LA, CA Next official meeting- Sunday Sept. 26th 4 PM

Before I forget I wanted to log the donors to LAFF's website to date:

DarthZuhl
Skyryder
Darth Bubba
Darth Haskett
Naboos Princess
Adrian Skywalker
ValedaKor

and Me!

And, forgive me, but I think I got $ from JediRacer and SoloJedi??? My notes aren't clear on this.
If I've made any errors, please let me know!

 

wooHOO 100th post on this thread!

heehee

EDIT: okay maybe not

 

Sorry D. !

JB

 

This was an excellent meeting!! I would say it was 5 notches above our "normal" meetings. We had celebrities (Drew Struzan and of course BeSo), exciting new members, free stuff from DragonCon courtesy of JediBith, a prize from Master Replicas (again courtesy of JediBith). Wait.. this is Skyryder's job. Old habits die hard.

Oh and..yes, I paid you JB.. at the Hollywood Bowl last Tuesday.

 

I definitely had an awesome time, it was great to see everyone!

 

Thought so, JR, but my notes got messed up w/potential donors between then and now. All straightened out.

JB

Looking forward to our "official scribe's report" and I'll post more after that...

 

Thanks for letting me crash your meeting. It was great seeing everyone again, and also to meet new people. Thanks to Matt for the treat at Starbucks.

 

Once again, the LAFF got together for its monthly Offical Meeting, and this was one to remember. At last count, I believe 374 people were in attendance. Ok, not really, but here are the names that were:
Darth Bubba
ValedaKor
JediRacer
Darth Haskett
Jundland Jay
JediBith
BernieSolo
Elensara
NaboosPrincess
SilentBobWest
ArtMaul

The Out of Towners
CrazyBirdMan (OC)
CBM's Friends John and please forgive me I forgot her name, someone tell me and JR edit this later.
MaraJadeFan (San Diego)

Friends and Relations
Son of BeSo
Leona Friend of SBW

Newcomers
Mal Reynolds
Adrian Skywalker

And Special Guests
Drew Struzan and his wife

And me Skyryder

With that out of the way, let me get on with the details. I can't possible put down each and every conversation topic only because I couldn't hear five tables down. I am pretty sure that most of the conversation had to do with Celebration III and where everyone is going to stay. Location and prices were big concerns to everyone. Since we had two new people to the group there was lots of questions being asked of them. Then there was the conversations about art with both BernieSolo and Drew. And then of coarse there was lots of talk about the new DVDs the changes both good and bad.

I don't think anyone walked away from this meeting without something. Darth Hasket provided maps of downtown Indianapolis for us to study. Drew was nice enough to bring CDs of his artwork. JediBith and BernieSolo who are always nice brought back artwork of Darth Maul from their trip to DragonCon. Plus BernieSolo brought even more prints of his work to pass around. Then to top that off, JB and BeSo also held a small raffle for a scaled Obi-Wan lightsaber from Master Replicas. The winner was SilentBobWest. I traded Baby Geniuses posters for Lego key chains with CBM. Plus there were the prizes from the quiz.

Speaking of the quiz, I'm sorry if it was too difficult or not clear in some ways. It was my first attempt. I did hear good things about the set up and the use of different ways to word questions such as the section Befor or After and Who's Your Master. I really got a kick out of reading the answers later. Who knew that Hugh Downs was in Star Wars? The winners and prizes broke down as follows:
First Place JediRacer -- 28 Days Later DVD
Second Place SilentBobWest -- OTC R2-D2
Third Place ArtMaul -- Set of 5 Columbia Pictures Movie Posters (I hope they were good enough I was worried when you were inspecting them Art.)
Fouth Place Jundland Jay -- OTC Yoda
Fifth Place Darth Haskett -- Clone Wars Comic Books
Sixth Place CrazyBirdMan -- OTC Dagobah Luke
Seventh Place -- Elensara $5 Starbucks Gift Card
Eighth Place -- NaboosPrincess $5 Starbucks Gift Card

However, there was a big injustice done this evening on my part. After taking the quiz home and looking through them I noticed that there was actually a tie for eighth place between NaboosPrincess and ValedaKor. This means that at the next meeting I'm buying ValedaKor a drink or something to make up for my mistake. I'm really sorry, but it was my first time. I tried to get a prize for everyone but who knew 22 people were going to show up. I'm thankful I had enough quizes.

Once the mess of the quiz was over, it was time to settle up the bill and head out home. However, some of us, DB, JR, DH, SBW, MJF, NP, ES, and me SR (I love using the initials)stopped at Starbucks before going home.

All in all, it was a great time. I know I had a good time. I hope our guests enjoyed themselves. Thanks Darth Haskett for inviting them. I also hope our new members Mal Reynolds and Adrian Skywalker stick around for more. And thanks to our out of towners CBM and friends and Mara Jade Fan for coming far distances. I don't know how we are going to top ourselves. I swear George Lucas himself will have to come.

And that was the way of the Force for Sunday September 26th at the Hard Rock Beverly Center.
(loving my signoff)

Oh and pictures can be found [link=http://lafanforce.com/ipw-web/gallery/

 

wow, you all were great!! I had a wonderful time! Everyone was so friendly and welcoming! A special thanks goes to Darth Bubba and Jedibith for sitting next to me and showing me the ropes so to speak. Can't to hang out with you all more soon!!

Mal

 

Great job, Skyryder! It was definitely a meeting for the memory books. It was an honor to have Drew and Dylan at our meeting. I am sure it was due to JB and BeSo that they came. I doubt a random invitation from a complete stranger would entice anyone to join us. After talking to Drew and Dylan, I realized how honored we are are to have a great resource and wonderful celebrity in our midst. I am constantly amazed at how really truly gifted and famous our own BeSo is. I guess it's because I first met BeSo as one of us and not as a real celebrity.

Any way, back to the meeting (I've got to learn to stop Hasketting threads), the quiz was super hard but really great, a wonderful and unique first endeavor, Skyryder. Thanks for the cool prizes too. Thanks to JB for the cool Darth Maul and the opportunity to win the mini saber. I wish I had won it though. I am sorry I did not have an opportunity to talk to Mal_Reynolds or Adrian_Skywalker. I hope to see you guys at future meetings. Now I have to check out the pics.

EDIT-Just giving credit where credit is due.

 

The quiz was great. Very creative. Sorry I didn't get a chance to chat with everyone, soon we'll have to have our meting somewhere with stadium seeting

 

I liked the structure of the quiz, I just wish I had done better.

 

Glad everyone had fun. Seems like it was successful. Sorry it was loud. But, the better our turn out, the louder the events!!

Thanks Liz, Bernie for bringing goodies. Thans Drew. D-H, excellent job on the maps. Nice seeing you MJF.

See you all later.

 

Wow, that was pretty much the LAFF-meeting-that-will-go-down in history, wasn't it? Yeah, it was loud, but honestly, it being the HRC, I was expecting much louder, and was pleasantly surprised that we could at least talk to our neighboring tables. Anyway, with a turn-out so large, hearing everyone would have been impossible no matter what.

I thought Skyryder's quiz was wonderfully written; and I always find the quizzes hard, so it was difficult for me to judge whether or not his was particularly so. BeSo and I always end up writing funny answers on quizzes because we have no memory for trivia. It's funny: when we arrived (early) and the HRC staff found out we were a SW group they were really excited and kept peppering us with questions...questions we couldn't answer! We kept telling them to wait for the rest of the group, because BeSo and I were the LAST people to ask about trivia!

And great write-up and pics too, SR! Glad to have you on board with your new duties.

It was really fun to meet Adrian and "Mal" -- you fit in wonderfully! Hope to see both of you at many future gatherings...

Thanks DH for the maps and presentation on CIII; as soon as my cash cow returns from grazing far afield I hope to join you all in registering.

Drew and Dylan really enjoyed the group. They were amazed at JR's knowledge (they graded his quiz) and said that Lucas himself would probably have done poorly. They thank DH for the "treat," too.

Thank you to those who have donated to our web site. I've listed them above in this thread -- please let me know if I've messed up (sorry JR). I tried to log names as money came flying at me, but I kept getting distracted! As of right now, though, the $$ match the number of folks I've verified as donors, so I think I've gotten the list fixed. It's not too late to donate -- you can PM me for my address. Extra $$ will be set aside for next year; I'll have DB help me keep track.

It was great as usual to hang out with you wonderful folk, and my only regret was that I didn't circulate more...I can't wait for the next one, though!

JediBith (and BeSo)

EDIT: Almost forgot to thank our fearless leaders for all their hard work -- Darth Bubba, ValedaKor and JediRacer rah-rah-rah!

 

Thanks for reiterating the invitation, JB. Please let Drew know I am available to take notes for him at Skywalker Ranch next month. I'll gladly pay for my own ticket too!

 

Yesterdays meeting was a BLAST!!! Thank you for the warm welcome everyone. It was nice to have finally met the group. Hope to see you all again.

 

Sorry I did not have a chance to talk to you or Mal_Reynolds, Adrian. Hope to see you both (and everyone else) at the next meeting.

 

Hope to talk with you more next time DarthHas. See ya!