[ST] Arisia '07 Debrief: Fast Track

[Persis L. Thorndike]

I look forward to any further
comments to add at the debrief.

Arisia 2007
Fast Track Debrief, 1 February 2007
Persis Thorndike, Area Head

Many people gave compliments directly to me, including the mother of
a 10-year-old boy with Asbergers', who came to Arisia with him
because of Fast Track, and he had a fabulous time; they both did. She
has been a fan for 40 years, but had never gone to a con before. I
think she will be back.  Even the irate Dad, after telling me he had
no faith in Fast Track, and would not be back, was seen in panels all
afternoon with his daughter. (I have not had time yet to go thru the
Arisia LJ community or the Arisia message boards on the web site, but
I have been told there were a lot of compliments there too.)

Kids-in-Tow: KiT with parents need to be monitored somehow, to make
sure kids are in age-appropriate activities. I bring this up because
of the issue with the irate Dad who laid into me for not being
responsible with materials and tools being used in my panels, and
wanted me to take full responsibility for the incident. His 4.5 year
old daughter who got burned by the glue gun in Hilary's foam dragon
building panel was not being closely supervised by her Dad (I was
told she was playing under the table that the glue gun had been put
upon, and must have bumped the table enough so the glue gun fell off.
It was not left in the middle of the room unattended by any one as
the Dad told me.) I was also told by one of my staff that the Dad
said the little girl had been burned by glue guns before and he was
worried about phobiasŠ (As an aside, the child was fine and calmed
down once some ice was applied by another parent, Julie Love
(508-339-5152, said she'd be willing to talk to con com about the
issue if necessary), who was observing who is also a nurse, and
wanted to return to the activity, but her Dad was so upset and angry
at me that his yelling made his daughter cry again.) This brings up
all sorts of issues that push my buttons that I am tempted to make a
policy that any child under age 6 cannot attend Fast Track, but I am
not sure I want to go here. I'd like to be able to monitor the rooms
enough so that we can anticipate any further issues in the years to
come, and be able to gently suggest that another activity might be
more suitable.

Registration Numbers: Lisa At Reg was just wonderful in sending me FT
registrations as they came in. Unfortunately, she didn't catch them
all, but I was able to get an updated list on Thursday afternoon,
which brought my list up to 69 (from 52 pre-Thursday morning before
the con). My list stopped being added to at 80, early Friday evening.
I think there were over 100 kids registered in Fast Track by the end
of Friday's registration. There were plenty of kids in all age
ranges. I will have more concrete numbers next week.

For 2008: work with Lisa more pre-con to better track FT registrations.

Staff & Volunteers: I had a staff this year that worked out
wonderfully. Mary Dumas forwarded me several names and contact info
for the volunteers who wished to devote their time to Fast Track, and
I got several others who e-mailed me directly. Add in the staff from
previous years, and I ended up with 5 Assistants, 6 additional
pre-assigned staff, and 2 junior staff (who helped wrangle the free
play room and take care of bathroom breaks and clean up of kids). Add
in to the pot the additional volunteers and parents who pitched in to
help, and we had a pretty smooth operation. Most of my staff will be
happy to work again for FT next year. Unfortunately, none of them are
willing to take on FT after next year. I'll have to keep looking for
someone who has the patience to deal with a gaggle of kids and
continue to develop interesting panels and program ideas. I have 2
more people who have told me they want to work FT next year.

Publications: The Fast Track rooms were not located on any maps I saw
around the convention, and I wrote the locations down on the two or
three I saw as I was running around the convention. Registration also
had no clues, except that it was on the 2nd floor, until I went down
and hand wrote some signs to tape up behind the registration tables.
I do not think it is my responsibility (or that of whoever is running
Fast Track) to tell the pubs person where my activity is scheduled
when they can go to the hotel resume, which is public to all con com
members, and get the correct locations themselves.\

For 2008 FT policy page: redesign it to read:
	FT is a children's program
	Hours
	Arisia's Children's Policy

For 2008 and beyond, Fast Track location needs to be in all pubs and
maps, quick reference, etc. as people need to be able to find it
easily. This is not babysitting.

Program Space Allocation: Four small hotel rooms were too small a
space, especially for the numbers of kids that turned up, although
having the use of half of Cambridge worked well for the hugely
popular panels (even though it is wasn't really big enough for any
except the dragon fossil building on Friday, and for that barely big
enough, we were glad to have it at all; thank you, programming team,
for working with me). The hallways were not ideal places for kids to
overflow into, but there was no other place for them. I'd really like
to have the use of half of Cambridge for the entire programming time
of the weekend. Sharing rooms for parties was not an issue. With a
lot of my staff needing floor space overnight, having the adjoining
room available for them was great. Bathrooms in the program area were
fantabulous, especially with the foam dust created in the dragon
fossil panel. We could have used some extra towels, but we managed
fine by asking the housekeeping staff for extras in the morning. The
vacuum cleaner in the rooms was wonderful. But next year we also need
a Dust Buster and a dust pan and brush (probably brought from home)
for quick pick-ups.

Trash pick up was non-existent. I had thought I been told that there
would be bins available for us to put large bags of refuse into, but
I don't know where they were. When we called the hotel staff on
Sunday to come pick up the bags of trash left over from the Saturday
night parties, they never arrived. Fortunately, we were able to tie
up thee bags and put them into the closets or unused corners.

Apparently the hotel did pick up the bags from the Dragon Fossil in
Cambridge B on Friday night/Saturday morning.

I could have used a water set-up, but I don't know where it could
have been put. We dealt.

I had 2 card tables which got put to use, one in Cambridge B for the
water set-up on Friday night during the dragon fossil building. It
stayed there until Sunday after the Gripe Session. Similar smaller
tables for water set ups would work better where we have such space
constraints.

Location, location, location: I liked being close to the rest of the
convention programming area, on the second floor, on that corridor. I
would have to look at the rooms at the end of the hall; I am not sure
how well they would work for Fast Track.

Check-In and Room Readiness as per the Hotel Resumé: Getting in to
the rooms was not as timely as I had hoped, as when I arrived at the
hotel on Thursday, there was a delay in the check in for room 215,
our storage/sleeping room. Friday morning, the other 3 rooms (213,
214 and 216) were supposed to be ready at 10 am. 213 was ready
Thursday night, as the connecting door was opened to 215 when I
arrived back at the hotel late on Thursday evening. But I had to wait
for the key, and those to the other rooms until they were all cleared
by housekeeping. I think I got into them after noon. The hold up was
the front desk not hearing from housekeeping that the rooms were
ready.

Having the furniture out of the rooms was a boon, but the hotel left
the lamps unplugged, and not on the bedside tables, and it took a
while for us to realize that if we placed them up on the shelf /wall
between the room and closet/bathroom, they threw plenty of light.

On Thursday, I decided that the TV in 215, the 4th FT room, needed to
be removed, The hotel staff was very timely and pleasant to deal
with. For next year, I need to remember to ask to have this removed
as part of the hotel resume.

Panel Successes: All Guest of Honor panels were highly popular.
Hilary's dragon panels were packed for the entire 2 hour periods, and
the dragons were enjoyed by the crowds waiting to get into the
Masquerade.  Communication needs to be completed next year if we are
going to produce something we want the entire convention to see, as
it was a surprise to DDA, and we sort of forgot about them overnight.
Fortunately I was up early to open the rooms for the Supervised
Unstructured Play on Sunday and was able to put the dragons in to a
room.

Esther brought her Cheeblemancy with her, as well as reading
materials, as she wasn't sure what ages would be in her panel; it was
extremely popular. She was wonderful! Luke brought his sketch book
and did some quick caricatures of a few of the kids before starting
his concert. He said he'd be willing to do more at another con,
perhaps if there was a sign up list ahead of time.

Kamikaze Costuming was, as usual, immensely popular. 25 kids signed
up for the Kamikaze Kids entry to the masquerade, and 23 of them
actually went across the stage. Of the 9 YF entries, 3 had previously
been part of the KK's. (One also entered as a Novice, won his
category, and is now a Journeyman.) Having a separate Green Room for
them was a stroke of genius, as they would never have fit into the
Official Green Room. Once Jill felt comfortable with the idea, which
took a while, we pulled off another fabulous entry.

And the panels suggested and implemented by the Pugliese's also were
quite popular. I hope they will come back next year.

Panel Suggestions: Supervised unstructured play needs to be schedule
on Saturday morning as well as Sunday morning, in a room not next to
the Yoga session, and beginning at 9.

The balloon animal people decided not to show up at their assigned
time, partly because of an e-mail from Ming who was doing face
painting and wanted to change the time of that portion of the panel,
but I didn't see any other communication regarding any further
changes or requests. Other than the Irate Dad on Saturday morning,
and the kids disturbing the Saturday morning Yoga session, I am not
aware of any other parent or attendee problems. I was around Fast
Track for the entirety of the con with the exception of Friday
evening when I went to part of the Period Dance.

Budget: Spent (and submitted): $200.10
Other than the pipe cleaners (which had been put into the wrong box
at the end of Arisia 2006), and some sewing notions for Kamikaze
Costuming, the biggest budget items were from Hilary for his 2 dragon
panels.

	Hilary Scott: $124.92
		Materials for dragon fossils and foam dragon
	Barbara Pugliese: $34.18
		Sculpey & string for horns
	Rachel Olson: $19
		Elastic, pins, pipe cleaners
	Persis Thorndike: $10
		Head bands, super glue, and some other stuff I can't
remember at the moment.
	Ruth Jedlinsky: $12
		6 lbs. dry ice

$169.98; 2 sewing machines were sent for servicing; this item came
out of the corporate budget, and should not have to be done again for
a few years.

Load out: went extremely smoothly. 2 volunteers came back 3-4 times
with the large green cart. All was out of the rooms by the 6 o'clock
check out time. Another few volunteers helped sort my personal Fast
Track belongings from the ones to go to Storage.

I am already collecting ideas and suggestions for panels for next year.

Any suggestions for panel ideas for next year should be sent to me,
for compiling into the Brainstorming set up. Fasttrack at Arisia.Org. or
to Persis at LoveSong.Com.

-- 
* Persis L. Thorndike * persis at lovesong.com * 508-478-4343
*  Love Song Productions: 508-478-4627
*  Fax: 508-634-9345

"Cinnamon and ginger are pretty, but they also 
bite, which is more interesting and slightly 
dangerous."