[Coco] CoCo Fest video and chat

Jim Cox nutz4coco at gmail.com
Thu May 4 01:20:35 EDT 2006


Nickolas, Rod and everyone else:

After reading this thread, I decided this would be the be the best place for
me to post my thoughts about the recent discussion about the Fest.

Warning this is going to be a very very long post, but I do hope you read
it!

While I haven't read every message about the recent Fest, I have read enough
that I am a little sad to see things turn they way they have after such a
great event, but I am glad
that it hasn't gone any further.  We are too small a community to fragment
any further.

Nickolas has asked a great question, and Rod has offered a really good
idea.  I will follow Rod's example and as soon as plans for the fest are
finalized, I too will put a banner on my site to help promote the fest,
though I could use a little help with the design.

Now that I think of it, I'd like to take that idea one step further, and
suggest that there be a competition to design a banner for GCCC that all of
us with websites can use.  Because the GCCC has been behind the Fests and
because they are basically the last CoCo Club out there that I know of, I
believe we all need to get behind them, even so far as becoming members.  My
check will be in the mail this weekend (it is still $15 dollars isn't it?)
I would even be willing to put a little cash out there that can either go
directly to the winner, or towards a prize to the winner.  Maybe others will
be willing to get behind this idea and do the same.  For those of you who
have to watch your pennies, you can contribute to the Fest and in the CoCo
community in other ways, such as writing articles for the GCCC newsletter or
Mary's CoCoNuts newsletter.  Maybe GCCC can offer a limited membership for
those that are not in the area or a little short on cash.  Just a thought
guys.

Another idea I believe will help increase attendance at future Fests is if
the scope of the Fest is broadened to include other Radio Shack computers
and other computers based on the 6809 or other Motorola processors, but
maybe not Macs, since they have their own shows and such.  Maybe the Fest is
open to those computers, but I have always had the impression it is solely
for the CoCo.  I think there are still a lot of Trash 80 people and other
6809/68XXX users out there that if they knew there was a such a Fest would
they would attend.


OK, here's the one point I must make because I believe it is a good idea for
promoting the Fest and for encouraging others to attend the Fests, but I am
a little reluctant to bring it up because it has to do with what started the
recent ruckus. That idea has to do with remote attendance of the Fest.
Please hear me out on this and consider what I have to offer.

Back in the 80's when I had a business the sold Sci-Fi memorabilia and role
playing games, I remember many of the local conventions I attended offered
"memberships in abstentia" (I can't remember what they were called, but
that's what I will call them)  Maybe  the Fest could offer something like
this for those who cannot make it to the Fest, but still want to support
it.  Maybe the Fest could offer a CD of photos from the Fest like Nikolas
did for Penn Fest 2000?  If I can't make next years Fest, I can at least
support it by getting one of these memberships.  Maybe the extra funds could
be used to bring in a special CoCoNut who otherwise couldn't attend.  Sort
of like Sci-Fi conventions do with authors or special fans.

I also believe that having remote access to the Fest via web cams and chat
rooms might be a way of increasing awareness in the Fest and sparking
interest in those not in attendance to consider attending future Fests.
Believe me, I looked forward to seeing those of you who attended this years
Fest because all I see of you for the rest of the year is just your emails,
and while they are important, a picture is worth a thousand words.  I hope
you get my meaning :)

As for my not attending past Fests, well I have had other priorities and
issues that I would rather not go into here.  I will say that I am at a
point now that I believe I could possibly make it to next years Fest.  As I
said earlier, I had a business in the 80 that was in addition to my work as
a tech.  It ate up all of my free time and I never really had a chance to
take a real vacations.  There were issues in the 90's and the first half of
this decade that also prevented me from taking a real vacation.  I am now
coming up on 25 years of not taking at least a week of vacation to get out
of town and get away from it all.  I am not counting the two weeks I spent
in Kansas in  94 training my replacement before I was laid off as vacation
:(

I would really like to just drive back to the next fest and along the way
enjoy the country side.  I REALLY need to see the rest of this country, so
next years Fest is as good an excuse as any to do so.  The are a few issues
that may get in the way, one of them being the fact that I am looking to
find a better job, and depending what happens I may not be  able to take
that much time off.  If that is the case then I guess I have to fly back
there, so I will have to plan on that contingency.  I will say that one
reason I am looking for a new job is because of the CoCo.  After 10 years of
saying so and many false starts, I now have my system set up and I am
getting interested again in working with hardware and I want to get away
from boring systems testing as well as have more time for the CoCo.

Well, that's enough for now. I will say that at least for me the one really
positive thing that has come out of this recent ruckus about the Fest is
that I am going to write an article for the next issue of Mary's CoCoNuts
newsletter.

Take care.

Jim Cox
http://www.miba51.com/
http://www.cloudymidnights.com/

On 5/3/06, Rod Barnhart <rod.barnhart at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The number one way to increase the attendance is to get more people
> interested in the CoCo community in general - and for those who are
> interested but not aware that a fest still happens every year, we need to
> make them aware. As such, I am going to place a banner on my website once
> the plans for next years fest are known. It's not a lot of eyes looking at
> it, but every person who sees it will be a potential attendee.
>
> Rod
>
>
> On 5/3/06, Nickolas Marentes <nickma at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> >
> > Now that the personality clashes are aside, can we get back onto the
> > serious topic of why attendance at the CoCoFest is declining and how we
> > can improve it?
> >
> > Nick Marentes
> >
> > --
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Rod Barnhart aka Wintermute (http://www.nitemarecafe.com)
>
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> may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do
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> nor
> protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President.
>
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>



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