Dear Executive Board Members.

While I have been securing the Featured Staff for the 2010 Round Up, John and Dee were in contact with Cheryl Doerner, Senior Sales Manager, Marriott Hotel, to arrange for a meeting with Sue & Dennis, 2009 General Chairmen. During the conversation John and Dee had with Cheryl, on February 22, it was mentioned by Cheryl that in 2010, The 2010 National American Truck Historical Society convention has reserved every room in the Tri-Valley Area for Memorial Day Weekend. (Actually May 27-29, 2010.)

What does this mean and how does it affect us? Simply, the Marriott Hotel will NOT be available on Memorial Day Weekend in 2010.

This was quite a shock to John and Dee, who in turn regrettably had to tell me. This is a major blow to the tradition of the Golden State Round Up. We have found a venue the dancers have overwhelmingly told us they like, and it is very obvious by the numbers and rooms that are being booked as we meet here tonight. With this in mind, the choices of what to do were limited.

The two options as I saw it were, one, to move Golden State Round Up to another venue. The other option is to move the date of Golden State Round Up. Now while I have been in contact with the approved featured staff, and confirmed the availability of the callers, the date was still scheduled for May 28-30, as the news about not having the hotel was not known until February 22.

Since learning of the hotel not being available, I have been in discussions with my Round Up Advisors to assist me in coming up with a viable solution. The discussions were initially focused on the obvious two options.

The first option, to move to another venue was considered but after a lot of discussion, it was deemed not a viable option. The key element to this not being a good option was the dancers have spoken very clearly they like the arrangements we have now. So why mess with this part of what we know they like.

There are also the difficulties finding another viable location. We've established there's nothing else available in an appropriate size on the 680 corridor. The Fremont Marriott is too small. Milpitas is out of our jurisdiction. And the hotels on the Peninsula, SF/Oakland and the North Bay are out of our price range.

A second option was to move the date. This seemed to be the best option for the betterment of the Association and for Golden State Round Up. After determining the date would be the right choice, it was now a task to determine/decide what date would be the best.

There were several dates that came to surface. The 4th of July weekend, since the 4th is on a Sunday and most people would be off on that Monday so we could still have a full 3-day festival like Memorial Day Weekend. Unfortunately, the IAGSDC convention (the Gay Nationals) will also be held on this weekend in 2010. Two of our four featured callers would therefore be unavailable.

The next suggested date was for the 4-6 of June. After some discussion it was determined this too would not be a good date for a couple of reasons. First, one of the featured staff, Bob Baier, is not available. He has a 10+ year standing engagement out of state. Additionally, it was thought about in larger terms that Nationals will be later in the month in Louisville, Kentucky. For those that have motor homes and trailers this could be a factor in coming to Golden State, go home, unpack the motor home/trailer, just in time to get it packed again to travel to Kentucky. Not too pleasing even for me to think of and I don't have a motor home or trailer. The next option date was for May 7-9. This date could possibly conflict with Silver State. We have been in contact with some of the head people/organizers of Silver State and learned from the organizers of Silver State, they too are in a hotel quandary as late as of tonight. They understand the issue we are faced with and they, like us, do not want to be in competition for dancers.

After leaning of the hotel situation, I immediately got in contact with my approved featured staff. I provided them with optional dates as discussed earlier and found the short comings with some of the other listed dates. One of the factors used to determine the best date for everyone concerned, was the availability of the approved featured staff. The dates of May 7-9 are all good/open dates for the approved featured staff.

Why was it necessary to have an Emergency Board Meeting for this?
The reason for the Emergency Board Meeting is multi faceted. The hotel, the organizers of Silver State, as well as the featured calling staff, are waiting for an answer on what we are going to do. The change is out of the norm for us and all principal partners involved are waiting for us to decide what our decision is. Again, this is much more far reaching than our immediate area, and we need to let everyone else know what we are doing as soon as possible.

The purpose of this Emergency Meeting is this: I would like the consent of the Executive Board to have an exemption from The Golden State Round Up Guidelines, Article I, Section 2, which states, "The weekend containing the Memorial Day Holiday shall be known as the Golden State Round Up Weekend." and allow me to change the date from Memorial Day Weekend to the May 7-9 date. This change will be for one year, and one year only.

Additionally, make an exception to Article VIII, Section 2, which states, "There shall be no NCSDA advertising or promotion of the next succeeding Round Up before the current Golden State Round Up weekend. This applies to all forms of advertising including literature, dress, or relative materials. Exceptions will be the preview of committee dress at the January and February NCSDA meetings only." and allow me to start advertising the date change two years in advance.

I feel these exceptions to the Guidelines are extremely important to have a successful Round Up. The reason for the requested variance to change the date is obvious. Given the constraints with which I've been presented, I don't believe it's possible to hold a successful Golden State Round Up on Memorial Day weekend in 2010. The variance in the advertising restriction is for the planning of vacations for those that attend our festival and give them ample time to make the adjustments in their planning that they are going to need to attend. It has been a very long standing practice to have Golden State Round Up on Memorial Day Weekend and this is a major change to that tradition, and I feel it is necessary to allow those that attend our festival the most amount of time to re-arrange their time to make our festival a success.

Respectfully,

Scott Erwin
General Chairman
2010 Golden State Round Up