Richmond,VA Celebration "At Home" party gathering?

I just thought of an idea (personal thanks to AT-AT Commander for giving me the inspirational idea), for those who cannot attend Celebration IV, why can't our FanForce work with the two other Virginia FanForces to create a "Celebration At Home" party gathering? Everyone could chip in a few bucks to rent a hall within the Richmond area (since it's the most major centralized location in the state). Some possibilities:


- All day event (for 1-day), on a weekend perhaps.
- A small buffet, cook-in, or order take-out (pizza, chinese, etc).
- Have a setup of several tables/booths to display personal collections from FanForce members (and/or to sell & trade Star Wars collectibles).
- Have a large television (or projector) to have an evening showing of one of the Star Wars films.
- Setup a stereo to have it play the entire Star Wars soundtrack in the background.
- Play Star Wars related games (great for the kids), if it be made-up ones or board games (with prizes and rewards too?) Just imagine playing the Star Wars Trivia board game .
- Have a corner setup for costume/weapon prop workstation and discussion.
- Bring Star Wars decorations, posters, stand-ups, and etc to decorate the place.
- Invite the local 501st Legion perhaps?
- ... and any other ideas that are feesable and that we can do.


Of course, this will take a great deal of organization, but it's definately not impossible to pull off. I'm not saying invite the general public, but rather send out invitations to those who want to attend. The invitations will go out to those who are members of all the Virginia FanForce chapters, and they can bring their family and friends. No Trekkies! We'll have to advertise this to the other FanForce chapters in the state, and see if they would like to work with us to help supply whatever we need. We could even charge a small admission fee ($5 for adults, children 12 and under are free), to help pay off the hall and the supplies.

Amaunet, I'm curious what your position is on this, and if you think it is a wise idea to consider such an event. This doesn't have to be on the same weekend as C4 (Memorial Weekend), but it could be in April, May, or even June (when kids get off from school). I believe it will be an enjoyable and fun event for the local SW fans in Virginia, especially those who can't make it to C4. Of course it won't be the same, but it's something.

 

Thats sounds like a great idea. Ill start looking into if my few fanforce people i have around here.

 

I think having a "get-together" of the 3 VA fanforce would be a great idea.

As meeting planning is something I do for a job, I will start looking into locations and prices around the area (depending on the final idea of what we want to do--ie: just a get together or more like a convention of our own, we may be talking some serious planning.)...

Personally, I would be reluctant to do a "demi-convention" and expect to show any of the movies. With the involvment of the FF with Lucas film, I would want to check to make 100% sure that it could not backfire as a "public performance" or something like that...We all know how big of a choke hold they have on their copyrights.

As for getting the 501st involved, my personal opinion is that this should be a ff event. If you are a member of both, more power to you, but lets not bring in a totally different group at this point. Perhaps for later events (more public events I would think---depending on what they are and what sort of additional support we need.), but for our first "large group" event, lets keep it to one group first and build up from there

As for the date:
As someone who is not intending on going, but may be surprised when dad dusts off the DV costume and sends me a plane ticket to visit my sister in LA, I would think that a couple of weekends later would be a good idea. Yeah, it could still be our own little Celebration, but lets not leave out those that will ultimately go to Cali by causing the conflict.

As for cost, lets get the discussion building on what everyone thinks this should be (demi-con or FFVA mixer), what there should be going on and what the cost of the location will be) before we set a price for "admission".

Did i miss anything in that loooonnnggg winded response? lol

 

Sounds like a dang fine idea, June would be great since school would be out for big kids and little kids.

Heck we could even do a pig pickin

Anything I can do to help as this comes to life just let me know.

 

I don't think it should be a "demi-convention", more like a heavily themed SW gathering. Because this isn't a public event, it's a private gathering of FanForce members in the state of Virginia (including family and friends they bring along). But instead of having a simple dinner and socialization, we kick it up a notch and offer some fun activities and a heavily Star Wars themed environment. Also, those who want to attend MUST have an invitation, in which they can contact the Commonwealth Cantina for one (we can select someone who would be in charge of invitations). There won't be any strict scheduling, it'll be organized but also will make room to be spontaneous.

I agree.

In that case, let's aim sometime in June 2007?

I think a demi-con is a little too much for us to handle for our first large group event, an organized FFVA mixer gathering with a heavy SW theme would be easier. Once we get this under our belt, later on we can focus on a demi-con in the future.

I don't think you missed a thing.

 

I forgot to mention. I know I stated in the starting post, that it will take a "great deal of organization", but let me elaborate on that. What this refers to is the gathering of the actual materials, decorations, tables, and etc that we would need for this FFVA event. Of course I'm not saying this gathering will be out of control, but it won't have any particular strict scheduling, or chain of events, it'll somewhat be spontaneous in that department.

All ideas, suggestions, critisms, and etc, are welcomed!

 

As someone who plans meetings on a regular basis, I would love to take the lead on this (with a good deal of help from willing assistants--of course). I like the idea of a free-flowing day, but somethings might work better if we set a start time for these events.

I would love to see a show of hands from those in this group who are interested in helping out and in what capacity you would like to participate.

As I have time this week, I will start to work on a list of what we will need and contact the other CRs for FFVA and make certain that they are interested

 

This sounds like an awesome idea!! I hope this comes to fruition. If you need any help, please don't hesitate to contact me

 

Count me in for any support needed, I also do Project Management.

Are we limiting it to just VA FF, or opening it up to WVA, Maryland, and NC, all of whom are just a couple hours away? Or is that FF-VA Celebration II?

 

I think you should take the lead, afterall, you're the boss . I will help with whatever you need, and I would also like to help with the invitational department. I would oversee who's on the "invite list" and be in charge with sending out invitations to those who want them.

About the schedule thing: We could even print a 1-page 8x11 sheet which has a basic schedule of events. When the gathering "officially" opens, when it closes, when certain activities take place, and etc. It'll be extremely easy to do, can do it all on Microsoft Word .

Question: Would we get in any legal dispute with GenCon/Lucasfilm if we had "Celebration" in our title? Worse comes to worse, we can call it "Celebrating At Home" or "Celebrating In Virginia" or something to that affect.

We hope so too, and we won't hesitate either!

 

Well, it's up to Amaunet. On one hand, it'll be easier if we kept it just within the FFVA, since this is our first major event that we're holding. However, we may get more support and draw a bigger crowd (thus more possibilities) if we invited the surrounding FanForces. Though it'll take more resources to accomindate a larger crowd, thus we'll need more support.

 

I think that we should leave it to just VA (Norfolk, Richmond, Shennandoah) for now. If we get some interest or a ton of support and are capable of making it bigger, then we can discuss it then.

Meriwyn: thanks for the support I am sure that we will be needing all we can get!

 

When is a good time for a face to face planning session for this activity?

 

It'll have to be in July or August, since I'm pretty busy this month. Can't be the beginning of July, since I'll be having my wisdom teeth removed. I'll get back to you on it.

 

August sounds good. We are planning on having our picnic on the 5th. But im free the 18th. If thats any help.

 

I see three hands for helping with this project...

Anyone else want in on the Committee??

If you would like to help, post here then pm me your email address. I would like to have a list that I can contact as ideas and details come together for this. I know it is a year away, but I think that is a great amount of time to begin planning and seeing what costs we are going to encur.

Another thought from me: Costumes or no? If yes, we can have a "Costume Contest" with different categories: Best Jedi, Best Non-Jedi, Best Armor Customization -- I dont see putting Armor into a group with people who hand-made their full outfit (don't yell at me if you are an exception to the rule and did make yours from scratch---we can always make exceptions)-- Best Kids Costume (if necessary), Best Accessory, etc. and give out little prizes (depending on funds).

Thoughts?

 

I think that's a pretty neat idea, though we'll need to draw a larger crowd in order for that to work effectively. PMed you my e-mail address.

Just to let you know, I worked a double shift last night, and will be working a double shift today as well. Not to mention, I'm going to be going away for a couple days (starting Sunday), so I won't be active again on the forum till afterwards.

 

I'm in for helping..I will say that at the start not sure how much I will be able to do. New baby due Aug 15. So for a bit after that I will be busy but I would like to be a part of this. Also I will be away from 6-20 6-25. So if I don't respond...sorry

 

Thank you both for the emails. I would like to have the committee meet sometime soon--though being summer, perhaps we could do it online/im chat instead of face to face for the first time. Then plan to meet maybe late July or early August. (I have a conference for work July 13-16 and then my parents are in town for July 21-24. But any other time at this point would work)

Would an "online" initial chat work for everyone? When would be a good time to do this?

 

An online chat for a first meeting is a good idea. I'm available usually every late afternoon and evening, except for the 1st and 3rd Wednesday evenings of each month. Since I'm pretty flexible, do you want to send the date?

Should we do this over MSN Messenger, and hold a group chat?

 

Whatever, however, I just will be slow with the responses since I am a strong supporter of the two finger method.

 

I am going to work on adding a chat of some sort to the site this week and see if it is feasable to use it for this meeting. Otherwise, we will use an IM chat function (that will be able to archive the discussions for posterity )

Between now and July 9th --- are their any bad dates for those wishing to be on the committee?

 

I am in NY the first week of July and will have limited connectivity and will be on vacation the next week with no connectivity, so I will not be available until July 17th or after, but don't wait for me.

 

June 27th, July 5th, and July 6th are bad dates for me (I'm having my wisdom teeth pulled on the 6th).

 

yuck...Wisdom teeth suck

I should have asked, what day of the week and time (from 6-10pm) is best Sorry that is what happens when I am trying to do 800 things at once