2020 Convention

Additional hotel information not captured in the initial post:

-The cancellation policy is anytime up to 72 hours before the reservation date, so you can make reservations now even if you are not sure if you will attend yet.

-A limited number of rollaway cots are available. Costs are $5/night for kids, $10/night for adults.

-There is one hotel restaurant in addition to the many restaurants within a very short distance.

Keep an eye out for the November-December magazine to come out soon with information regarding other convention details.

FYI...I made my reservations via the direct link on the NDC homepage.  Very smooth process.  I price-shopped the rate on hotels.com and trivago and they were nearly $30 higher per night, so the $109 per night rate is a good value. 

See all you cheese heads in Brookfield later this year!

Mark

@markkubancik

Thanks for the feedback Mark! I am glad the online process worked well. See you in Brookfield!

I did forget to mention it in the article in the magazine, but there is a complimentary shuttle at the hotel for any location within a 5 mile radius. This unfortunately does not extend out to Mitchell International Airport at this time. The hotel is looking into possibly adding limited airport shuttle availability on Wednesday and Sunday. Stay tuned.

Excellent video of one of the planned Friday driving tour destinations, the East Troy Electric Railroad.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BJMafPbHp_g

We called the 800 number. They said they could not handle it, to call local number. Had trouble getting thru on local number. Busy or voicemail etc.

We ended up just doing it on line with the reservation for NDC link. All worked ok online. We are booked.

@dandolan thanks for the feedback and I am glad you were able to get your reservation completed. My best guess is that they are short-handed with personnel to answer the phones due to the virus, but I will communicate that issue back to my contact at the hotel when I talk to them later this week.

Convention updates:

Registrations for the convention have started to come in and I am continuing to work through the finer details as we prepare for what should be a great convention! As these last several weeks have been a roller coaster around the country, I’ll start out by addressing the elephant in the room – coronavirus. Let me start by stating that at this point in time, I have no intentions of cancelling or rescheduling the convention. However, if the situation does not improve as we get closer to the event and we are unable to have the convention as planned, we will cancel for this year and reschedule for the same events and location in a similar time period in 2021. That decision would probably be made no later than the registration deadline at the end of June, which is about a month ahead from the event.

What does this mean for you? This means you should continue making your hotel reservations (remember they can be cancelled up to 72 hours prior to the event) and you should continue to send in registrations with the assumption the event is happening so I can continue to make arrangements based on attendance. Should the event get postponed, you can plan to receive a refund on your registration and we would then send out new registration forms next winter/spring for a 2021 event. Additionally, I will be posting updates on the website (desoto.org) forum, the NDC Facebook group, and the NDC convention event page on Facebook. If the event draws near and you are at all uncertain as to the status of things or cannot access the online resources, please feel free to reach out to me at the phone number or email listed in the front of the magazine. I remain optimistic that in three months (from this writing) things will be much better than they are now.

With that out of the way, I have a few additional convention details to add. First, this is the time in the year to start thinking about gift basket and raffle items for donation at the convention. Cheryl Bianco is helping me coordinate this and has led a great effort on the themed gift basket “challenge” the past couple conventions. Remember that the gift basket (or raffle item) that has the most ticket entries wins a gift card prize! If you have a donation or any questions, feel free to reach out to either of us (Cheryl can be reached at cheche6@me.com). Everything helps!

Additionally, the hotel has agreed to do a limited airport shuttle for NDC attendees arriving or departing at Mitchell International in Milwaukee. If this is something you would like to take advantage of, please reach out to me so I can put you in contact with the correct person at the hotel. She will need to know when you need to be picked up or dropped off, as well as the airline and flight number. You can email me at desoto2020@outlook.com.

Lastly, this information here supplements the detailed article found in the January-February “Adventures” magazine. If you are a new member and did not receive that magazine, but would like to get the convention details, please reach out to me and I will be happy to pass it along. Until next time, use this time stuck at home to get your DeSoto tuned up for the convention!

David Frank

2020 Convention Chairman

desoto2020@outlook.com

Convention update 5/26/2020

I'll keep this short and sweet. We're currently contacting all the venues (tours, buses, banquet facilities, etc.) to see what their re-opening procedures will be and their social distancing guidelines. This in and of itself may be a deciding factor as to whether the convention can still go on from a logistical standpoint. In addition to that, I sent an email survey this afternoon from the desoto2020@outlook.com convention email (please check your spam email) to gauge the general feeling of those members who may be attending. This went to people who:

1. Are registered for the 2020 convention.

2. Have hotel reservations for the 2020 convention.

3. Have verbally expressed interest to me in attending the 2020 convention, but are not yet registered.

4. Attended the 2019 convention in Kansas.

If you have/had thoughts of attending this year's convention and did not receive the survey, but would like to or felt you should have, please let me know either here or at desoto2020@outlook.com. Responses are due by Friday. We are looking at trying to have a decision potentially as soon as June 1 so as to make the May-June magazine with an article and also allow members to adequately prepare. I would advise that you hold off from purchasing tickets for flights at this time in case the convention is cancelled. Registrations and hotel reservations are still okay to do.

Thank you for your continued understanding as we work to handle this situation the best we can.

David Frank

*Convention Postponed to 2021*

2020 convention registration refund checks went out this week, so you can expect those to arrive within the next couple business days.

Well, tomorrow would have been the official start to the convention had it not been postponed. In case anyone is curious as to what the weather is predicted to be....it would have been just about perfect.