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The Apolyton Convention of 2006.
The Apolyton Convention.
Thanks to the heroic efforts of Mark and Dan, as well as the many legions of assistants, moderators, map-developers, scenario designers, interviewers, and a whole host of other, unpaid, work, the Apolyton Civilization Site has been together for seven years, almost an eternity for a fan supported site. Many of us have developed friendships here, a lot of us have taken the effort to meet – however it is time to do more, to gather en masse.
I am offering to arrange and lead a 2-3 day convention/meeting of Apolytoners to Hunt Valley, MD in the summer of 2006. Hunt Valley is north of Baltimore, but more importantly it is the home of Firaxis Games and Sid Meier. The year-long gap makes it far easier for us to coordinate our schedules regardless of current situation.
If people are receptive to the idea, we will need to pull together on a few things over the next year, the most important setting up a meeting/Q&A session with Sid Meier and friends, and possibly a tour of the company. Their participation is crucial to a successful convention/meeting, and I think that not only can they do it, I even bet they will feel a little honored if we took the effort to go meet them. I’ll be glad to lead the discussions about a time/date, but I would like for them to receive a heads up from a name they know before I go off and just cold call/email Maryland.
We absolutely must have Mark and/or Dan come down and to ensure this I will set up a fund to defray their travel expenses. At the very least, we should scrounge up enough to pay for Mark’s plane ticket and Dan’s gas/plane ticket, but I’d also like to help them with their rooms as well.
Which brings up an important point: this isn’t going to be cheap (another reason I’m thinking a year to prepare is appropriate.) I haven’t done any shopping, but I would expect that to participate you should expect to lay out a minimum of $600 (and more like $800) for hotel (our biggest variable cost – this could be from $40/night-$150/night depending upon our group rate), travel (~$200), food (~$150), beer ($50-300?), Apolyton merchandise (we’ll all have to have a cap or T-shirt from the store), donations, possible fees and other expenses. My advice? Start saving now. Even you high schoolers have a year to work over mom and dad – I’ll be glad to talk to them if you want.
We should discuss whether families are included or not – personally, I can go either way but I prefer us Apolytoners only as wives and kids put a serious damper on the drinking and partying that is so crucial to making this a success. I have some other ideas that we’ll talk about later (if this gets rolling that is), but way too many to go into this post.
I have started a Google group, http://groups-beta.google.com/group/Apolyton-Meeting-2006/browse_thread/thread/8f174a5022527a73?tvc=2&hl=en] Apolyton Meeting 2006[/url], where all discussion about the convention will take place – unless The Powers decide to open a forum here, in which case I’ll close the Google group and we’ll discuss the convention there. To join the Google group PM me so I can send you an invitation.
I really hope we can get our **** together and pull this off – it would be great to have 50, 100+ people come together for a 3 day party. We won’t have to spend our time dealing with Civilization – since we’ll meet in the Baltimore/DC area, we can take a day to go to the Smithsonian or the Orioles/Nationals, or something like that. I’m excited – this could be a fuggin’ blast if we pull it off.
Comments, suggestions, “where do I sign up?”
Thanks to the heroic efforts of Mark and Dan, as well as the many legions of assistants, moderators, map-developers, scenario designers, interviewers, and a whole host of other, unpaid, work, the Apolyton Civilization Site has been together for seven years, almost an eternity for a fan supported site. Many of us have developed friendships here, a lot of us have taken the effort to meet – however it is time to do more, to gather en masse.
I am offering to arrange and lead a 2-3 day convention/meeting of Apolytoners to Hunt Valley, MD in the summer of 2006. Hunt Valley is north of Baltimore, but more importantly it is the home of Firaxis Games and Sid Meier. The year-long gap makes it far easier for us to coordinate our schedules regardless of current situation.
If people are receptive to the idea, we will need to pull together on a few things over the next year, the most important setting up a meeting/Q&A session with Sid Meier and friends, and possibly a tour of the company. Their participation is crucial to a successful convention/meeting, and I think that not only can they do it, I even bet they will feel a little honored if we took the effort to go meet them. I’ll be glad to lead the discussions about a time/date, but I would like for them to receive a heads up from a name they know before I go off and just cold call/email Maryland.
We absolutely must have Mark and/or Dan come down and to ensure this I will set up a fund to defray their travel expenses. At the very least, we should scrounge up enough to pay for Mark’s plane ticket and Dan’s gas/plane ticket, but I’d also like to help them with their rooms as well.
Which brings up an important point: this isn’t going to be cheap (another reason I’m thinking a year to prepare is appropriate.) I haven’t done any shopping, but I would expect that to participate you should expect to lay out a minimum of $600 (and more like $800) for hotel (our biggest variable cost – this could be from $40/night-$150/night depending upon our group rate), travel (~$200), food (~$150), beer ($50-300?), Apolyton merchandise (we’ll all have to have a cap or T-shirt from the store), donations, possible fees and other expenses. My advice? Start saving now. Even you high schoolers have a year to work over mom and dad – I’ll be glad to talk to them if you want.
We should discuss whether families are included or not – personally, I can go either way but I prefer us Apolytoners only as wives and kids put a serious damper on the drinking and partying that is so crucial to making this a success. I have some other ideas that we’ll talk about later (if this gets rolling that is), but way too many to go into this post.
I have started a Google group, http://groups-beta.google.com/group/Apolyton-Meeting-2006/browse_thread/thread/8f174a5022527a73?tvc=2&hl=en] Apolyton Meeting 2006[/url], where all discussion about the convention will take place – unless The Powers decide to open a forum here, in which case I’ll close the Google group and we’ll discuss the convention there. To join the Google group PM me so I can send you an invitation.
I really hope we can get our **** together and pull this off – it would be great to have 50, 100+ people come together for a 3 day party. We won’t have to spend our time dealing with Civilization – since we’ll meet in the Baltimore/DC area, we can take a day to go to the Smithsonian or the Orioles/Nationals, or something like that. I’m excited – this could be a fuggin’ blast if we pull it off.
Comments, suggestions, “where do I sign up?”