Appreciate Your Symposium

[Barbara Gill]

Yesterday I gained an appreciation for those packets of material provided to Symposium goers. I never counted the number of sheets of paper but I would guess there are at least 18-20 different pieces of information in those envelopes you will receive. About 15 of us including 3 AAW staff members worked all day assembling I would guess almost 2,000 packets. We worked from 8:30am to around 4:00 in the afternoon with an hour off for lunch.

That of course does not include the time others spent accepting, storing, and transporting goodness knows how many boxes of flyers, AAW merchandise, envelopes, etc. etc. etc. to the Symposium site. The packet stuffing is just one little part of the planning/implementation process.

I hope that all of us know that thousands of hours are spent preparing for this event but appreciating how much organization and work there really is overwhelming.

Be sure to thank all the AAW Staff and volunteers you see in Richmond; they deserve it. Also, before any of us start complaining about something that we find not to our liking, we need to reflect on what we liked and the many people who made it possible for us to have a Symposium.

 

[Matthew Clarke]

Barbara - well stated. Thanks!

 

[Charlie Knighton]

well said, see ya in Richmond Barbara 😀

 

[Ron Sardo]

This is not to discount all the great work you folks did.

A good copy shop (as in not Kinkos) could copy, collate and stuff a job like this in one day using one person, and the extra cost would probably be less than the cost of lunch for those 15 people.

Food for thought for the next Symposium. You could use those 15 folks for all the other important tasks at hand.

 

[Barbara Gill]

This is not to discount all the great work you folks did.

A good copy shop (as in not Kinkos) could copy, collate and stuff a job like this in one day using one person, and the extra cost would probably be less than the cost of lunch for those 15 people.

Food for thought for the next Symposium. You could use those 15 folks for all the other important tasks at hand.

I am not completely familiar with the ability of any shop to collate a booklet, brochures from different vendors, many different size papers, and a CD then put each unit in an envelope with the person's name on it. These organizers are not novices at what they are doing. Plus it didn't cost them anything for lunch; we did get a t-shirt though.

 

[Ron Sardo]

I never counted the number of sheets of paper but I would guess there are at least 18-20 different pieces of information in those envelopes you will receive.

I am not completely familiar with the ability of any shop to collate a booklet, brochures from different vendors, many different size papers, and a CD then put each unit in an envelope with the person's name on it. These organizers are not novices at what they are doing. Plus it didn't cost them anything for lunch; we did get a t-shirt though.

Look, I'm not trying to argue, I'm just trying to help.

In your first post you said sheets, what you described in your second post is different.

There are companies who do jobs like you described in your second post, they are called mail houses. The bigger ones can easily handle 100M personalized packets/mailings daily with different sized components from different vendors. Companies like mine could kick out 2M of the packets you described in your second post in a day. As I'm sure you know, it is a whole lot easier if you have the right equipment and experience.

I'm not looking for business, companies like this are in every city. It would be best to use a one that is within driving distance of the Symposium to keep delivery costs down.

Also, my comment about lunch was meant as "tongue in cheek" remark as to the extra cost.

Have a good day Barbara, I hope you have a good time at the event. I'm sure everyone appreciates the work you have done. I apologize for ruffling your feathers.

 

[Steve Worcester]

The vendors are invited (for a fee) to have an insert in the syposium packages and that is where the multiples come into play. They send them to the symposium so the volunteers can stuff.

We do appreciate your help though.

 

[Barbara Gill]

LOL you didn't ruffle my feathers. In my original post the point was not to accurately describe the contents of the packets, just to give an appreciation for one of the small jobs.

I really think the cost of the t-shirts was probably less than the commercial cost of having the packets done plus there is a lot of the organization that I was not part of so I don't know if it would be better or not to do it differently. I do feel confident that if there was a better way it probably would have been done by now, especially since it has been done for so many years.

 

[Ron Sardo]

The vendors are invited (for a fee) to have an insert in the syposium packages and that is where the multiples come into play. They send them to the symposium so the volunteers can stuff.

We do appreciate your help though.

That's called marriage mailing, quite common.

 

[Steve Worcester]

That's called marriage mailing, quite common.

I thought that was only allowed in California and some East Coast states. Do we have to take this conversation to the back porch now?

 

[Richard Baker]

Barbara,
Good work by you and all the dedicated volunteers! Unfortunately I won't be there, but made it to the '06 SWAT symposium (roughly half the size of AAW's), and was hugely impressed by the enormous amount of organization, coordination, and plain hard work it must have required.

 

[Ron Sardo]

I thought that was only allowed in California and some East Coast states. Do we have to take this conversation to the back porch now?

LOL 😀
Good One!

 

[Angelo]

Committee Work

Jeesh! It's a tremendous amount of work, If you know of a better way to handle it at less cost the Board is always interested, SO while at the symposium look up a board member tell us what you know. Better yet , Ron Sardo, would you like to head the Packet Stuffing committee next year?
;-)
Angelo

 

[Ron Sardo]

As I said before Angelo, I wasn't looking for business. It's best to use a company that is closest to the Symposium. But if you are interested in hiring my company to do the work, just PM me.

(BTW, I'm still here in PA)