There have been so many changes and so much turmoil at the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande this year that we arrived in town earlier than usual to start taking care of details for our Gypsy Gathering rally, which starts Febrary 9th.
The fairgrounds manager we have dealt with in the past was dismissed under strained circumstances earlier this year, and the man who took over his job seems to have spent most of his time stepping on toes and alienating anybody and everybody he came into contact with.
I have related in past blogs that he tried to raise our rental fee for the facility 400%, in spite of the fact that we paid a deposit at the end of our 2008 rally for this year’s event, with the understanding that nothing would change. We finally got that worked out (I hope), though we still do not have a contract in hand. The Good Sam Club, who is here now for a rally, and the Wandering Individuals Network (WIN), who have a rally here after ours, have all been down the same route with this guy.
Now another fairgrounds manager has been hired, and will take over next week. Hopefully we can sit down with the new manager and work out some problems that still exist.
When we arrived yesterday we learned that the annual Gourd Festival is scheduled for February 6-8, and won’t end until 5 p.m. Our Early Birds are gong to start arriving on the morning of the 8th, so it’s going to be interesting to see how that works out. Right now nobody seems to be in charge, and we can’t get an answer to anything. But one way or another, we’ll get over these hurdles and have a great rally. We always do.
A lot of folks who are coming to the rally have expressed an interest in volunteering to help out. No rally can happen without volunteers, and we appreciate the folks who step up to the plate to help make our job easier. Unfortunately, my computer seems to have eaten the list of volunteers I had on file. So if you read this and are one of those who want to volunteer, would you please send me a quick e-mail again, listing what jobs you might be interested in helping with?
We need folks to work on the parking crew, including several who can be here by the 7th to help with the Early Birds. We also need volunteers to oversee the morning coffee and donuts, to serve as room hosts, to help with registration, to pick up the donuts in the morning (this requires an early riser), as door prize runners, to help with the pizza party, to help organize our Cactus Queen beauty contest, and a few general “gofers.”
Terry and Connie Simpson, who have arrived a couple of weeks early in the past and called on the local business community to solicit door prizes, will not be able to make it to the rally this year. Is anybody going to be in the area who would be willing to take on that challenging job? If you’re interested in any of our volunteer positions, please send me an e-mail at editor@gypsyjournal.net.
It’s going to be a great rally. If you have not registered yet, click the link below and come join in the fun.
Thought For The Day – Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
You need an external hard drive and to have a backup regimen to protect your data. It seems like everyone learns this lesson the hard way. If a file is important then it needs to be saved in two places. Even a CD will work as a backup.