Hmmm....

I have a couple ideas that will likely get posted tomorrow, but I am leaning toward viewing the main Wine Event of 2001 to be the France gig. Catman’s gig is a clear priority for March and we need to space things such that it is realistic for the folks wanting to attend more than one FT event (good call geo1004). I had a small brain lapse in suggesting the dates so close together originally. I would encourage people, if looking at coming to a Wine Event in 2001, to consider focusing on France for now. Australia is by no means out, but we might want to make very sure that if you do Australia, other previously planned events do not suffer reduced attendance. I think some people who may find it easier to be in Australia in March will probably still like to get together. We can maybe use it as a warm-up and debugger for a larger more complete event in the Autumn of the northern hemisphere.

I cannot get to the States in March so I will have to wait to break bread with you Catman until France. Ozstamps, I can count on you to be with us in March right? I will have a look at all the posts above and split the signup into March event and November event topics tomorrow. I also want to recap and update the folks who have indicated a desire to be at an Oz event in March. The planning will be ten times easier that way and we can really put our energy into making the November event a worthy successor of the PIP.

The dates of Novemeber 6-11 seem most appealing to me also so I will see if we can get consensus on that. Making it include a weekend when main events occur is a very good way to do it Catman. I like your thinking on that and if we can do it the second weekend of Novemeber it works beautifully for me. That is first choice and we will have to check with the whole gang, but lets focus on your first dates for now.

Ozstamps, let me get back to you on the Champagne idea tomorrow, but in principle nothing is out, but some things may be before or after a main event or events (which all would attend hopefully) and include only parts of the whole group (as dictated by individual schedules etc.) rather than try to get everybody to all mini-events within the framework of the Wine event as a whole.

Anyway, I need to think over some specific ideas that I have received recently and will post more tomorrow. Thanks for the input people, it is looking better everyday.

Mike

[This message has been edited by mjm (edited 12-02-2000).]