I just wanted to cover a few items regarding our convention that took place on March 29 and 30 in South Bend, Indiana and mention a few things regarding the next convention. We had 120 people attend the convention this year. Of those, 96 attended the banquet. Over the last four years, our attendence figures have been consistently rising. I want to thank everybody for attending and hope to see you all next year. We conducted a little survey of the people in attendence and I would like to cover a few of the questions, give you a sample of the responses and give you an idea of what to expect next year.

Question: Should we have games outside the Journal's period of 1733 to 1766? 50% of the people responded that we should only allow Marlborough and the AWI, in addition to the period 1733-66; while 35% said we should restrict the convention to our period only.

Historically, the convention has been mainly 1733-66 games only. Previously we had some AWI and Marlborough games. The first time I put on this convention, three years ago, we allowed these games only because we needed some extra games on the schedule. In the future, we will continue to have a handful of both types of games, but we will still concentrate on the 1733-66 games. This is, after all, the SYW Association and we have to keep that in mind. My goal is to have the best SYW convention possible and I think that we have the right formula as it now stands.

Question: What do you like most about the convention? Seeing new rules and displays, location, nice hotel, the people, the camraderie, focused interest on the SYW, good selection of games and vendors, Duffy lectures, dealers and gamers, the small size of the convention, chance to exchange ideas, and seeing old friends again.

Question: What did you like least about the convention? Need staggered game starts, crowded room, hotel not prepared tor breakfast, some people were smoking inside, need longer hours, no convention T-shirt.

Question: What would you like to see at future conventions? Rules discussion, more lecturcs, better hotel, roundtable discussion group, games on Sunday and seminars on painting, terrain, basing and flocking.

In response, here are some of the changes for 1997: open the convention up on Friday morning and stagger Friday game times. This is not an option for Saturday due to the limited amount of time. Crowding: bring lights into the lobby and open up the area to gaming to alleve crowding when we have to set up for the banquuet. There seems to be more interest in lectures and round table discussions and we will work on this for next year. We will also address the need for better staffing with the hotel.

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