Not much info about the 2018 convention on the AKA website. Seems to be more info about it on Facebook. I do not do Facebook anymore. My wife does so I could see what had been posted. Too bad. I do not get much info about the AKA anymore. The website does not seem to be of a lot of value as far as info goes. The forums are rarely used. I guess I am just getting to old?

Hi George,

The 2018 Convention was really a successful event in my eyes. Mark Hlavaty didn't have a ton of time to put it together, but some lessons learned from our yearly show and a lot of dedicated help made it as smoothe as a voluntary event can be.

We would have enjoyed having you here, and understandably one of the drawbacks of a major holiday weekend for the show date is many conflicting schedules and other things so many families have going on.

Mark put the speaker line up together and they all did a great job. The show had over 250 entries and the auction topped 400 entries. Leo Long carved the first place trophies, and they looked amazing. We should have results up very soon for the show, and I think in coming years, or in the near future, as the judges finalize their results, maybe they could be linked to a live result feed or page. Technology is there, it's just synching it all together.

I know I was one of several proxy bidders for absentee bidders, and that does take several bodies as the auction happens, but implementing best practice technology/resources to provide best outcomes is our goal and I'm sure this area will quickly evolve.

That said, I know figuring out a way to post more real time information is a future priority that will be covered as we reflect on our time at convention.

Maybe live streaming the auction or show results and speaker talks will soon be a reality we implement. I can't speak for what the AKA prioritizes, but including all we can through all reasonable means possible is an idea we can further explore.

Regards,
Scott

Hi Scott.

I've help run or been involved with clubs that have done something like 7 conventions, plus an ACA convention, too. The technology issue, usually comes down to the venue. Some hotels don't even allow dial-up lines from the convention room, gotta go through the expensive switchboard. Some have very limited wi-fi. And, a lot depends on the club running the convention and how much time they'll have to deal with tech infrastructure issues.

As you say, I think the technologies there. There are decisions the BOT has to make though - Proxy bidding is  not without objection, after all, why attend if you can bid on fish from home? And, how do the fish get from the convention, to you? That'd be more work on the local club, I know it's been done, occasionally, but usually an affiliate sends a member with some funds and they handle bidding in person and transiting the fish back to their home club.

I'd be very interested in your thoughts here, I keep the AKA Facebook page which gets a bit of activity but mostly it's referrals to aka.org for further information, I don't duplicate what is here on the web site.

Regards,

Matt Kaufman
(e-mail etc. in the roster)

I did make it to the convention. I thought Mark did a great job. I enjoyed the convention and talking with a lot of the guys. I was a little disappointed in the amount of fish in the sales room. was hoping to get some new stuff. Only got a couple of pairs to add to the fish room. I could not stay for the auction on Sunday. So I missed out on that. My main concern is with our mode of communication. If you are not on Facebook you do not hear much. I dumped my Facebook account so I come to the forums, but do not find much here.

So, what would you have liked to see on the forums that wasn't there? Facebook page had basically what I saw on the Forums or AKA web page soon after it was up there. Nothing showed up on AKA Facebook page, that wasn't on the Forums or www.aka.org already.

I do  not do Facebook anymore, so I do not really see anything that is posted there. I heard someone mention that there were comments on Facebook about the convention so I used my wife's account to take a look. There was info about what fish were being brought, etc. It was not on the AKA Facebook page. Just in general discussions. This led to my comments that people are not using the AKA forums to discuss these things. My complaint is not what isn't on the forums, but with the fact that our members are not using the forums. Our communication is suffering in my opinion.