Hey, sports fans! Well, the time is here—we’re about ready to kick off the official home stretch for the 2004 convention!

For those who haven’t been paying attention, AONE will be hosting the 2004 AROC National Convention in Manchester, NH next July 28-August 1. A lot of people have already put in a lot of effort to lay a firm foundation and, as of now, we’ve got the convention center, hotel, track, and other considerations lined up.

But now it’s time to being work on the million little details that will either make for a great convention—or a flop. We already have a few members who have signed up to own the major venues:

We obviously need more—the rally needs an owner, and we’ve got to cover trophies, the pinewood derby, banquet planning, sponsors, and many other facets. And each area will need many more folks helping to plan and carry them off than just the names listed here.

With that in mind, we’re going to have a ‘final stretch’ kickoff meeting. Right now, the date for that is set for Tuesday evening, October 28th, and we’re trying to secure a small room at the Manchester Convention Center (our Convention site) to have it in. The plan is to meet up there, perhaps late afternoon, take a walk around the facilities, grab some dinner, and hold our discussion.

Speaking of which: Joel and Linda Edinburg will be our special guests for that evening. Joel and Linda have chaired conventions themselves, and acted as advisors to something like seven convention committees. They have prepared a list of things for us to plan for, and would like to take an hour or two to go over that in gory detail.

It would be great to have as many of you as possible at this meeting—show up and take ownership of something! The more hands, the less each has to do to make this convention a success.

We have an active convention mailing list on Yahoogroups.com—contact me at bshorey@cisco.com if you’d like to join. Watch that list and the AONE mailing list for final details on the October 28th meeting, email me directly, or call me at 978-973-0879 (email is preferred). If you can’t make that date, then contact me with your interests—you don’t have to be there to sign up for something.