After a ‘long winter’s nap’, the steering committee for the now 2023 Great Lakes Regional Convention that NSAGO is hosting has rebooted and begun working – again – on the convention.
As you may remember, this is a convention that was originally scheduled for June of 2021. Given the state of the pandemic at that point, all regionals for 2021 were rescheduled for 2023. The new dates are June 25-28, 2023.
Much of our previous planning remains the same. There have been a few tweaks to our programming, but most of the events, venues, and artists we had previously planned on will remain. The biggest change, however, is our convention hotel. We had previously contracted with the Hilton Orrington in downtown Evanston. However, since the pandemic began the Orrington has had numerous issues: the owners defaulting on their loan; a major roof leak in the grand ballroom which resulted in the ballroom being ‘gutted’ and currently in ‘shell’ condition; and more recently the hotel being in a short sale status to avoid bankruptcy. Fortunately, we were able to get out of our contract with the Orrington with no penalty, and have now contracted with the Holiday Inn in Evanston, just a few blocks south. We were hoping to be able to maintain the convenient walking distance to so many of our venues, which the Holiday Inn provides.
We were required to resubmit our program and budget to the national Committee for Conventions, which we did in mid-March. Just a few weeks ago, we were notified that our program and budget were approved, so we will now begin the next phase of our planning. In the very near future, we hope to be able to present our slate of artists and venues to you.
Largely because of your generosity in our 2019 fundraising campaign, we have a nice head start of $45,000 in our bank account toward our goal of $83,000 in donations needed to help defray the cost of this convention. In the coming months, we will be sharing some of our plans with regard to continued fundraising.
And lastly, I want to acknowledge that the last regional convention the North Shore chapter hosted was in 1979. Lee Nelson was the convention coordinator for that convention, and he was very helpful in sharing his thoughts with me about planning for a regional convention. Lee had also volunteered for a committee for the 2023 convention. He will be missed!
Submitted by Andrea Handley