Tonopah Staff Weekend: Saturday Meeting
Jul. 10th, 2021 09:19 pmToday was the actual meeting day for the Westercon 74 Committee/Staff Meeting in Tonopah. I realized at the end of the day that I was so busy during most of it that I forgot to take a picture of us actually meeting except during breakfast.
( Breakfast in the Jack Dempsey Room )
The general manager of the Mizpah/Belvada complex (and several related properties like the Mizpah Club Casino) met us after breakfast and showed us around the Mizpah Hotel, including one of the sleeping rooms and the boardroom, then took us to the Mizpah Club, which has a 150-seat function room located on the upper floor above the casino and the A&W restaurant. (Linked photos are from an earlier visit Lisa and I made to look at the facilities.)
Crossing the street, we went to the Belvada Hotel and examined their single function room, the Nevada Club, located on the ground floor. This is a nice room that looks out onto the street and has an entrance from the ramp into the Belvada's side door and also from inside the hotel. Again, I was in a hurry — Lisa had at that point already borrowed a cart to move our gear including her camera and my computers (and a case of bottled water we brought with us) to the Tonopah Convention Center.
We thanked the GM for his time and walked the one short block to the TCC, where we looked around the building, and as much as I could, I explained how I think we will be able to use it. I was pleased at how many people could finally see what we've been talking about. It's one thing to look at pictures and entirely another to walk the site.
As our planned start time of 11 AM neared, the team repaired to the Blue Room. (Again, the photo is from an earlier trip. I was run off my feet and forgot to take photos.) Lisa and I worked to get her camera attached to my computer using the BlackMagic adapter, which takes the inputs from her video camera and makes them look like a webcam. I was able to plug my computer into the convention center's system through a TCC-supplied HDMI cable and project the meeting onto the built-in screen and play the sound through the TCC room speakers. We had a bit of a hitch where we didn't seem to be getting the signal, but Rick Kovalcik pointed out to Lisa, who had been rather rushed trying to get things put back together, that she had swapped a connection on the BlackMagic box. This was a quick fix, and we managed to get the Zoom meeting started on time (barely), with some of our members unable to attend in person joining remotely. This is close to "field conditions" for that actual convention, for this is the room where we plan to hold "hybrid" programming, with both in-person and online members participating in panels at both participants and viewers.
Our plan was to have two 2-hour sessions, with a 90-minute lunch break between them. Some of our attendees, both in person and online, could only attend one session or the other, so the topics were organized based on schedules. I was quite impressed with how well our committee was able to stay focused and not digress. We were done with the first session after only 90 minutes, so we went ahead and adjourned, allowing most people to go get lunch. Some of our committee who are also senior committee members of DisCon III had a DC3 meeting scheduled during our lunch break, and we had arranged to allow them to use our meeting room and equipment while the rest of us went off for a longer-than-expected lunch break. The early recess allowed the DC3 folks to go get take-out while some of us stayed in the meeting room to cover the stuff people had left in the room, including of course Lisa's camera. After the DC3 people came back with their lunch and tapped into our cameras and got things working, those of us not part of their meeting left them to their meeting and got our own take-out meals. Bruce and Lea Farr along with Lisa and I did not go out with any of the lunch groups. I got A&W take out and the four of us ate our lunch in one of the other unused conference rooms. (We cleaned up the room before we left. I sprayed the table down with disinfectant from the adjacent TCC kitchen.)
Around 3 PM, the DC3 meeting broke up and the rest of the Westercon 74 committee came back from their various lunch expeditions around the town. We reconvened and went through the rest of the agenda. Again, we managed to stay focused and finished nearly an hour early, allowing people to go back to their hotels to check their messages, get some rest, or whatever. It was a very productive meeting, I think, but the biggest part of it was that there are now more than a dozen Westercon 74 committee/staff members who have seen our facilities and walked through them and now have a better idea of how the parts (even the more unconventional ones like putting Operations in the rear convention center bar because it's the only place we appear to have enough space) are going to fit together.
We disassembled the gear, tidied up the function room, and moved out. I went back down to the Belvada and borrowed one of their luggage carts so we could move our gear back to our hotel room, and called our contact with the Convention Center to tell her that she could come lock up, and we thanked her for taking the time to work with us.
Some of our members had to head for home after the morning session, in order to get back home. Most of the rest of us gathered in the lovely lobby of the Belvada Hotel at 7 PM and went for dinner in the Pittman Cafe of the Mizpah Hotel. The restaurant staff coped well with a group of 11 people, and we tipped accordingly. Lisa and I both had fish and chips, and as we were still hungry when we got back to our hotel room, we heated up the leftovers from the Tonopah Brewing Company in the microwave in the room for a late snack.
It's time to head for home tomorrow, but some of us have online commitments on Sunday morning, so we probably won't get out of here until Noon tomorrow. Lisa and I will be taking![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lindadee back to Reno to catch her flight back to Seattle.
I again apologize for not doing a better job of documenting today's visit. I hope that more of our members will post their own photos and reports on their own social media.
( Breakfast in the Jack Dempsey Room )
The general manager of the Mizpah/Belvada complex (and several related properties like the Mizpah Club Casino) met us after breakfast and showed us around the Mizpah Hotel, including one of the sleeping rooms and the boardroom, then took us to the Mizpah Club, which has a 150-seat function room located on the upper floor above the casino and the A&W restaurant. (Linked photos are from an earlier visit Lisa and I made to look at the facilities.)
Crossing the street, we went to the Belvada Hotel and examined their single function room, the Nevada Club, located on the ground floor. This is a nice room that looks out onto the street and has an entrance from the ramp into the Belvada's side door and also from inside the hotel. Again, I was in a hurry — Lisa had at that point already borrowed a cart to move our gear including her camera and my computers (and a case of bottled water we brought with us) to the Tonopah Convention Center.
We thanked the GM for his time and walked the one short block to the TCC, where we looked around the building, and as much as I could, I explained how I think we will be able to use it. I was pleased at how many people could finally see what we've been talking about. It's one thing to look at pictures and entirely another to walk the site.
As our planned start time of 11 AM neared, the team repaired to the Blue Room. (Again, the photo is from an earlier trip. I was run off my feet and forgot to take photos.) Lisa and I worked to get her camera attached to my computer using the BlackMagic adapter, which takes the inputs from her video camera and makes them look like a webcam. I was able to plug my computer into the convention center's system through a TCC-supplied HDMI cable and project the meeting onto the built-in screen and play the sound through the TCC room speakers. We had a bit of a hitch where we didn't seem to be getting the signal, but Rick Kovalcik pointed out to Lisa, who had been rather rushed trying to get things put back together, that she had swapped a connection on the BlackMagic box. This was a quick fix, and we managed to get the Zoom meeting started on time (barely), with some of our members unable to attend in person joining remotely. This is close to "field conditions" for that actual convention, for this is the room where we plan to hold "hybrid" programming, with both in-person and online members participating in panels at both participants and viewers.
Our plan was to have two 2-hour sessions, with a 90-minute lunch break between them. Some of our attendees, both in person and online, could only attend one session or the other, so the topics were organized based on schedules. I was quite impressed with how well our committee was able to stay focused and not digress. We were done with the first session after only 90 minutes, so we went ahead and adjourned, allowing most people to go get lunch. Some of our committee who are also senior committee members of DisCon III had a DC3 meeting scheduled during our lunch break, and we had arranged to allow them to use our meeting room and equipment while the rest of us went off for a longer-than-expected lunch break. The early recess allowed the DC3 folks to go get take-out while some of us stayed in the meeting room to cover the stuff people had left in the room, including of course Lisa's camera. After the DC3 people came back with their lunch and tapped into our cameras and got things working, those of us not part of their meeting left them to their meeting and got our own take-out meals. Bruce and Lea Farr along with Lisa and I did not go out with any of the lunch groups. I got A&W take out and the four of us ate our lunch in one of the other unused conference rooms. (We cleaned up the room before we left. I sprayed the table down with disinfectant from the adjacent TCC kitchen.)
Around 3 PM, the DC3 meeting broke up and the rest of the Westercon 74 committee came back from their various lunch expeditions around the town. We reconvened and went through the rest of the agenda. Again, we managed to stay focused and finished nearly an hour early, allowing people to go back to their hotels to check their messages, get some rest, or whatever. It was a very productive meeting, I think, but the biggest part of it was that there are now more than a dozen Westercon 74 committee/staff members who have seen our facilities and walked through them and now have a better idea of how the parts (even the more unconventional ones like putting Operations in the rear convention center bar because it's the only place we appear to have enough space) are going to fit together.
We disassembled the gear, tidied up the function room, and moved out. I went back down to the Belvada and borrowed one of their luggage carts so we could move our gear back to our hotel room, and called our contact with the Convention Center to tell her that she could come lock up, and we thanked her for taking the time to work with us.
Some of our members had to head for home after the morning session, in order to get back home. Most of the rest of us gathered in the lovely lobby of the Belvada Hotel at 7 PM and went for dinner in the Pittman Cafe of the Mizpah Hotel. The restaurant staff coped well with a group of 11 people, and we tipped accordingly. Lisa and I both had fish and chips, and as we were still hungry when we got back to our hotel room, we heated up the leftovers from the Tonopah Brewing Company in the microwave in the room for a late snack.
It's time to head for home tomorrow, but some of us have online commitments on Sunday morning, so we probably won't get out of here until Noon tomorrow. Lisa and I will be taking
lindadee back to Reno to catch her flight back to Seattle.I again apologize for not doing a better job of documenting today's visit. I hope that more of our members will post their own photos and reports on their own social media.
