Vol. 29 No.1, September 2001

SLA San Antonio Hospitality Booth; Looking to 2002

During the San Antonio Conference, the Southern California Chapter maintained a hospitality booth to disseminate information about the Los Angeles area in preparation for Los Angeles as the 2002 site for the SLA Annual Conference. Our booth was gaily decorated with images commonly associated with Los Angeles: motion pictures, celebrities, Oscars, palm trees, license plate luggage tags, glitz, glamour and more. Its eye-catching display attracted both convention goers curious about Los Angeles, as well as, those quite familiar with Los Angeles.

In addition to appealing decorations, the Chapter’s booth was well stocked with some 30 different handouts representative of tourist attractions in the area; as well as with maps and brochures specific to downtown. At the heart of our booth are its volunteers who donated time and expertise to promote Los Angeles as the next conference site. Our booth volunteers deserve to be recognized: Elaine Adams; Barbara Amago; Teresa Bailey; Alison Becker; Bob Bellanti; Carol Blankmeyer; David Cappoli; Jean Crampon; Joe Geissler; Amy Greenwood; Daniel Hanne; Debbie Hartzman; Doris Helfer; Richard Hulser; Bruce Liebman; Dorothy McGarry; Bev Murphy; Daniel Raphael; Katherine Richards; Seymour Satin; Tom Schutter; Jeff Sevier; Ann Shea; John Shea; Karen Silverman; Kathleen Smith; Ed Tinoco; David Tulanian and Dennis Vanderwerff. This small corps of 30 volunteers triple staffed the Chapter Booth during the 39 hours it was open – an entire work week. Additionally several hours of set-up and take-down were required. To say nothing of the advance work that went into designing the booth, procuring the decorations and generally all planning associated with having such a hospitality booth.

Volunteers reported positive experiences while on duty at the booth. Among the comments shared with me were: this is fun; you meet so many (interesting) people; it’s good to share information you really know first hand and not have to look everything up; I made the best contacts; so many SLA attendees already know so much about Los Angeles it’s amazing; and more.

This June when the Annual Conference will be in Los Angeles, we will need a considerably larger contingent of volunteers. Volunteer recruitment for Los Angeles is expected to be easier since distant travel is not involved. In fact while in San Antonio Los Angeles Booth volunteers got a head start on what to expect by observing the Texas Chapter booth to learn what we should expect from that experience; all in preparation for being the host chapter this June.

After the new year Chapter members will receive information about volunteer opportunities for the Los Angeles Hospitality Booth. I will continue to coordinate booth volunteers and collectively we look forward to contributing to the success of Los Angeles 2002.

C U N LA

Rita Costello

The Anderson School at UCLA