Joined May 2009
711 Posts | 0+
Fulton, Michigan
I go to NADEFA for a lot of reasons. It is a great place to promote your business, contribute to a worthy cause, make new friends and catch up with old friends. NADEFA was all that this year, but I feel a bit short changed on the last two things
Why I feel short changed is because the booth display room closed and was locked up for the evening at 5:00 each night. I understand that the Conference is about “Fund Raising” for NADeFA, but it was ALL about Fund Raising this year. At 5:00 each day we were essentially forced to leave our booth, go to dinner and then go to the benefit auction. The benefit auctions went on for hours and hours and I did not want to sit through all of it every night.
In the past, if you didn’t want to sit through the auction where you cannot even have a conversation with someone as it is so loud you could go back to your booth, make new friends, catch up with old friends and relax. This year if you didn’t want to sit through the auction you were in a sense essentially shown the door. Those that didn’t want to sit through the auction dispersed to local restaurants and bars in small groups rather than staying at the conference.
Don’t get me wrong, I Paid to go to the conference, paid for booth space, bought raffle tickets, bought donations, sponsored the new deer farmers seminar, stayed four nights in a hotel etc. I gave til it hurt this year to NADeFA. I support NADeFA. I do not support getting locked out of my booth and losing the opportunity to socialize all evening with fellow deer farmers. So, to me the best part of the NADeFA conference was not there and I was very disappointed. I feel short changed on my booth space and my NADeFA conference experience by about 14 hours (7 hours per night).
Just keeping it honest.
Why I feel short changed is because the booth display room closed and was locked up for the evening at 5:00 each night. I understand that the Conference is about “Fund Raising” for NADeFA, but it was ALL about Fund Raising this year. At 5:00 each day we were essentially forced to leave our booth, go to dinner and then go to the benefit auction. The benefit auctions went on for hours and hours and I did not want to sit through all of it every night.
In the past, if you didn’t want to sit through the auction where you cannot even have a conversation with someone as it is so loud you could go back to your booth, make new friends, catch up with old friends and relax. This year if you didn’t want to sit through the auction you were in a sense essentially shown the door. Those that didn’t want to sit through the auction dispersed to local restaurants and bars in small groups rather than staying at the conference.
Don’t get me wrong, I Paid to go to the conference, paid for booth space, bought raffle tickets, bought donations, sponsored the new deer farmers seminar, stayed four nights in a hotel etc. I gave til it hurt this year to NADeFA. I support NADeFA. I do not support getting locked out of my booth and losing the opportunity to socialize all evening with fellow deer farmers. So, to me the best part of the NADeFA conference was not there and I was very disappointed. I feel short changed on my booth space and my NADeFA conference experience by about 14 hours (7 hours per night).
Just keeping it honest.
