[at-l] Workshop Subjects

[spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Coming up with topics is not that hard - harder is to come up with 
presenters.  A lot of people have expertise either on trails or on skills, 
but aren't willing to commit to sharing what they know.

I saw this when Jim did the Gathering two years ago.  First he waited to see 
who would contact him to offer to present workshops, then he made a list of 
subjects that absolutely needed to be covered that had no presenters and 
contacted people he thought might be willing to do them.  A lot of subjects 
had no volunteers.  Afterwards, people complained, "there should have been a 
women's workshop," or there should have been a workshop about X.  The only 
response can be, "Okay, so why didn't YOU volunteer?"  The Board filled in 
on a lot on the workshops this year, but there are 1000 other ALDHA members 
who should have been volunteering.

I don't know why there are so many more volunteers for workshops up north, 
but looking at past schedules, there are usually 3 or 4 workshops at a time 
in West Virginia and 5 or 6 at a time in NH.  When Jim was Gathering 
organizer we had the issue of the date change, that cost us a lot of 
participants.  More people attend the Gathering up north.  For the 
presenters, this means very crowded classrooms in the south, but people who 
are willing to stick around for the full presentation.  Up north you have a 
lot more wandering in and out of rooms (which can be upsetting when you are 
a nervous presenter) and fewer people at each presentation (which is also a 
bit upsetting).  But it is more fun for those who attend because they have 
more options, and probably more new options -- but can be a bit of a problem 
because you feel like you are missing workshops you would really like to 
attend.  I know when we gave workshops there were always others opposite us 
that I would have really liked to attend.

One consideration is sometimes people will give a workshop, only have a few 
attending, and decide not to repeat the experience, even though giving the 
same workshop in a different year might interest a lot more people.  A lot 
depends on when the workshop is given and what is opposite.  Balancing 
workshops is a very difficult art.  Everyone wants to present between 10 and 
3 on Saturday.  But that makes it hard to juggle the rest of the schedule 
and the fact that you can only be at one place at a time.

Bottom line - if you want to see a presentation, suggest it to the 
coordinator, but better yet, find someone with that expertise who will 
actually stand up and volunteer to hold the workshop.

Ginny