American Atheists Conference - March 21-23, 2008

[Steven]

It appears I have a test on the 20th, but it's from 10:00 to 11:15 so it might not be a problem.

We do need to start planning for this though as it isn't that far off. When we meet next week, we should aim to have some more concrete information. So here's what we need to figure out:

• How many people are serious about going.
• Transportation: How are we getting there? Do people have cars we could use? How much will gas cost?
• Hotel: Convention hotel is $99/night. We could find another hotel but we'd have to factor in how far it is from the convention.
• Funding: How much can we get from UMSU? SSA?

Those are the major things we need to sort out in the next little while, especially hotel reservations.

[Steven]

So here are some of my thoughts on this thing:

As far as transportation goes, one possible option would be driving to Grand Forks on the morning of the 21st and flying to Minneapolis from there. At $350, it's more than half the price of flying directly from Winnipeg. I've been trying to find out what time the conference starts because if it doesn't start until later in the day (or at least the interesting parts) then this might work. Also it would mean that we wouldn't have to book a hotel room for Thursday, March 20th. I am personally in favour of this (if it's feasible) because it would save about 6 hours of driving.

As far as hotels go, I've been doing some research and the rate of $99 that we get at the Marriott, where the conference is being held, is very good. It doesn't really get much better than that as far as convenience. If we want to stay at a place that's $20 less per night, we would have to factor in the travel time (Minneapolis is a very spread-out city) if we even have a car with us. Besides, if we are going to be sharing a room between at least 2 people, then it won't make that much of a difference to each of us individually. At any rate, I would suggest that we make some kind of reservation soon as I don't know how quickly the hotel will fill up; we can always cancel if it doesn't work out or something.

Anyways, those are some of the things I've been thinking about. I don't want to come across like money is no object to me, but certain things have to be looked at realistically, like time constraints (time is money, as they say ).

Although I would still be interested to see what, if any, funding we can get from either UMSU or SSA...

[trevor]

Just registered. Booya.

[Steven]

Just registered. Booya.

Awesome! It's all coming together.

If only we could find one more person to come with us.....

[Katie Hamilton]

I have also registered.

[Steven]

I called the hotel and reserved a second room so we're all set.

[brian]

All right, I'm in

[Steven]

All right, I'm in

Awesome! Have you registered yet? If you haven't I would recommend you do that a.s.a.p.

[brian]

Yeah, I did that earlier today

[Steven]

Yeah, I did that earlier today

Good...good....

[Steven]

So they've just posted the schedule for the conference. Looks like Richard will be speaking on Friday morning from 10:00 to 11:45 followed by a book signing  . Download the PDF here: http://www.atheists.org/conference/

It's gonna be so awesome.

[Steven]

On the Sunday afternoon, after the conference is over, all the Richard Dawkins Foundation people are going to the Mall of America (I can see the headlines now: "Materialists go shopping!"). It might be fun to go along with them (if they're not all douchebags, that is ). Just a thought. (Also I just realized that I have a parentheses fetish)

[Katie]

I was looking forward to going to MOA, so we could go for a couple of hours. We can start heading back in the afternoon, though. We would kind of have to.

[Steven]

Yeah, like I said it was just an idea. I'm a lurker on the RD forums and that is what they said they were planning. We'll just play it by ear. Also we could go to the MOA on the Friday evening seeing as how the events end at 5:30 and there's a banquet from 7- 12. So we'll have to entertain ourselves that evening and there's not a whole lot else to do in Minneapolis that I'm aware of.

And also, due to their fascist drinking laws, I won't be allowed to drink anything or even enter a bar. How absurd is that? You can vote, buy a gun, and join the army at 18, but can't be trusted to consume alcohol until you're 21.

I guess I'll go see this while everyone is at the bar...

[Steven]

Only 3 weeks to go!!!