St. Louis Digi-Gathering
I thought I would blog a bit about the St. Louis Digi-gathering last weekend on a more personal note here on my blog. I have been trying to get this post written for a week now! Why is it that I do not have any time any more?
You can see so much more on the St. Louis Digi-Gathering blog, including photos and videos. Be sure to check out the Flickr group also!
The Friday before the gathering I took a vacation day from work and hubby and I worked hard literally ALL day preparing. I had gotten down about the numbers that were coming and the numbers that were telling me they were no longer coming even though registered and I just could not get myself motivated to plan until in came down to crunch time. I could never have gotten it all ready without hubby helping me. He did a lot of crafty stuff some guys would never do, so I had to give him credit.
Around 5:30 p.m. we called it a day and headed to McDonald's to eat for the first time that day as we headed out of town. When we arrived at the hotel we found it to be a very nice hotel. The room was very quiet and peaceful. After unpacking and, of course, blogging and twittering a photo of our room, I began reviewing plans once again. We sat in our room and wondered where everyone else was that was coming in on Friday night. I followed ScrappinCop on Twitter though and knew exactly where she was at all times. It made me a bit jealous that I did not have that same connection with people close to me.
As I was winding down for the night I was testing a video I had intended to play on YouTube (but it was one of the things I'd planned that we did not have time for). I realized my sound was not working. I began to stress. I pushed my tired self until about 1 a.m. deleting drivers and reinstalling them until my speakers finally worked. (When I returned home I discovered my headphones would not work and had to do the whole process again. Apparently my laptop only likes to be configured to one type of external equipment at a time). As I went to bed at 1 a.m. I saw ScrappinCop was flying in the air.
Just like the ScrappinCop who worked hard to come to the reunion by leaving her family alone as the drove back from vacation in a half-working vehicle to fly in in the middle of the night, I found that most of the ladies who attended traveled long distances to come to this event. I was quiet shocked at the efforts and lengths to come to get together with a bunch of scrapbookers. I had it in my mind that I needed to make this an awesome event for them since they had gone to such efforts. Would I succeed? I was afraid of failure and nervous.
What was formerly a quiet hotel became not so quiet. The noise into the night and the street lights coming through my window kept me awake until about 3 a.m.
Around 7:30 a.m. hubby and I loaded up the stuff and went down to the conference room. He helped me unload the boxes and then I encouraged him to go get himself breakfast. I did not need breakfast. Two workers were there and they had not yet set up the room. It was still a huge mess from the night before. They gave me a bit of a scare when they told me they were only going to put in one power strip because that was all there were. Goodness! That is why we came there to begin with because I was ensured we could all be hooked up and online. I exclaimed that to the workers and they did find a few more strips, but I was worried there still would not be enough.
After setting up all of my table decorations, displays, and equipment, my computer started fine and everything looked good. However, I discovered that my EHD would not be recognized. Oh, stress. This has happened before though and a restart of my computer seems to fix it. So, I clicked to restart.
Just as the laptop should have been coming back up, Bunchie arrived early. My laptop caused us to have a unique greeting as I began to panic and stress out. The laptop had shut down, but for NO reason would it restart! Oh no! Stress! All of my stuff for the day was on the laptop! Was this Murphy's law? It was not even on the EHD to be plugged into someone else's laptop. What would I do! For a good 15 minutes Bunchie and I looked at everything we could to see if we could tell what was possibly wrong. It appeared to have power, but would not come on! Oh no! Panic! Finally, after I removed everything plugged into the laptop and the battery and the power plug, put only the power plug back in, the laptop started. Whew! Bunchie immediately said "Praise the Lord!" and which time I said "Why weren't we praying to begin with!" I would have never made it through that panic attack with her support by my side.
As more people arrived, nerves kicked up. Many had said they would be running late, and they were indeed late. So, we started the day with everyone introducing themselves. It took up a lot of time, but I felt it was important since I believed many of us were there to meet other digital scrapbookers. However, from the start I found many of the ladies very talkative. I did not know how to politely move things along, so I just stayed calm and decided that we would get to whatever we got to during the day and all would be well. We did not get to a lot of the things I had planned, but that was okay. It is always better to have more planned than not enough.
I made my presentation on Color and Emotions and provided them with a challenge. We all had our laptops and I was sure they all wanted to scrap! I had planned on doing another layout in the afternoon, but never got to my second presentation. I was glad we got one layout done together.
For lunch everyone decided to just hit the restaurant in the hotel, especially since it was yucky outside. The waitress was slow and lunch took an hour and a half instead of an hour which put my day behind further! Oh well. Everyone seemed to be having fun.
In the afternoon I had to get my other speakers in as they had prepared for it. I was stressing over time, but I don't think they knew that. Virginia did a wonderful work at sharing about terms of use. She has some great speaking abilities. We randomly matched digi-buddies and spread out to meet each other. We snuck in Penny to share her calendars. Deb (ScrappinCop) gave her presentation on creating an action which I enjoyed as I've never seen it done before as a PSE user. Then we played the presentation on shadows by the Red Leaf Designs and it was very well done also. Everyone seemed to be very intently watching during the video. We squeezed in Angie sharing about her books during the last few minutes of the day as we pulled her books as the last door prizes of the day.
Whew. I could breath now.
The workers were there pushing us out so they could prepare the room for a wedding reception that night.
For those that were staying, we agreed to meet in my room to decide what to do for dinner. Everyone was not in agreement, so I indicated that we would just let everyone part into groups to eat as they choose. Some had traveled far and wanted to see more of the town and go out to eat and I certainly understood that.
Most thought it was too early to eat, so we began the evening in the hotel room sharing our scrapbooks. Eventually, people began to drift in and out as they decided to eat. Some stayed in the room with us and we ordered pizza. We were entertained as the wedding crashers did what wedding crashers do. Some of us were drinking and some were not, but everyone was having fun. The wedding crashers shared an amaretto sour with me and Deb/ScrappinCop bought me several margaritas at the restaurant.
Angie was twittering the entire day and even into the evening and I got a kick out of watching her twitters from my laptop. What a techy world we live in and I so enjoyed meeting others who were just like me! However, I denied that I was "famous" while Angie opened stated that she was "famous." It was cool having someone famous in my room. Angie gave me this cute "H" as a gift and I've got plans to buy a small shelf for it in my bedroom. Isn't it adorable?
The next morning hubby and I did not want to leave until we had experienced the hot tub. Upon arriving, we were very disappointed that it was down for repair. We got into the pool instead, but after a while the repairman came and took down the sign and we were allowed to get into the hot tub to relax.
After arriving home, I was so physically exhausted I as useless the rest of the day.
I received many requests to do it again next year and that everyone would certainly come again. I have received online requests from people who did not come to hold it again. I am not sure what I will be doing. Even with fewer people, it felt as if there were enough people. However, the stress of the possibility of being out of pocket a lot of money was great. I'm not sure I want to go through that again.
I know I stated a few too many times how worried I was that everyone's opinions were changing of me now that they met me in person. I'm sure they got tired of hearing me say that. I'm still worried a bit about that.
I'm still not sure if I will ever hold another one. I'm giving it time. If I don't do it, who will? I do have a little better feel for how much time to fill and the set-up in order to prepare better next time, but I'm just not sure.
5 WARM FUZZIES--comments SO appreciated!:
It sounds like you did what you set out to do - get a group of scrappers together in the same room, who've never met in person before. Sounds like you succeeded. Reading what you have written about your experience, you really are a 'pioneer' in this sort of thing. I've read of a few organised 'get-togethers' before, but they had a lot of commercial backing. You did this on your own. You should be commended for your efforts.
From here, other folks will see that you have done this and will now feel they could handle doing the same.
Just from reading of your 'adventures', I would feel like I could possibly pull off something like this. At least, I have the knowledge that it is possible and there is obviously a desire for this kind of get-together, as represented by the number in attendance and their reactions to this event. You have set a precedent. Kudos to you!
Su
This conference was such a great idea. I'm sorry it was so stressful for you. You really went out on a limb to get this organized, and I respect and applaud your efforts. Only you can decide if you will do organize another conference. I agree with Su that you are a pioneer, forging ahead to try something new. I'm sure many are like me; I wish I could have come this year and would love to go another year if it were held.
One question: Did only professional designers come or did "lay" scrappers come as well?
You are doing wonderful work on your blog, helping both those new to digi-scrapping and those more experienced. You are a gifted teacher, and I thank you for all you have taught me. I appreciate you sharing your talents and vision.
You are also sharing your faith in many ways. That is so great. You are a wonderful model in many different areas, and the LORD is working through you.
I wish I could give you a big HUG. Here's an e-hug. {{{hug}}}
Sue
Hummie,
As one of your (late arriving) attendees, I want to say Thank You for all of your hardwork! The decorations were adorable and your attention to detail in everything was apparent. I loved the color and emotions presentations and will take this information and use it in everyday life. You should be proud of the St. Louis Digi-Gathering. I felt it was successful. I wanted to learn more but was sad to have to leave early. If you do the conference again, you will need to delegate more responsibilities, so you (& hubby) do not have the burden of doing everything yourself. I firmly believed you could have easily charged more money for the conference... Were you out any money on the meeting room or did the hotel work with you?
It was a tremendous success! Something you can and should be very proud of! The reason it was a success is because we all got to do what we set out to do...meet YOU! I wanted to meet the person whom I have come to love thru the internet. The person who is not afraid to shared their faith and their gift from God in teaching those of us who need to learn!!! When you use your talents and gift from God you are blessed and in turn bless others and you certainly do that. I also got to meet some people that I have admired for such a long time like Deb (Scrappin Cop). I haven't always been active at thef forum, but have mainly lurked in the background. Now, after meeting some of the wonderful people here, it encourages me to be more active here. I was in awe at you because of all the wonderful things you had for us and taught us. It may not seem like it was enough to you but it was great in my eyes. Your special touches with the folder and those cute little name tags that you made to draw the door prizes!!! The decorations were so bright and cheerful and fun! I can't thank you enough and coming from West Virginia, I can definitely say it was well worth it and would have paid more to do it!!! I think if you do it again it definitely needs to be higher priced so that you are not out of pocket for anything. I feel priviledged to be able to have made it there and hope you do it again. We were a talkative bunch and you handled us gently! I know you worried about being a "failure", but you are anything but a failure and I call you a total success! God doesn't make failures and He certainly screams you are awesomely, and wonderfully made Hummie and I love you! It was great meeting all the other ladies and I loved getting to know them better! My sister and I had a wonderful trip and can't wait till the next one! It is my prayer that you have another, but like someone said earlier, delegate some so that it is not all up to you. You pulled off something that big companies assign to a whole team. That hubby of yours is a great guy and I enjoyed talking with him so much! Tell him thanks for all his hard work too! BTW, you are famous in my eyes and it was an honor to meet you. You have my upmost respect! Meeting you only confirmed what a great person you are! Sorry so long but needed to say a few things to you!
It sounds like it was a complete success. You made this happen and it will be an experience they will always remember. Like I said, I wish I could have been there, but April 1 was move to Florida day for me. That took presidence, but I did think of you. Great job:)
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