From David Clayton: Hey Bill: Contrary to rumors of our demise as spread by our jealous rivals & detractors, Historical Collectibles Associates are alive and well and still serving the wargames community! Just finishing up getting resettled into my new diggs after quite the traumatic move. Opportunity suddenly opened up to purchase a nice new home (about an hour Southwest of Kennesaw) so I jumped at it! Look the last few weeks in May to move not only my residence, but also relocate my workshop. In the next few weeks I expect to also move all my imported wargames stock into a new warehouse/showroom, also containing several wargames table rooms, where inventory can be viewed and wargames fought by appointment. Anyone interested in viewing stock and purchasing it can contact me via this Email address and I also via my cell phone number 678591-0319. With literally hundreds of thousands of miniatures, this may very well turn out to be one of the largest historical wargames shops in the Country and certainly in the Mid-South! You can also list -me (Dave Clayton) as a POC for metro-Atlanta especially the southwestern 1-20 Corridor to Birmingham, AL! We're 20 minutes from Atlanta proper (45 minutes from the north side of town), about 20 minutes from Atlanta Hartsfield airport, 20-30 minutes from Marietta and around an hour from Birmingham, AL. Our group, tentatively called the Metro-Atlanta Gamers are be doing it all! 15mm Ancients, Nappies, Alamo & Mexican War, ACW, WWII, ArabIsraeli & Vietnam; 20/25mm Nappies; 25/28mm Ancients, Medievals, Renaissance, SYW & AmRev. Anyone is welcome to come by and run or GM a game! A variety of popular & home rule sets are used. Many of our participants are members of other groups such as the excellent PLATO to NATO contact Group I Newcomers welcome! Reach me at.- histcolassoc@ earthlink.net or my cell phone 678-591-0319. From Baxter Key the NASHCON Convention Manager for the last several years. Dear Major Bill and Members I would like to take a moment to thank the membership for allowing me the privilege to serve as director of NASHCON for the last four years. This job is truly a labor of love. Five years ago at the June meeting I was still on crutches from knee surgery and was hobbling through when Bill asked me to be the director. My reply was "Sure Bill whatever now give me my medicine." and so the saga began. The first thing I had to do was find a hotel, "How do I do that I asked". Nobody had an answer. So I set off in search of a hotel. The first one I found was too expensive, the second one was too small, and the third one was just right. So we signed the contract. Little did we know that the "Evil Drink Fairies" were holding their convention in the bar on Saturday night. There was a slight encounter between the two groups, but that is another story, and one not to be told in a family magazine. "Good job Baxter" said all, in fact we want you to do it next year and find us a bigger place. So up the street we went. In 2000 we had it at the Days Inn Airport where we had been before. We had had a few problems when we there before but management had changed so we figured that it would be OK. First we had flooding of biblical proportions and it just got better from there. The high point was the Track and Hull's bathroom which had straw in it. "Good job Baxter" said all "We don't hold the problems against you so do it again, but find us a nicer site with more room". So off I went. In 2001 we were at the Sheraton Downtown. "Great facility" said all. We had an increase in attendance and everybody was happy. Except for the Hotel which thought that tripling the fees charged for 2002 would be appropriate. By this time I had tried to get off the hook and pass the reigns to someone else. But alas there were no takers. So I "Volunteered to do it again even though I was pretty sure that I would not have the time to dedicate to it as I had before. So down the street we went. In 2002 we were at the Renaissance downtown. "Again you have done a great job but it seems to be a little stuffy in here" said all. It would seem that the A/C gods were mad at us again. This time they burned down the Thermal Plant that cools all of Down-town. (note: Next year don't forget the sacrifice for the gods. Find volunteers now.) Unfortunately we were down in attendance. I guess that the major news networks saying on Friday Morning that all of Downtown Nashville is closed drove some people off. I found a victim ( I mean Volunteer) to take over for me. And that brings us to where we are today. We have finalized the location for the next show, Franklin Cool Springs Marriott. Details to follow. Chris Edmonson will be the new director. I will be lending advice to him so he is not thrown in and told to sink or swim as I was. This year we had a loss due to the parking for preregistrants. If we had had normal attendance we actually would have shown a profit yet again. I would like to thank the main people who helped me make NASHCON into a success: Bob Duncan, Mike Peccolo and David Clairaday for the handling of the table tops. Bryant Williams for running preregistration. Joe Collins for scheduling the games * And all of the others who hauled plywood, and worked the registration table, and generally helped out. Since 1997 when we took over the running of NASHCON we have had a profit of $5555.90. Not bad for a bunch of volunteers. There is the Molasses now for the Sulfur. We have had in the past a problem of people volunteering to do things and then not show up. While not a big problem it is still one that gums up the works. Example: The people who said that they would work the registration booth with Bill only one showed up, the other claimed medical, and the other was a no show. Thus on Sat at about noon Bill had to go set up his game and the table was left open so we had a lot of people around enjoying the benefits with out paying for them. While you think that it is harmless to do this if the 10 or so people that I saw without badges had paid that would have been a little bit more in the coffers and less blood on the floor. How we can address this problem is notan easy solution but something has to be done. Be it a Sgt at Arms to enforce the No Badge Rules, or a policy of if you volunteer but skip out of your duties you are not let in I don't know but I will support Chris in whatever he decides to do. Thank you for letting me serve you as Director and I wish Chris as much success as I have had. With the support that I know he can count on I am sure his job will be just as easy as mine was. Baxter: This is my personal and public THANK YOU for all that you have contributed to NASHCON and MidSouth in general. I'd like to think it was more a matter of finding a capable person to direct the convention rather than taking advantage of your drug induced state. Regardless, your tenure has helped our convention program to show overall positive returns in spite of all the obstacles placed in your way. --Bill Back to Dispatch July 2002 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com