"Once upon a time..." I traveled to Nashville, TN on a red-eye. The trip was uneventful except it was freakin' hot and I had to squeeze into a plane seat. For all of my skinny friends, this was definitely a turning point for me.
Thank goodness other BSA employees are kind and friendly. I met up with a girl at the Nashville Airport and we traveled to the hotel and through check in together (about an hour). Unfortunately, our rooms were across the hotel from each other so we parted and wished each other good luck. I hauled my junk up to the room and my roommie was already there. Her name is Hilary Black-Ward and she is from the Mt. Baker Council (Everett, WA to the Canadian border). I had called her before we left and talked to her. She seemed nice enough - she has British roots and has a cool accent. She was fabulous to me and very, very fun to talk with and go around together with.
All I wanted to do when I first got there was shower and sleep because I'd been up for like 48 hrs. First, I had to go get my shirt, my passport (more on this later) and eat something. Oh yeah, I hadn't eaten breakfast, lunch of dinner because my connecting flight gave me only minutes to run through the Houston airport!! I was famished and dehydrated.
It's so odd because if you all knew that I get anxiety in large groups, you could understand my fear at this event. 4-5000 folks, all crammed into a rather large room, but they were very strict on opening the doors and the crowd (this would've made a great picture) would spill down all the staircases and the escalators and the adjoining hall ways. It was wicked crowded and hot and way overwhelming.
To the conference itself - Bob Mazzuca makes a great visionary and I learned something about the national office that I had never known before. He told the national staff that things were going to change and that they needed to get on board of leave and many left (40 to be exact). How crazy is that? He is serious about change and catching up with technology so that families and boys can learn about scouting. I appreciated that a lot.
Plus, they used some serious technology to share the message. A little circus like and maybe a bit over the top, but very fun. Probably the most FUN I've had was one night they set us at tables alphabetically so there were like 12 tables of Johns and I was at a table with Shane and Shannon's. Pretty hilarious and a great way to get to know folks.
Josh Turner, same night, as the table seating by name, performed for us!!! I couldn't believe it. For those of you who don't really know who he is, he is a HUGE country fan and most of his songs are country-christian. His wife is the keyboardist and the band was so nice. They were performing for like 3000 peeps. It was so personal and FUN! I was only a few feet from him.
Later blogs...Chatanooga, Atlanta, home, golf tourney, Sabrina
2 comments:
Way fun Sharon! I am glad you went and from the looks of it - had an AWESOME time! :)
Ha ha, I like the idea of seating people by name. I'll have to use that sometime.
Looks like you had fun. I can't wait to see more.
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