien, but they
*forbid* groups and will not admit large groups that appear to be together
(and I have a hunch that we'd stand out). We had also thought of a ferry
tour around Manhattan, and/or a Broadway show (Cabaret wins for most
Goth-specific). I had also heard suggestions of some of the "Haunted NY"
tours, but I think we'd overwhelm them if we sent hundreds of people to
them!

I just wrote to Cliff, and my primary objective for Tuesday and Wednesday
(days off to myself!) is to sort through the Continental discount program
and get information ready to post. So we'll have *something* to announce
before the end of the week.
---

Cliff's:
---

On 1/29/01 at 11:31 AM, sacred@evilgenius.net (Carrin, C7 Spokesperson) wrote:

> I ask this question, just how many more times can I say to the 
> curious public "it's all coming soon" before they start to become 
> frantic over that response?  Telling people to hold on to their 
> britches too many time can envoke just as negative a reaction as 

The flip side is that as long as we give nothing _active_ to harp upon, their
discomfort will tend to turn to boredom. Just wait until the next big tour is
announced. Our scene is hyper dramatic, but also has a very short attention
span.

> Just my $50.75 . . . it's all coming together . . . TRULY!  Not only 
> is it coming together, but it's going to ROCK!!!!!  The last thing we 
> need is for our staff to start feeling the effects of the panic.  

Agreed.
---

Holly:
---


.From: "Carrin, C7 Spokesperson" <sacred@evilgenius.net>
.This is where we are with regards to getting the information out . . .
.and considering the amount of information that we have to officially
.release, I'd say we're doing the best we can.  Once the hotel is final,
.we will release that information.  Once the web design is updated, we'll
.release that info.  But we can't announce things that aren't official!
.That put us in jeopardy professionally and with the public.

I completely understand what you're saying. And your points are all very well thought out and logical.
Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't so logical.
So sometimes you have to throw 'em a bone.
They need little updates that tell them nothing. Updates like "We're in negotiation for the hotel right now. More info to come when contract is signed" or "We're putting together the transportation FAQ right now. We'll let you know more when it's done."

I guess what it is...is that people don't really need details. Of course some will ask for them. But what people really need is some proof that progress is happening. A general "we're working on stuff" doesn't settle them down like a more specific "we're currently slogging through all the transportation info., more to come soon".
I know it seems silly. But having done a lot of PR, I can tell you it goes a long way.

.Just my $50.75 . . . it's all coming together . . . TRULY!  Not only
.is it coming together, but it's going to ROCK!!!!!  The last thing we
.need is for our staff to start feeling the effects of the panic.

Fricking right. It's gong to be awesome. And everyone here is doing a great job. We just have to let everyone else know we're doing a great job. 'Cause for all the know, we could be doing nothing and just saying "yeah yeah, it's coming along, just wait".

---

A comment from Cliff on jan 30 regarding StarVox editor Blu's unrest regarding the lack of C7 info:

---

> > the latest from NY about C7.
> > ~Blu
> > ...unimpressed. What's the big deal about keeping everything secret?
> blah..
> >

At this point I officially find Blu a pain in the hindquarters. She is
impossible to satisfy and I worry that she may be out to cause C7 mischief.
---

Comments from Carrin on Jan 30:

---

Staff,

I am very sorry for the attitude.  I just read my last 
emails, and they're kind of rude.

I'm not being rude.  I'm just trying to stay in "matter 
of fact" mode, and not in "fuck this shit" mode.  I beg 
all of you to please refrain from taking anything I might 
imply personally.  

I've got approximately 27 emails in my inbox, at least 4 
of them are direct emails from people telling me they 
think I'm really fucking up by posting more "coming soon" 
posts!  when there isn't anything more I can say!!!!!!!!  
2 of them are from the afterglow list that just 
confirm that we're doing a shitty job, and then there are 
at least 10 forwarded emails from various people of other 
emails which thankfully didn't come directly to me, but are 
about how shitty we are doing!!

*searching for dullest knife in house to mangle wrists 
slowly and sloppily, without repair*

-Carrin (or evil, shitty, worthless Convergence 7 staff 
member might be more appropriate)
---

Further encouragement to get the lead out from me on Jan 30:
---



OK this has got to stop. This constant paranoia about responses and grammar and context and taking 2 days to reply to a post is one of the things thats KILLING YOU guys.

Secondly, Monica[1] is absolutely right on the money. GET THE WEBSITE UP. youve already won the bid. there's no need for a fucking 5 star multimedia masterpiece.

Get some kind of website up by next week. Designers and webservers be damned.


As for information : ok - so you cant release exact facts and figures. do the next best thing (which is NOT silence, Cliff)

Give them estimates.

"We estimate ticket prices to be between X and X"
"the hotel rooms will be roughly X per night"
"Average cab fare from the airports to the hotel is X"
"ticket sales will be limited to 1000 persons"

give them the info you do know and state it as canon. The rest, give them soemthing to chew on. set deadlines for specific projects to be done and STICK TO THEM.

If you guys DONT change your tactics, it's only going to get worse. The moment  public confidence drops below zero, things will get ugly.

I have every confidence you guys can all pull this off, as long as you learn to bend a bit. (Cliff!!)


-///
[1] Monica is my EX fiance. The fact that I'm agreeing with everything she's saying should kick your asses enough to realize something is up.

---

Cliff's reply:
---

On 1/30/01 at 8:59 PM, macross@digitalangel.com (Macross Ascendant) wrote:

> Get some kind of website up by next week. Designers and webservers be damned.

The time which I could be spending attending to these issues is now being spend
on trying to work out PR shite. At this point, announcements = LIES. I refuse to
participate in the making of announcements which only further undermine our
credibility down the road when we have to withdraw them. 

> Give them estimates.

So far, the more information we have provided, the less productive it has been
because it is *incomplete* information. Negative people have filled in the gaps
with all sorts of nasty imaginings. We already have estimates up on the Proposal
anyway, and they're fairly accurate. We don't need another Proposal restated, we
need facts in their hands-- but we can't do that if the full time business of
this Committee becomes PR CORRESPONDENCE. 

> give them the info you do know and state it as canon. The rest, give them 
> soemthing to chew on. set deadlines for specific projects to be done and 
> STICK TO THEM.

I had an internal deadline. Then my ISP gave me an impossible deadline to switch
to Linux or lose my servers and our online ticketing. Then they had an
electrical fire which was probably the result of some prankster cutting the T1
connection outside of their home with gardening shears. A friend of mine got
thrown into a mental institution, another is going to prison, and another had
her kids taken away and is a mess. 

All of them affect C7 in two ways; they were all potentially providing services
for us down the road that _I_ have to compensate for now... and they're making
me feel JEALOUS because being the Chairman sucks right now. In a prison or a
mental institution I'd get to be oppressed, but at least I'd have a touch of
anonymity about it. :-)

I have been working so hard on this stuff that I am wearing the same clothes
that I put on THURSDAY. This is because I've been working until I drop, taking
sextuple doses of Ma Huang to get my butt out of bed and continue for 20 hour
stretches until I drop again. Some of those hours are devoted towards messages
like this, and they shouldn't be necessary. 

I don't think Carrin should make more posts at this time. I think we should
concentrate on taking care of business and soothing people privately. Then when
we do make an announcement in a week or so-- people will say "finally!" and
focus on what we announce rather than the manner of it. People will forget the
current nonsense if we knock their socks off with an upcoming announcement. It
will snowball if our announcement is sloppy because it was rushed.

Here's a massive insight for those of us who might be naive about net.goth PR;
this negativity is artificial in part, and is being designed to make us slip up.
If we do provide information, it will be turned against us in a further round of
complaints. The way to avoid it is to provide such an EXCELLENT announcement,
that nay-sayers will discredit themselves and be ignored henceforth.

I am now getting back to work on find space for the Darkside Panels on Friday or
Sunday. I've already had my four hours of sleep for the day, so I can now work
myself to collapse again.

---

Cliff requests airfare research to fulfil his desire to see snog on feb 8:
---
I need some clever and industrious people to do some research on airfare for
bands. Ian is unavailable to do it presently, and asked me to delegate it this
to other people. 

I need to find the least expensive tickets possible for bands coming from
Germany (Berlin I think) and Australia (Melbourne) for the duration of C7. I
also need to know how long those rates will remain at the specified price, and
the variations based on time of day and particular day of departure and return. 

If multiple persons do the research, it ensures us finding the most desirable
fares. With luck and persistance, there could be a lot of money saved on a
significant expense. I recommend using online ticketing research _and_ travel
agencies. Carrin and I have often found the latter to be more helpful than the
former, but we have not researched international flights before. 

---

Some discussions about venders began around Feb 10. 
Carrin's take:
---

> Why do you think there will be an expectation of higher pricing for
> internal stuff?
>
> Regardless, I concur with Erika's idea to allow a lower price for all
> returning convergence venders, and perhaps anyone not from New York State.
> I've never heard of any convergence venders making it rich, least of all
> the ones traveling cross-continent.


I feel like we should give the returning vendors a discount.  New
vendors at a higher price.  Local vendors at a higher price as well.
The same as new vendors (unless, of course, they are returning).

But I ask this, how will we know for sure whether they were C1-C6
vendors?  Isn't this kind of hard to prove?

I also agree that jacking the price way up just because it's in NY
isn't feasible, however, if the cost of the rooms are higher than
they have been in past Convergences, then we may need to raise the
price some to afford the space.  Ticket sales alone will not cover
all of the public spaces, bands and venue rentals.  The sales of
booths for vendors should at least cover the room rental costs for
the days that the Bazaar is taking those spaces up.  Is that a fair
statement?  Is that how it has happened in the past?

After I heard what the cost for booths was at C6, I was a little
shocked that our estimates were so high.  People aren't going to go
for that, and we shouldn't expect to ask double what they've paid in
the past.  That's a bit ridiculous.

This is something that we need to resolve very quickly.  By the end
of this week, as I am suppose to have an announcement out for the
potential Merchant's on Sat.

If it comes down to us just picking booth prices based on assumptions,
then that's what we might have to do.

How many spaces will there be for merchant tables/booths anyway?
---

Cliff's reply:
---
On 2/12/01 at 3:55 PM, sacred@evilgenius.net (Carrin, C7 Spokesperson) wrote:

> But I ask this, how will we know for sure whether they were C1-C6
> vendors?  Isn't this kind of hard to prove?

Ask them for proof on their own terms. They are going to have to send checks in
an envelope; a photocopy of an old laminate should do, a booklet cover, or a
ticket. If they can point us to a post archived on deja.com suggesting that they
at least attended a previous Convergence, that could also work. 

> After I heard what the cost for booths was at C6, I was a little
> shocked that our estimates were so high.  People aren't going to go
> for that, and we shouldn't expect to ask double what they've paid in
> the past.  That's a bit ridiculous.

Local merchants are apparently quite willing to pay a lot of money for a booth.
If they're throwing money at us, let's figure out a way to help them do it. And
do it in a way which doesn't make the two "types" of vendors feel as though
something unfair isn't going on. 

> This is something that we need to resolve very quickly.  By the end
> of this week, as I am suppose to have an announcement out for the
> potential Merchant's on Sat.

This is unrealistic. This is one topic in which we are way behind. We don't even
have a designated Merchant Coordinator. Every person I've asked so far has
declined. It is a lot of responsibility and work, with no obvious
recompensation. 

Catherine said that organizing this kind of thing was the equivalent of a full
time job, and nobody she knew would do it would getting a substantial cut of the
merchant sales. I don't think C7 merchants will tolerate that, and I do think we
need someone with experience and scrupulous ethics.

The accounting for the recieving of checks is not set up. It ought to be
automated, it ought to be online for convenient coordination. That's not even
touched upon yet. I also believe that we will want to map out the layout of the
tables, so that adjoining merchants can share resources across tables if they
wish to.

I still have a few ideas that I haven't thoroughly investigated, but all my A
List options are gone.

> How many spaces will there be for merchant tables/booths anyway?

Another reason we can't start selling tables: we don't know how many we can sell
for sure. _Theoretically_ 40 per day. But if the Swap takes place in an
adjoining space, electrical cables interfere with the situation of tables,
and/or 40 tables make navigation throughout the space extremely difficult-- that
number is going to be less. 

We need to know some of the legal restrictions-- specifically if constructions
put together by various vendors will be illegal as fire hazards. This also is
connected with the electrical outlet situation, and access to doors. There are a
lot of non-obvious issues related to organizing a trade show, and we need to
work on that. 

Announcing this later than we promised isn't good, but announcing information
that people use for planning that we later have to retract is worse. 


For those of you wishing to hear very good news, you'll be getting your wish
very soon-- and so will the entire Convergence community.
---

HOTELS thread replied to by Cliff on Feb 14:
---

On 2/14/01 at 7:58 PM, sacred@evilgenius.net (Carrin, C7 Spokesperson) wrote:

> Erica or Cliff,
> Do we know what the rates are for singles? doubles? 

Both.

> has anyone done a scope out of the surrounding area for other hotels?

Sort of, but not thoroughly. We just got this one done, sheesh! 

I don't think people are going to find a passable hotel in the vicinity with a
lower price than what we arranged. This is midtown Manhattan. The fact that we
got so much for so little impresses the hell out of me. We got _half_ off the
listed rate, and even those hotels which are normally a bit cheaper than The
Warwick are not going to be half off. I don't believe The Warwick is an unsually
expensive hotel for that part of town. I mean, this is right off 5th Avenue and
across the street from the Museum of Modern Art.

There are hotels like The New Yorker and Pennsylvinia, but without a group rate
the prices may end up higher than The Warwick and be over 20 blocks away. They
are also kind of shabby and noisey. There's also that fairly nice Holiday Inn in
distant Chinatown, but I doubt people would be saving much money by going there. 

Additional alternatives are tiny quasi-hotels that have no more than ten rooms
in the entire place, and student hostel type joints. The latter are cheap and
small, but they tend to be in foul, desolate, out-of-the-way areas-- and aren't
very clean. Vagrants use those sometimes. Many of them have shared bathrooms,
too. That's truly roughing it. They give a bad impression of New York City,
simply stated.  

People can get remarkably cheap and clean places, but all of those options tend
to be far outside of Manhattan. I would not advise anyone to go that route,
unless they are already fairly familiar with the local transit system and don't
mind long commutes. Things _do_ get confusing when you commute in and out of
Manhattan. The New Jersey transit system in particular was designed by Jackson
Pollock. Those who try this, are likely to get very lost.

Subject to Erica's advice, I think we want to strongly encourage people to go to
the main hotel. It helps us with our budget indirectly, it is a fair courtesy to
the Warwick itself which is being very good to us, and people who stay at the
hotel will surely have a more comfortable experience of Convergence 7 than those
who save a few bucks by going elsewhere.
---

On feb 25, Ian began to feel the lack of communication which was growing steadily on the staff list as posts with official info became less and less frequent:

---

Hey you guys:

As I sit here cooking up pages and pages of transportation information
(right now I'm up to 28 pages), I am becoming more and more aware that I'm
operating in a vacuum.

I'm vaguely aware that there are hotel issues that refuse to be resolved. I
know that some of the bands are good-to-go, but that we still have unfilled
openings and lack a headliner. The budget is nebulous, as is the Sunday
night event. I haven't seen an updated timeline for the event itself since
our proposal went up, and the last I heard was that we wanted to start
selling tickets by Valentine's Day. The transportation committee, however,
is cruising smoothly!

The last meeting we had was sometime in early January when I was out flying,
and before that was the fateful trip to the Roosevelt. Maybe through more
frequent meetings we could get more exchange of information, more
brainstorming, and more enthusiasm (personally, mine has been waning at each
hurdle).

Thanks to a sucky schedule, I'm flying from Tuesday through Sunday next
week, but would certainly be excited for a rendez-vous between Monday the
5th and Wednesday the 7th. My schedule *may* be changing, but I'll know for
sure by tomorrow (Monday) night. Could I interest anyone else in a
get-together, or will I consider the issues at hand in a vacuum?
---

Dragon replied:
---
Ian Dutton did speak thusly:

Hey you guys:

As I sit here cooking up pages and pages of transportation information
(right now I'm up to 28 pages), I am becoming more and more aware that I'm
operating in a vacuum.

Yes it has been very quiet recently. Even just a light bump with a little status once in a while to the list would help.


I'm vaguely aware that there are hotel issues that refuse to be resolved. I
know that some of the bands are good-to-go, but that we still have unfilled
openings and lack a headliner. The budget is nebulous, as is the Sunday
night event. I haven't seen an updated timeline for the event itself since
our proposal went up, and the last I heard was that we wanted to start
selling tickets by Valentine's Day. The transportation committee, however,
is cruising smoothly!

Well obviously, we don't have tix on sale yet. I imagine this is due to the fact that Sunday is still nebulous, we do not yet have a headliner and the troubles with the hotel. I'm thinking we should take a SWAG (Sweeping Wild-Ass Guess) at it and get tix on sale for two reasons. First is we need some cash flow to begin so we can secure everything. Second is to instill confidence at large that the event is indeed going to happen.

I think if we go any longer than mid-march on this that we are going to have a serious PR problem on our hands.

The last meeting we had was sometime in early January when I was out flying,
and before that was the fateful trip to the Roosevelt. Maybe through more
frequent meetings we could get more exchange of information, more
brainstorming, and more enthusiasm (personally, mine has been waning at each
hurdle).

Communication is key to making this work. Silence achieves nothing for us. I realize that Clifford is busy with a lot of things. I have said it before and I will say it again, he NEEDS to DELEGATE some of what he is doing.

Thanks to a sucky schedule, I'm flying from Tuesday through Sunday next
week, but would certainly be excited for a rendez-vous between Monday the
5th and Wednesday the 7th. My schedule *may* be changing, but I'll know for
sure by tomorrow (Monday) night. Could I interest anyone else in a
get-together, or will I consider the issues at hand in a vacuum?

How about doing it Monday evening? I will be there between the evening of Saturday 3/3 and the afternoon of Tuesday 3/6.

           Ian (I dislike vacuuming)

Me too.
---

Cliff's reply, already excessively vague. Obvious most of the planning and decision making has fallen out of the hands of the actual committee:

---

On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 18:40:30 -0500, Ian Dutton AKA
darkpilot@mindspring.com wrote: 

>As I sit here cooking up pages and pages of transportation information
>(right now I'm up to 28 pages), I am becoming more and more aware that I'm
>operating in a vacuum.

Where are these pages again? I viewed an earlier draft of them, but have
since lost the URL.

>I'm vaguely aware that there are hotel issues that refuse to be resolved. I
>know that some of the bands are good-to-go, but that we still have unfilled
>openings and lack a headliner. The budget is nebulous, as is the Sunday
>night event. I haven't seen an updated timeline for the event itself since
>our proposal went up, and the last I heard was that we wanted to start
>selling tickets by Valentine's Day. The transportation committee, however,
>is cruising smoothly!

Actually, much of that information is going to change fairly soon. I'm
hoping to have some of that detailed in a couple of days.

The last date I was giving out for the ticket sales was the end of this
month; I'm not sure why you thought Valentine's Day. It wasn't an
unreasonable date, but issues (that some of us are taking care of right
now) may alter our budget. That's important enough to take precedence
over ticketing issues, and ticketing is always dependant on budgetary
considerations.

>The last meeting we had was sometime in early January when I was out flying,
>and before that was the fateful trip to the Roosevelt. Maybe through more
>frequent meetings we could get more exchange of information, more
>brainstorming, and more enthusiasm (personally, mine has been waning at each
>hurdle).

Well, don't be discouraged. The silence is of busy people working. There
are never hurdles, only opportunities for improvements.

I'm not sure what my schedule is over the next couple of weeks are
regarding a meeting, as a lot of things are changing on a daily basis
with regards to both Convergence work and unrelated stuff. I _would_ like
to have a (productive) meeting soon, but I'd also like it to be one which
I can attend and have some cool stuff to present.
---

I begin to lose my patience with the situation, especially after reading the previous posts where committee members complained of being out of the loop, as well as having received a few private messages to the same effect:

---

At 11:34 PM 2/25/01, cliff wrote:

.I'm not sure what my schedule is over the next couple of weeks are
.regarding a meeting, as a lot of things are changing on a daily basis
.with regards to both Convergence work and unrelated stuff. I _would_ like
.to have a (productive) meeting soon, but I'd also like it to be one which
.I can attend and have some cool stuff to present.



If the information is changing on a daily basis, you better start posting that information on a daily basis.

You have a committee. It's time to start allowing them to do the work. They are all to be part of the decision making processes, the planning, and the execution of those plans.

for once and for all, please take the flair for the dramatic and leave it out by the curb. it has no place on a convergence committee. "cool stuff to present" is bullshit. The committee should NEVER be left in ANY kind of information deficit like is being deomonstrated right now. EVER.
---

Lisa's reply on the topic:

---

we really need to be having meetings much more regularly...like once a week or once every two weeks..._regardless_ of wether we have anything "cool" to present, or not...there are always details to be dealt with...

...six people have aleady said they can make it on monday the 5th. why not go ahead and have one, esp. with martin in town?
---

Ian's reply:

---
On 2/26/01 11:25 AM, Harley Quinn wrote:

> ...six people have aleady said they can make it on monday the 5th.
> why not go ahead and have one, esp. with martin in town?

I'll second that! I'd like to meet Dragon - I haven't yet!

I like meeting at La Lanterna (the cafe on MacDougal between W. 3rd and W.
4th in the Village) - hopefully it will be less crowded on a Monday night
than it was last time...

La Lanterna work for people? And I think Jen E.'s suggestion of 7pm sounds
good too. Anyone else? Cliff, will you be able to make the date/place/time?
---

A second reply from Ian:
---
On 2/25/01 11:34 PM, Clifford Hartleigh Low wrote:

> Where are these pages again? I viewed an earlier draft of them, but have
> since lost the URL.

They are at http://www.mindspring.com/~darkpilot/c7/transportation-top.html.
Much more will be uploaded this evening (Monday).
 
> Actually, much of that information is going to change fairly soon. I'm
> hoping to have some of that detailed in a couple of days.

Shouldn't we be working on this stuff together?

> The last date I was giving out for the ticket sales was the end of this
> month; I'm not sure why you thought Valentine's Day.

We brought that up as a rough target a long time ago. I don't even know
where our target is now...that's my point.

> I'm not sure what my schedule is over the next couple of weeks are
> regarding a meeting, as a lot of things are changing on a daily basis
> with regards to both Convergence work and unrelated stuff. I _would_ like
> to have a (productive) meeting soon, but I'd also like it to be one which
> I can attend and have some cool stuff to present.

Of course your attendance is critical - you're the only one that knows where
most of these issues stand! And I don't need cool stuff - just regular
status reports...
---

LISA's RESIGNATION occured between the 25th and 28th, during which time she contacted me several times via email and telephone. 

I then asked if the meeting was still going ahead as planned, to which Ian replied:

---
On 2/28/01 4:49 PM, Macross Ascendant wrote:
 
> Is it safe to assume that Monday's Staff meeting is a go?
> 
> if it's not, I strongly suggest things get cemented.

Well, with Lisa's resignation, I'd say that there is absolutely no cement
left.

Given that there has been no official designation of Monday night's meeting,
I'm saying that I'll be at La Lanterna* at 7pm Monday night. If we need to
retreat to another location for more "animated" discussions, my apartment is
less than 5 minutes walking distance from there.

I'd consider it essential that anyone on the committee try to be there. The
last time I suggested a Monday night meeting, I felt resistance from you,
Cliff. I sincerely hope that you'll plan on being there. I can't imagine
that there's anything more important right now than salvaging what's left of
the committee.

If people think it best that we not wait for Monday, then someone else can
take the initiative and get something set up. I won't be back in town until
quite late Sunday night, though.

* Esp. for Dragon: La Lanterna is in the Village, on MacDougal St. (one
block east of 6th Av.) between W. 3rd and W. 4th St. When you enter, go to
the back of the upstairs room, go down the stairs, and look for us.

---

Cliff's announcement to the staff regarding Lisa's departure:

---
Predictably, Lisa Feuer has been removed from the C7_Staff forum. For
those of you who may be unaware, she posted her resignation to NYCgoth-L
and it was subsequently posted on her behalf to alt.gothic by Natalia
Lincoln. 

Lisa had been involved in a number of increasingly serious disagreements
with core Committee members offlist for the last month or so. Though many
of us have been getting a lot of work done offlist, the whole matter
clearly caused an overall slowdown of C7 progress that eventually came to
a head. I will clarify this entire matter shortly.

Corey has also been removed. His involvement was based partially on
Lisa's recommendations, yet had rarely any constructive input and been
unable to attend any meetings and was unavailable for any phone calls.

Rob Zamora has been removed. For a variety of reasons, he has been
uninvolved in C7 work for a very long time and did not respond to
repeated pleas for assistance in the sphere of his delegated
responsibilities. Should we require new video footage, we would need
someone to act in his stead in any case.

Heather Babb is in the process of seeking replacement on the Committee,
as she become engaged this past Saturday evening and plans to marry and
move to Los Angeles or Seattle in a few months. This is not a simple
matter, so her time will be occupied and thus cannot complete the picnic
research. She is looking for someone to take on this responsibility, whom
she will provide all the relevant information that she has already collected. 

Extreme contragulations and well-wishes on your engagement; this is
incredibly fantastic news and I am very happy for you.


Lisa's band-related responsibilities currently fall to me, Carrin, and in
the instance of international bands the assistance of Holly and Megan
(who are researching international visa issues.) I believe that we will
be supplementing this with the assistance of a former NYC promoter whom I
trust, who has a great amount of experience with bands. This person does
not have regular email access at this time, unfortunately.

Lisa's Irving Plaza fashion show's responsibilities have not been
formally delegated as of yet, but if Trystan would take the
responsibility on I am certain that nobody would object.

I have been investigating additional persons to be brought onto the staff
list for some time now, and I will make announcements if and when that begins.
---

Cliff's announcements to the staff regarding the hotels:
---

A good portion of our recent offlist work has revolved around resolving
the hotel problem. 

When the first reports of quad occupancy rejection had filtered down to
us, I personally dismissed them as miscommunication between various
departments at the Warwick Hotel. Erica began to look into it, and was
surprised to discover that indeed these were being rejected by the sales
staff. Apparently there is an obscure city ordinance which forbids quad
occupancy in hotels under a specified minimum of rooms, which The Warwick
is under.

The blame belongs to the hotel. Erica and I went over the contracts to an
anal-retentive degree, and all seemed in place. The omission of the quad
occupancy promise did not alarm us, since it had not been in the C6
contract either and we had secured a verbal agreement for this from the
hotel in our very first communications with them. Perhaps this was a
goof-up on their part, or perhaps they had hoped that it did not really
matter to us and we would consider it low priority once we had become
enamored of The Warwick. In any case, it makes us look very bad and
negates the reasons why we selected that hotel in the first place.

Though I am waiting on updates from Erica, it looks as though we are
returning to The Roosevelt for the most part. Even though the bedrooms
there are small, they do support a legal quad occupancy and people will
not be rejected requesting such. The public spaces at The Roosvelt are
humungous, and we will not be constrained by capacity issues that had
begun to concern some of us at The Warwick. Using The Roosevelt
eliminates our difficulties working out a Sunday night location, and
_may_ even cut as much as $9500 out of our expenses. And lastly, the
Roosevelt is more fun because people will be able to dart between the
ballrooms on Sunday night, to their bedrooms, and back again as need be.
That just isn't possible at a club which is 15 minutes away, and a bit of
a walk on top of that.

Though Erica will have to approve this, some of those I have consulted on
the Committee feel that it would be beneficial to keep a small block of
rooms at The Warwick available for people that might prefer it for some
reason. This may have a small impact on our complimentary rooms, but
there will be no price difference between the two hotels for attendees. I
think we should urge people to stay at The Roosevelt, but see no major
problem with providing an alternative if that would satisfy some people.

We are not announcing these changes until the contracts are solid.
Experience has taught us to be very careful about contracts, and no more
dramatic changes will be tolerated by the C7 attendees.
---

March 02 - I make a terse inquiry, to which Cliff replies:
---

On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 09:37:08 -0500, G. R. Perye III AKA
macross@digitalangel.com wrote: 

>(he canned a bunch of people for various reasons)
>
>So who's left ?

Ian Dutton
Carrin Welch
Claire Acher
Megan Friddle
Martin Frederickson
Angel Butts
Kevin Filan
Carrie Laben
Trystan Bass
William Fielder
Erica Jantos
Miguel Fernandez
Lainie Petersen
Daednu/Holly
Heather Babb (until LA)
Shea Hovey
Amanda Wolf/Batty
Jen Ellerson
Bob Westphal

You and me.

(Carrie Carolin is no longer on the list, but this probably has to do
with email overload than anything else.)

>Will you be canning anyone else who disagrees with you?

Only if they do so while blasting "Who Let The Dogs Out?" at me out of a
beatbox. :-)

OTOH unproductive negativity is a luxury at this point, and our time is
scarce. We have a lot of work to do as quickly as possible, and though
differing opinions are valuable we also need to move on and make up for
lost time. The fact remains that I have not canned anyone _simply_
because we disagreed.  Carrin and I disagree on a regular basis, but we
find ways to work it out.

There are a lot of staff members, many of whom are not doing very much in
the way of C7 except for complaining. This is expected, and as Violet
said on a.g. once, it will most likely dwindle down to just a few key
people doing the majority of the work. Can you really argue with that
reality? You would know best, being so involved with so many different
committees. Keep in mind, out of the 18+/- members listed above, I have
continuous offlist communication with about half.

However, I will supply more details about Lisa's resignation shortly. It
was hardly a matter of a simple disagreement, but a severe conflict of
interest issue. Please remember, that up until know, you've potentially
heard only one side. Contrary to many of these hypothetical reports
you've received, I did not "can" Lisa, but I did give her definite
options for continuing her job with C7.  It was her decision to leave. As
well, the definitions by which Lisa determined not to continue with us
were a collective effort of myself and other members of the staff.
 ---

Winter replied:

---

* Keep in mind, out of the 18+/- members listed above, I have
* continuous offlist communication with about half.

Shouldn't all of the 'offlist' communication be brought 'onlist' to here?
Folks talk about communication problems and you're saying that there's
an entirely separate flurry of emails that we're not even aware of?

We can't be of that much help if we're only getting partial information.
---

Cliff's reply:
---
On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 12:53:27 -0500, W. Fielder AKA wfielder@orb.net wrote: 

>Folks talk about communication problems and you're saying that there's
>an entirely separate flurry of emails that we're not even aware of?

Actually, most of it (though not exclusively) has been telephone
conference calls.
---

Shea's reply:
---
On 3/2/01 1:17 PM, goodnight@nycgoth.com wrote


> On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 12:53:27 -0500, W. Fielder AKA wfielder@orb.net wrote:
> 
>> Folks talk about communication problems and you're saying that there's
>> an entirely separate flurry of emails that we're not even aware of?
> 
> Actually, most of it (though not exclusively) has been telephone
> conference calls.

Winter, correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that you were trying to get
across the idea that a large chunk of the committee is in the dark about
goings-on.  I don't think that it matters what technology was used to keep
most of the committee from having a clue.
---

Cliff addresses the staff regarding not addressing them:
---


The other reasons for a bit of silence are not technical but social.

A number of Committee members have been taking care of the business of C7
offlist in small cc groups, and through conference calls. We've
discovered that we actually end up accomplishing a lot more by handling
things in this way than through meetings or mailing list correspondence.
Everyone is aware that time is moving rapidly, and it's just been very
helpful to focus on getting individual tasks accomplished than spending a
lot of time writing about it. 

We also were reluctant to discuss the current hotel matter onlist until
there was more to report. Switching hotels a second time is not a minor
matter, necessary though it is, and I wanted to have everything prepared
before making a presentation to all of you. Things have been changing on
a daily basis with the hotel situation and I didn't want to inform you of
alterations on a daily basis. Not only does that make my correspondence
burden impossible to manage, but I just didn't want people to become
"seasick" from the rapid changes.


Lastly, we'd been trying to take care of the Lisa issue offlist in order
to secure her a degree of privacy and courtesy. Some of Lisa's decisions
and acts over the last several months regarding her work as band liaison
were extremely controversial and divisive. Only Lisa and I had discussed
these matters initially, but eventually consulted several people offlist
to get input. I imagined that if all of this were discussed on C7_Staff,
many people in this forum would be very upset at her and be so polarized
that little work would be accomplished subsequently.

I desperately wanted to resolve this through negotiation, in order to
permit Lisa to remain within the group. Of equal importance, I wanted to
minimize the strain this might place on personal friends of Lisa who are
in this forum. If the situation with Lisa could be resolved offlist, then
there was a chance that we all could put it behind us and nobody would
feel caught in the middle. She had to make some kind of agreement about
her involvement with C7, or she would be asked to resign. Instead, she
resigned on her own.


I, and Carrin, are extremely sorry that so much of the current goings on
have been left off the list, and certainly that many of you were kept out
of the loop. We have been attempting to resolve that by personally
contacting people on the committee. The intention was to maintain the
original roster of Committee members, but as it has been said by past
Convergence organizers, the Committee will be smaller than it was in it's
beginnings.

I believe that we can and will be stronger as a Committee because of
this, even though it has not happened at the best time or in the best
way. We still have a significant list of important contributors, 21
members to be exact. 

There will be a lot happening very quickly, so be prepared.

---

Carrie's thoughts:
---
t 12:53 PM 3/2/01 -0500, you wrote:

Shouldn't all of the 'offlist' communication be brought 'onlist' to here?
Folks talk about communication problems and you're saying that there's
an entirely separate flurry of emails that we're not even aware of?

We can't be of that much help if we're only getting partial information.

I may be a minority of one here.... but my thought is, the way things are now is probably way more efficient than if everything was brought on list.  Every single additional person who becomes party to various sub-committee's hemmings and hawings is going to increase said hemmings and hawings by a power, if not more.

Not to mention that I'm sure as heck not volunteering to transcribe any phone conferences....

I may sound machiavellian, but I think that the best way forward at this point would to be to limit nearly all full-staff communications to finished products or at most issues where there are only one or two options left.  Information should be provided to individuals in a non-distracting manner on a need-to-know basis.  This sounds harsh, but I'm envisioning the minor natural disaster that would have occurred if, for instance, everyone had felt the need to chime in on the recent hotel issues at once.... Not a Good Thing, and not likely to have gotten things resolved any faster, either.
---

Ian loses his patience with the situation prior to the meeting:
---


I really thought that I wouldn't be able to respond to this - mostly because
I don't want to inflict further damage on the fragile balance that exists
around C7. Actually, I am rather shocked that no one else has responded up
to now - maybe these issues are only affecting me, a lone sheep in a pack of
wolves. 

But every time I reread this message, I am so sickened that I can't even
sleep with this letter on my mind - I have to fly an airplane in the
morning, and I'm still fretting over these issues less than 3 hours before
my wake-up call.

These are issues that I feel I will only have resolved though personal
contact - personal contact that has been deliberately avoided for weeks. And
now we have a weather situation that is apparently conspiring to keep a
meeting from happening.

On 3/2/01 3:53 PM, Clifford Hartleigh Low wrote:

> A number of Committee members have been taking care of the business of C7
> offlist in small cc groups, and through conference calls. We've
> discovered that we actually end up accomplishing a lot more by handling
> things in this way than through meetings or mailing list correspondence.
> Everyone is aware that time is moving rapidly, and it's just been very
> helpful to focus on getting individual tasks accomplished than spending a
> lot of time writing about it.

Yes, please don't be concerned. We know what's best for you, and you don't
even have to know what you want. So don't worry - it will all be taken care
of. And everyone is the better for it, since everything works smoother when
we don't have to waste our time by considering differences of opinion or
fretting over alternative solutions.

Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression that I was part of a
committee. I've been involved in many, many organizations where things were
done by committee, and clearly Convergence 7 does not fit that profile.

No, Cliff, I don't want to hear about the details of the incorporation
procedure, and don't expect to tell everyone about every fax that I've sent
to Continental about our discount agreement. But if I were going to make a
decision to, say, dump our current airline discount and change to another
one, I'd certainly seek broader input. And I'd follow through with what the
consensus decision was - not just act on my own.

But see, there I go thinking that this is something other than a
dictatorship. You see, I'd expect that before we agree to spend more than
10% of our total budget to fly a headliner band in from Australia, we'd
discuss it! As a matter of fact, I'd expect that we'd talk about the
headliner even if it didn't involve shelling out for $2500 airplane rides!
I'd expect that I'd be involved in making hotel decisions - especially since
I demonstrated my interest by being the only person to reply to the concerns
that people were voicing online, by pressing you for action and news with
the Warwick, and most convincingly, because I'm on of the only people on the
committee that has seen the Roosevelt rooms.

And I think it's disgusting that a key committee member is forced into
resignation without serious discussion. But I appreciate that you protected
my sensitive feelings in the matter by trying to leave me totally in the
dark - imagine, I might have had to think!

And this isn't about me. There are people on the committee who have
expressed that they don't want to be involved in the decision making. That's
fine - we're going to need a lot of "worker bees" (Cliff's phraseology,
which is very appropriate). But if we are operating with one supreme
commander, who is only issuing marching orders and not interested in broader
group input...then we don't have a committee.
  
> We also were reluctant to discuss the current hotel matter onlist until
> there was more to report. Switching hotels a second time is not a minor
> matter, necessary though it is, and I wanted to have everything prepared
> before making a presentation to all of you. Things have been changing on
> a daily basis with the hotel situation and I didn't want to inform you of
> alterations on a daily basis. Not only does that make my correspondence
> burden impossible to manage, but I just didn't want people to become
> "seasick" from the rapid changes.

"Seasick"? We're talking about an issue that has the potential to crush C7.
Seasick is not the term for it. It's certainly not the position any of us
wanted to be in, but I didn't need to be protected from the reality. And I
didn't need to be protected from exploring alternatives, either.


Let me rewrite the following paragraph given my current understanding of the
situation (which may be biased because only one side of the issue has been
presented to me - and it's not the "committee's decision" side,
incidentally):
> Lastly, we'd (who is the "we", exactly?) been trying to take care of the Lisa
> issue offlist in order
> to secure her a degree of privacy and courtesy. Some of Cliff's decisions
> and acts over the last several months regarding Lisa's work as band liaison
> were extremely controversial and divisive. Only Lisa and I had discussed
> these matters initially, but eventually consulted SELECTED people offlist
> to get input. I imagined that if all of this were discussed on C7_Staff,
> many people in this forum would be very upset at Cliff and be so polarized
> that little work would be accomplished subsequently.

I booked concerts in Boston for several years, and was appalled at how
little responsibility there is in the live-music business. I was always very
careful not to make commitments until I was confident in them, and then do
everything possible to not break a commitment. I expect Convergence, as a
concept, to live up to that standard.

> I desperately wanted to resolve this through negotiation, in order to
> permit Lisa to remain within the group. Of equal importance, I wanted to
> minimize the strain this might place on personal friends of Lisa who are
> in this forum. If the situation with Lisa could be resolved offlist, then
> there was a chance that we all could put it behind us and nobody would
> feel caught in the middle. She had to make some kind of agreement about
> her involvement with C7, or she would be asked to resign. Instead, she
> resigned on her own.

No she didn't. She too consulted with many people, because she felt she had
a lot to offer C7, and didn't want to turn her back on other people who
believed in her. I, for one, supported her feeling that she needed to
dissociate herself from C7 before her private and business life were
negatively impacted. I have more flexibility, since irresponsible actions
will have little impact on my business life.

But I think I'm making it clear that I'm going to demand some explanations.

Your tone throughout this letter insults me and the intelligence of everyone
on the "committee". I'm not among your 21 "important contributors", but only
that subset of indentured servants. I'm quietly working away in my vacuum,
protected from the drudgery of thinking and providing input on serious
matters. And what a good little slave - thus far making only little peeps
about having a token meeting every now and then. I have a hard time
believing that you, Cliff, are so insulated from reality that you honestly
believe the spin that you crafted for this letter.

No matter what the weather, I'll be at La Lanterna on Monday night.
---

Cliff's reply:
---

On Sun, 4 Mar 2001 04:44:03 -0500, Ian Dutton AKA
darkpilot@mindspring.com wrote: 

>I really thought that I wouldn't be able to respond to this - mostly because
>I don't want to inflict further damage on the fragile balance that exists
>around C7. Actually, I am rather shocked that no one else has responded up
>to now - maybe these issues are only affecting me, a lone sheep in a pack of
>wolves. 

I think that is because a small portion of the Committee agrees with you.
Roughly _half_ of the subscribers on this list were _consulted_ in one or
two hour conference calls to get their input on the Lisa situation. Not
bullied or imposed upon, consulted.

To be fair, each person felt slightly differently about the Lisa
situation; but without any exception every single person felt that Lisa's
demands were excessive and irrational, and that they should not be
complied with under any circumstances. Most felt that if compromise could
not be reached, she would have to be fired. Some of them were less
passionate about it than I, but others were even more upset and bitter
towards her.

I'm sure half of the Committee doesn't appreciate your metaphor casting
them as wolves. (Even though if one _had_ to be a four footed beastie, a
wolf would be kind of groovy. Owooo!)

As for the remaining half of the Committee, I think many are neutral or
undecided.

>These are issues that I feel I will only have resolved though personal
>contact - personal contact that has been deliberately avoided for weeks. And
>now we have a weather situation that is apparently conspiring to keep a
>meeting from happening.

Meetings haven't been deliberately avoided. I haven't called any meetings
recently, because my own cramped up schedule did not permit me to come
into Manhattan frequently.

At the same time, the enthusiasm for meetings has clearly dwindled to
next-to-nothing. We have rarely had more than six people in attendance,
and recently that dropped off to even lower numbers. 

The last meeting had a turnout of only three persons; Erica, myself, and
Claire. Seemingly, few people gave a damn enough about our Hotel Liaison
to thank her to her face. It became clear that if the trend continued,
I'd be calling meetings and end up being the only attendee. 

Some of this problem, to be fair, is that many of us have conflicting
schedules. That's one of the many reasons why I started working via
phone. Conference calls have all of the speed and inflection of a real
life meeting, but do not require absurd efforts to put people together in
the same place and at the same time.

The requests for meetings only resurged recently, when the situation with
Lisa was coming to a head. I don't think that's coincidental. Before it,
frankly, nobody seemed to give two shits about the meetings but me.

>of. And everyone is the better for it, since everything works smoother when
>we don't have to waste our time by considering differences of opinion or
>fretting over alternative solutions.

Actually, we had reached a point where disagreements about proceedures
and various deadlocks that very little was being accomplished. I'm sure
that with enough time, everyone here can come to a mutually satisfactory
decision on how to proceed. However, this would require Convergence 7 to
be rescheduled for August 17th-19th 2009. 

In an ideal world, we could make everyone happy. We should certainly
strive to. But we also have critical deadlines, and if we run out of time
because of internal disagreements, Convergence 7 simply will not happen.
Anybody who supports that, shouldn't be on this mailing list or involved
with this project.

The most dangerous threat to C7 right now are delays caused by endless
bickering. 

>But see, there I go thinking that this is something other than a
>dictatorship. You see, I'd expect that before we agree to spend more than

Though I try to take as many opinions into account as possible, weighing
the opinions of experts over others, in the end I _am_ the person in
charge. Someone has to be, or nothing ever gets done. This is the way
virtually all large-scale club events are run, many conventions, and
nearly any organization which needs to coordinate a large staff to
accomodate several hundred people. 

It can be abused, but so can democracy. The only reason you think it is
bad, is because right now things are not going your way. Your opinions
are in the minority here anyway, so the democracy argument doesn't have
much weight. The result is the same.

When tending to the Lisa issue, I felt it best to communicate with a
number of alt.gothic.* and Convergence luminaries on how to proceed. I
was told something by one of them, rather like this: "Under no
circumstances a Convergence Chairman should ever have to _negotiate_ with
one of his or her staff in order to get work accomplished." Another told
me: "Your job is that of a benign dictator. You're there to make
Convergence happen, whatever it takes."

>10% of our total budget to fly a headliner band in from Australia, we'd
>discuss it! As a matter of fact, I'd expect that we'd talk about the

I don't agree. Firstly, because it is a courtesy not a requirement.
Secondly, because it is factually untrue-- we are not spending over 10%
of our total budget on any single band.

>I'd expect that I'd be involved in making hotel decisions - especially since
>I demonstrated my interest by being the only person to reply to the concerns
>that people were voicing online, by pressing you for action and news with
>the Warwick, and most convincingly, because I'm on of the only people on the
>committee that has seen the Roosevelt rooms.

The only people who absolutely have to be involved in making hotel
decisions are our Hotel Liaison and the Chairperson. The former is the
only person professionally qualified to assess the hotel, and one of the
major responsibilities of the latter is to evaluate Convergence's needs.

We actually did consult several people about the hotel, but by that point
we really did not have the realistic option of staying at The Warwick.
Our rationale for switching to The Warwick in the first place was
completely gone. The only thing which needed to be decided at that point
was whether to work strictly with The Roosevelt or retain some rooms at
The Warwick as a compromise. I wanted it to be strictly at The Roosevelt,
but mine was the minority opinion and so I acceeded.

>And I think it's disgusting that a key committee member is forced into
>resignation without serious discussion. But I appreciate that you protected
>my sensitive feelings in the matter by trying to leave me totally in the
>dark - imagine, I might have had to think!

The discussions which led to the decision leading to Lisa's departure
were easily the most serious and detailed discussions that have occured
since the proposal itself was created. Our advice was solicited from the
people first and foremost that we considered the most objective. If Lisa
had resigned a couple of days later, you would have been involved. 

>"Seasick"? We're talking about an issue that has the potential to crush C7.
>Seasick is not the term for it. It's certainly not the position any of us
>wanted to be in, but I didn't need to be protected from the reality. And I
>didn't need to be protected from exploring alternatives, either.

Respectfully... some people on this list have demonstrated a propensity
for inflammatory rhetoric and outright hysteria when surmountable
problems appear. That is completely harmful to morale, and otherwise a
waste of time. 

You contradict yourself by saying that you do not need to be protected
from the reality, and then say that you are so physically affected by our
discussions that you are afraid it might impair your flying ability. That
sounds pretty frail to me.

>> feel caught in the middle. She had to make some kind of agreement about
>> her involvement with C7, or she would be asked to resign. Instead, she
>> resigned on her own.
>
>No she didn't. She too consulted with many people, because she felt she had
>a lot to offer C7, and didn't want to turn her back on other people who
>believed in her. I, for one, supported her feeling that she needed to
>dissociate herself from C7 before her private and business life were
>negatively impacted. I have more flexibility, since irresponsible actions
>will have little impact on my business life.

If Lisa expected that her personal and business life would be negatively
impacted by being asked to put the needs of the event before those of her
friends and clients in the planning process, then that's that. We don't
think that was an unreasonable request, but you of course are welcome to
view it however you like.
---

Cliff spin's lisa's departure again:
---
I'm going to discuss what happened to Lisa in as brief a manner possible,
though sadly it cannot be brief. If any of you wish to discuss details,
I'll be happy to.


Lisa was refusing to fulfill her duties as band liaison, in an extreme
manner. Lisa was also exploiting Convergence 7 for the benefit of Projekt
Records and her own self. She manipulated and lied to Committee members
on numerous occasions in order to make this possible.

When it became clear that this was going on and what the consequences
might be, we composed an ultimatum to Lisa, asking her to rectify the
situation or resign. After a period of cryptic silence, she chose the latter.

The following is what has been some of what has been going on in private,
kept offlist to ensure Lisa every possible opportunity to voluntarily
resolve matters, and to minimize embarassment to her and discomfort to
her friends.


EXPLOITATION:

Lisa had been planning on including at least three Projekt bands, and
another which is slated to be a Projekt band by August-- becoming a
fourth Projekt band-- as a part of the official and quasi-official nights
at Convergence 7. Two of those bands were included deceptively. She
threatened to resign if we demanded that she reduce that number.

She also began to select additional bands and models for the fashion show
based solely on her friendships with them and favors owed. The bands were
generally of low quality, and the identities of the fashion show people
were denied to me.

Many experienced people were concerned that if Projekt were involved with
Convergence, they would exploit our festival shamelessly and turn it into
Projektfest 2. We were naive to have dismissed these concerns so
blithely, and I was foolish to defend her character. This is exactly what
was happening.


FALSITY:

Lisa wanted to contractually insist upon four (in some cases three)
complimentary room nights for bands at the official hotel. She insisted
that this was _standard_ at all previous Convergences, even though this
would cost us as much as $5000 as an extra expense in our budget.

I spoke with knowledgeable persons and this claim of hers was a lie. Even
after she was confronted with the impracticality of her demand, she kept
grasping for new rationales for it. One person on the cc list exchange
requested to be removed out of disgust at this point.

This issue alone consumed over one month of our brutalized Convergence
timeline, and was one of the final matters which led to the conclusion of
our working relationship with her.


SUBVERSION:

The first significant element in our Convergence 7 timeline was to secure
contracts for all the major bands. I asked Lisa to begin signing our
initial (3-4) confirmed bands starting one month after the conclusion of
the C7 election. She refused, and insisted that doing so was unimportant
and premature, in spite of my rebuttal that without this a great deal of
my work and that of others could not be timely accomplished.

Over the last several months I asked her for the same, over _fifty_
times. Twice a week by phone usually; sometimes twice a day towards the
end. Each time, she made an excuse for her inability or unwillingness to
begin band contractual matters. When I told her that if she did not
provide some kind of contract for our initial confirmed bands I would go
to someone else, only then did the first draft contracts appear. One
should not have to give people ultimatums to get them to fulfill their
responsibilities in a timely manner.

When bickering over details threatened to slow down the signing of bands
indefinitely, I told her that I needed them immediately or she would be
replaced. She told me that she would meet me the very next morning in
Manhattan (at the Port Authority I think) where I was to sign the
contracts immediately in front of her. She would not be able to meet me
on succeeding days.

Under those circumstances I would not be provided any opportunity to
thoroughly read the finalized contracts before signing them. I am aware
of the dangers of signing contracts that cannot be thoroughly read over,
and so did not.

I, and many on this Committee believe that this foot-dragging was
intentional, since any person in her position would know how incredibly
destructive _any_ delays can be for music festivals. Only recently was I
notified that our probability of obtaining foreign bands is now much more
difficult, because it takes over six months in many cases to provide
working visas for bands. Lisa would have known this, yet kept coming up
with spurious rationales for delays.

Lisa had her own choice for headliner (Mission UK) and was more than
likely attempting to impede progress with major bands, so that we would
have no choice but to turn to her for help. We began to recieve
complaints from various bands that Lisa's delays were making them
anxious, and presumably less willing to perform at C7.


EXPENSES:

Lisa has seemingly claimed that she was just attempting to keep
Convergence 7's expenses down. This is untrue.

Since Lisa left and some decisions in which she took part have been
reversed, I now calculate our C7 expenses in our budget to be well over
ten thousand dollars less than earlier estimates. This is, of course,
subject to changes based on future negotiations-- but this should make it
clear that Lisa's overall influence on C7 was to make the event more
expensive and troubled. (Of course, I am not including the $5000 for band
lodging that was halted.)

As they say, "with friends like these..."



I'm terribly sorry that any of you are being put through this. I am
doubly sorry that some of you who retain social links to Lisa will be
torn. My intentions were to keep this thorny mess from hurting you, or
even her. If the above information had spilled out onto C7_Staff
prematurely, the situation would have been explosive and depressing for
everyone, and would have been resolved no more quickly.
 ---

Ian blows his top:
---
Man, I wish this was all going on in person because I could eat your lunch
with some of the garbage that you're using to deflect what I had hoped might
spur some constructive changes.

I'm not going to respond to all these things point by point - it's just
going to drag the entire process and everyone involved down, and that really
isn't my goal. I'm just going to address one paragraph that I think embodies
the broader picture and issues.


On 3/4/01 2:51 PM, Clifford Hartleigh Low wrote:

> It can be abused, but so can democracy. The only reason you think it is
> bad, is because right now things are not going your way. Your opinions
> are in the minority here anyway, so the democracy argument doesn't have
> much weight. The result is the same.

What is my opinion, and what things aren't going my way? I've been kept in
the dark so much - and why is that? - that I've been unable to have an
opinion. *I* was the one that said we need to have a meeting - because of
the total silence (at least, as far as I knew) about the hotel issues. It
was only very recently that I had an idea that anything was amiss with Lisa
- again, conveniently, I'd been kept in the dark.

Cliff: yes, I consider Lisa a good friend. We've known each other for years.
But we don't hang out together (other than at the rare C7 meeting), and
until this week, I didn't even have her phone number. On the other hand, I
see you more frequently, I have visited you at your house and know what your
phone number is. Why does it seem that you've assumed that I would pick
sides, and totally excluded me on that basis? Even now, I am trying to see
how you arrived at a decision that we'd be best off by alienating Lisa - I
think I need to see you in person to do that - but there are specific items
in your "Why there's no more Lisa" letter that I know to be untrue because I
witnessed them. There are other issues that I have heard from Lisa, but I'm
trying not to give them as much weight until I hear "the other side".

I recognize that I'm the only one responding to any of these issues. Thus my
sheep-with-wolves metaphor - I feel like I'm the only one that thinks this
"committee" has been pushed out onto thin ice. For that reason, if no one
else has such concerns, I suppose this should be handled off-list (or
preferably, in person).

For all the conference calls that you herald, I have received exactly 0
calls from anyone (until Lisa called, faced with expulsion). I suppose a
conference call is great - unless you're excluded.

"Your opinions are in the minority here anyway". Since I haven't been
blessed with inclusion, *I* haven't fully formed my opinions, so why don't
you just let me know what my opinions are? And what makes you think that
they are in a minority? Who got a chance to vote? Apparently, not me or Shea
or Winter - but maybe the silence of the rest of the list indicates that
everyone else had the chance to have an input.

"Your opinions are in the minority here anyway". Maybe you implied a deeper
message by that. 
---

Carrie is called in to support cliff's position:
---
At 07:00 PM 3/4/01 -0500, you wrote:

What is my opinion, and what things aren't going my way? I've been kept in
the dark so much - and why is that? - that I've been unable to have an
opinion. *I* was the one that said we need to have a meeting - because of
the total silence (at least, as far as I knew) about the hotel issues. It
was only very recently that I had an idea that anything was amiss with Lisa
- again, conveniently, I'd been kept in the dark.

What does the transportation committee need to know?  Who is to be transported, where, and when.  We've all known when for a while now.  We know the better part of where, and the rest can't be answered yet, so it's not like you're being kept in the dark deliberately.  We also know the better part of the who, and what we don't know is because the bands were held up, which let's say was maybe half Lisa's and half Cliff's fault, because there are two sides to every story.  It still wouldn't have helped you get your job done any quicker to know about the holdup.

So, you've been receiving the information that you need to do your job as quickly as it comes out, as far as I can see.  So have I, which has actually been just about jack-all so far, because I'm an editor and there's nothing to edit yet but a few e-mails.  But I know very well that the situation won't be helped by my interference in which bands are picked, or which hotel, or on staffing matters, or on any other issue that isn't my specialty.  Please try to stay calm.  This is why God gave us organizations in the first place.
---

Jen chimes in with her disgust just before her dismissal:
---

well well. i was holding off responding to most of this anymosity, so i can
set out my feelers for that "other side" of the story, and because cliff had
mentioned either calling me/including me on a conference call, or something,
but since i never heard from him....

my "involvement" here: although i remain a relatively "quiet" committee
member, and am just as busy and preoccupied with other things, as all of you
are, i was still pretty enthusiasic about being ON a committee, and must
have had an entirely different definition of it when i came on board. it
looks like now the "committee" is being defined by "lets see what each of
you can bring to the table, use you for it, and if you say anything to
debate it, then off you go".

i am incredibly ticked off about what happened to lisa, and the blurry,
un-detailed explanation that was used to cover it up. as venue laison, i was
excited to work with her, knowing she would do what she needed to do
effectively and professionally, and trusted her experience. i mean, she
PERFORMED at irving, she knows the production staff, she was clear and aware
of all technical matters, and no one would really handle it better than she.
i know that her heart was in the right place, and even more so in a
REALISTIC place, with her concern for budgeting/bands/hospitality. i never
doubted her abilities, nor would i think she could possibly scrounge a
reason to do anything against convergence (why?) or just promote projekt (i
believe the label is doing pretty damn well independently, and for
chrissakes, they will have their own festival to worry about).  and yeah,
she's my friend, and i am not just taking "sides" because really, i worked
at irving for four years, and rarely did i meet people like her, nevermind
respect them. if i had never met lisa, i would be happy to be working with
her in particular for the stuff we had to work together on this
"committee",and i find it just outright hilarious that no one would contact
me/the list to consider how i/we would feel about these pretty severe
"problems" with her.  i think that we just lost one of the biggest assets we
had for this festival, and there really isn't a very good excuse for it.

speaking of excuses, i now have to explain to irving why lisa will not be
associated with the festival, and boy, i really don't want to mention to
them about how much it is in the toilet right now. they'll worry, and ask
about my biggest concern: funding. money. there is not a helluva lot of talk
about money, and i want irving to get paid. on time. there is a $1000
deposit down right now. we have to get them a 50% deposit by may. i am
thinking right now, that if we are so made of money, why not get them 100%
by then? i'd hate to sound threatening, but hell, i feel threatened. i would
like to address this in the meeting tomorrow. i by no means want to screw
convergence, or anyone over, but i would like to tighten these strings,
because really, if things are going to happen this abruptly, and so
immaturely, well, i will have to voice this concern.  and i want this done,
and am thinking a lot about distancing myself from much more activity on the
festival front.


> I think that is because a small portion of the Committee agrees with you.
> Roughly _half_ of the subscribers on this list were _consulted_ in one or
> two hour conference calls to get their input on the Lisa situation. Not
> bullied or imposed upon, consulted.

why only half? were these members that were not prone to hear lisa's side of
the story, and to be convinced of yours? why wasn't i "consulted"?? i would
have to communicate with her / anyone else in her position quite a bit. and,
let's not leave out my relationship to the venue, the music industry...

i just don't get why some members and not others. ok, maybe not everyone
will have to work with lisa to do what they are doing, but i don't think it
is wrong to say that she and her experience would have been extremely
helpful to the festival, and most members know her if not of her.
 
> To be fair, each person felt slightly differently about the Lisa
> situation; but without any exception every single person felt that Lisa's
> demands were excessive and irrational, and that they should not be
> complied with under any circumstances. Most felt that if compromise could
> not be reached, she would have to be fired. Some of them were less
> passionate about it than I, but others were even more upset and bitter
> towards her.

who are you talking about? i mean, i don't need to hear names, and i do
believe that everyone is entitled to an opinion, but of course, those
opinions should really be formed on facts presented to them. facts. and i
hate calling them "demands"--they were professional suggestions, and
although she did back down and try to negotiate she is made out to be evil
and vindictive. she can't even defend herself now, being that she is taken
off these lists.

> As for the remaining half of the Committee, I think many are neutral or
> undecided.
> 

or busy. or waiting. or confused. or just completely alienated.

> 
> It can be abused, but so can democracy. The only reason you think it is
> bad, is because right now things are not going your way. Your opinions
> are in the minority here anyway, so the democracy argument doesn't have
> much weight. The result is the same.
> 
this was the real kicker for me.  i am guilty of not being terribly active
on the committee or on the discussions, but i was pretty damn pleasant about
providing a relationship with irving plaza, getting a hell of a discount for
two nights, working on getting the roxy for the third night, and in one way
or another providing some design work that i don't have much time to even
do.  and finding out about how this is all falling apart, taking advantage
of lisa, and not even considering my/other members' "minority" opinions is a
bit disheartening, wouldn't you agree?
---

Cliff continues:
---

On Sun, 4 Mar 2001 19:00:08 -0500, Ian Dutton AKA
darkpilot@mindspring.com wrote: 

>Man, I wish this was all going on in person because I could eat your lunch
>with some of the garbage that you're using to deflect what I had hoped might
>spur some constructive changes.

In any case, let us proceed.

>phone number is. Why does it seem that you've assumed that I would pick
>sides, and totally excluded me on that basis? Even now, I am trying to see
>how you arrived at a decision that we'd be best off by alienating Lisa - I

Actually, what you percieve as dismissal or conspiracy was much less dramatic.

The Lisa situation sneaked up on me personally. At first I had doubts
whether there was even something to be concerned about. I contacted two
Committee people that have been in constant contact with me, and have
been dedicating almost all of their free time to C7. I asked their
confidential opinions because they had been contacted by Lisa directly,
and both were upset about Lisa's behavior. I was actually surprised that
I got such a strong reaction, and then contacted a few more people to see
if it had been just a fluke.

These conference calls were often three hours in sequence, two long
distance phone calls at once going on my bill. We did as much as we could
each day. Jen Ellerson was the next person to be called when Lisa
actually resigned, and I think either Macross or you were the one to
follow. There was no predetermined order or schedule per se, but I was
kind of reluctant to involve friends of Lisa in anything this unpleasant
until there was feedback from a lot of other people first. Only if this
appeared to be a significant issue to many people, did I feel that it
justified foisting this (obviously very troubling) burden on them as well.

Most of the people who I discussed this with during those conference
calls wanted to give Lisa every possible chance to voluntarily fix the
problems, and putting her on the spot by starting a spontaneous mock
trial onlist didn't seem like the way to go about it.  

If I had done as you suggest and went straight to the list with these
concerns directly, the result would have been fairly pyrotechnic. If I
had done as you now suggest, right now various people would be taking me
to task why I was trying to humiliate Lisa in public and stir up drama
onlist. People would have been very angry that I had not handled the
matter discreetly, consulting with a few calm minds offlist before
providing this forum a tornado of trouble.

Ian, doing it any other way would have probably been just as unsatisfying
to Lisa's friends on the staff.

>"Your opinions are in the minority here anyway". Since I haven't been
>blessed with inclusion, *I* haven't fully formed my opinions, so why don't
>you just let me know what my opinions are? And what makes you think that

I think that the assertion that your comments are not opinionated is...
uh... wow. Not very plausible.

If I tell you my perspective, it is deception. If I withhold, it is
conspiracy. If I become angry, it is inflammatory. If I distance myself
to remain calm, I am unsensitive to your concerns. If I tell people my
gripes, I am a malign rumormonger. If I keep them to myself, I become a
cipher. And so on...

Did you ever visit my Randomized Rumor Generator? You're beginning to
sound like you're buying into that kind of mentality. Just because I and
you don't agree doesn't mean that I'm a cornucopia of vileness. Please
don't blame the bad weather on me either. (I don't think you're Satan...
please do me and Ultimate Evil the courtesy of getting our identities
straight, too. I look simply terrible in red jumpsuits, I assure you.)

If you want to discuss things with me in order to work things out,
excellent. But if you're just looking for someone to be angry at, I don't
know how to proceed with you. I have better things to do than dole out
the majority of my time writing email arguments; I'm sorry it's gone this
far. We need to get Convergence rolling and not spend another month or
more arguing over Lisa and procedures.

---

Carrin is compelled to chime in:
---

Staff,

I have been unable to respond to much of the malarky going on on this list,
but it's time.  I just hope that my opinions and comments are not considered
cruel and unusual punishment to all who do not bow down to Clifford the
Terrible's wishes and demands.

I am offended deeply by the comment, "lone sheep in a pack of wolves".  This
implies that the sheep is helpless, and the wolves are out to eat him.  I
take this personally, and since I don't think myself to be a sheep, I would
consider this comment to refer to me as a wolf.  If that were the case, if
such a sheep existed, he would have never been chosen to be a part of this
committee.  The people that were selected for the Committee were all chosen
because they obviously had something significant to offer, and were believed
to be above the typical scene dramatics and beliefs.  If anyone on this
committee feels helpless, feels as if I am out to eat you, it is your
responsibility to come to me with that concern instead of using this forum
to rally sympathy.  As anybody should do with any other member of this
forum, be it the chairman, the spokesperson, the travel coordinator, the
editor, etc...

I am floored by the idea that the general feeling of Lisa's departure is
that we will fall apart now, that the glue/cement that held this entire
production together has now officially been "canned" and nothing will
proceed further.  This is insulting.  Lisa's departure is a significant loss
on many levels.  But we will not fall apart, Convergence 7 will happen.  By
considering that Lisa was the only thing holding this entire endeavor
together you are not only belittling me and the other members of the staff,
but you are belittling yourselves.

I don't know about everyone else, but I put 90% of my spare time into C7.  I
don't have a life outside of my office job, my part-time job and C7.  I
haven't seen my friends in weeks and my husband has started to look forward
to August with much anticipation because after this is done, I will be back
to living my life with him and not just my computer.

Contrary to popular belief, Cliff and I disagree A LOT!!  We argue often
about decisions to be made, we turn those arguements into discussions and
come to a mutual agreement.  Sometimes I don't get what I want, but I don't
complain about it because I know that I have made my opionion heard, and
that Cliff has made a decision based on many other factors than just my own.
It's not easy, but it is fair!

Cliff listens to me for many reasons. I assume one of the biggest is because
I am here most the time.  Also because I _DO_ question him about everything.
Because I _DO_ voice my opinions.  But the important thing to take out of
this is that Cliff listens to others WAY more than anyone here seems to
believe.  Not everything going on right now has been a conspiracy against a
small few.

Logistically, the last few weeks have SUCKED!  Many major factors have come
to a head.  We've had some pretty significant details to attend to, and
including everyone was impossible.  We've had to act quickly, and work
toward getting them solved.  On top of handling all the other things we're
supposed to be doing normally.

The Hotel:  There isn't too much we can do about the hotel decision.  It
couldn't be brought up for discussion.  We have 800-1000 people coming to NY
in August, A LARGE NUMBER of whom want to share rooms!  The Warwick was
misleading about the occupancy issues, that oversight was not a fault of
anyone!  But now we are left to fix it.  There isn't another option, unless
someone here wants to take over that responsibility??  Anyone here want to
volunteer to start from the very beginning on the hotel front????  I can
promise you that you won't find any better options, I spent an entire day
doing online research on hotels.  There are very few that actually have the
occupancy + public spaces all in one that we need for Convergence.  We are
going to keep a block of rooms at The Warwick for those who would prefer
that type of space (I'd like to point out that Cliff was against this idea,
but what do ya' know, he listened to some other people about it??  wow). But
the larger block of rooms will be at The Roosevelt, and the public events
(including the ball) will be at The Roosevelt.  Period.

Lisa:  I am sad to see Lisa go, but as for Clifford's actions in regards to
handling the Lisa situation.  Cliff did what he thought was the best at the
time, and I stand behind him.  I am not basing my opinions on JUST what
Cliff told me, I'm not that naive, and the implication that I may be easily
swayed by anyone is disheartening at best.  I felt like the situation was
being dragged out and the choice on how to proceed was fair.  Not only did I
listen to Cliff, I barraded him with questions, asked for proof on every
questionable issue, reviewed my own exchanges and told him exactly how I
felt about everything.

I am also overwrought by the idea that anyone would assume that having a
Committee that consisted of only New Yorkers would work better!  I know from
living there, making committments of this kind is hard to impossible.

There have been plenty of opportunities for people to volunteer to take over
some duties and assist others with their selective jobs.  In doing so, you
create a better platform for your voice to be heard on certain issues.  But
in reality, very seldom has anyone stepped up to the plate.  I realize we
all have lives, we have personal responsibilities, and that this is a
volunteer effort.  But it can't be treated like a hobby, the committment
level must be greater.

I'd like to point out that one of the people who has stayed the most
neutral, worked diligently without delays, without attitude, consistently,
is one who doesn't live in NY, and isn't even technically a staff