[Lnc-business] Informal Poll LNC December Meeting

Sat Aug 2 07:57:37 EDT 2014

In 1973, I visited an old girlfriend in New Orleans.  After a week of visiting among locals, I left a city called N'Orlinz to return home to 'Lasker.  I agree with Josh that we should forgo long term research projects and find the fiscally conservative meeting place.  Let the liberal Democrats meet in the Federal Reserve rip off Hall.

Ron Windeler
rowindeler at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Katz <joshua.katz at lp.org>
To: lnc-business <lnc-business at hq.lp.org>
Sent: Fri, Aug 1, 2014 12:34 pm
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Informal Poll LNC December Meeting

I take no position on whether we use a contractor or not.  I also, as a side note, would love to see New Orleans - it's been on my list for quite some time.  When I moved to Texas, I in fact got off at New Orleans to see the city, but my schedule didn't permit an overnight stay.  Neither did my budget, which is the concern I raise today.  The hotel we are considering for this convention will cost us about $5000 to hold an LNC meeting there.  I am assuming that this is with the knowledge that we are considering them as a venue for a major convention, hence a really good deal (respective to the hotel.)  I understand that the average cost of an LNC meeting is in the neighborhood of $2500.  I am only guess, then, that this will be a quite expensive convention.  Floor fee or no, the more expensive the venue, the less we are likely to net profit/greater net loss, unless either:
1.  We have states who have more willing delegates than spots (not too many) and an expensive venue will keep the poorer delegates away, thus increasing sales of larger packages.  I would object to this on moral grounds if I thought it, in fact, were the case, but I don't.
2.  We charge more for packages that are substantially the same.  Of course, for instance, banquet tickets will cost more at a costlier location (I'd expect) since food costs will be higher - and of course we don't know where the point of unitary elasticity is, although I strongly suspect (see 1 above) that this point doesn't move when the convention is held at a fancier location.

Given the cost of this venue for an LNC meeting, I therefore lean towards it not being a great venue for a convention, and would support having the meeting at the Hampton Inn instead.  I would add that, while it's a good idea in any case, we really need to minimize costs for the next couple LNC meetings since we are, in a sense, bankrupt.  So even if using the Hampton Inn will increase costs in the future, I think it makes sense at this particular moment to defer some costs into the future - time preference, etc.  

Joshua A. Katz

Region 8 (Region of Badassdom) Alternate
Libertarian National Committee

Chair, Libertarian Party of Connecticut

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Scott L. <scott73 at earthlink.net> wrote:

I strongly agree withwhat the Secretary wrote below.

Ms.  Mattson dida spectacular job of creating spreadsheets comparing the competing hotels for2012 and 2014, but needless to say it took her a lot of time to create those spreadsheets.

I think it would be avery good idea to use Helms-Briscoe to help us select the 2018 Convention site.

  Scott Lieberman

“HelmsBriscoe helps scout out options for meeting sites within whatever parameters wegive them.  They solicit the bids for us from the hotels.  We cantell them what data we want to know about each property, and they'll collect itfor us.

The committee we appointto oversee the process will narrow the field down based on data comparisons,and Helms Briscoe will further negotiate the offers with the finalists.

Helms Briscoe does nothave any authority to commit us to anything on their own.  We have thefinal say.  In the end, after all the data assembly is done, if we don'tlike any of the offers on the table, we can walk away and can do it a differentway if needed.

During the LNC meeting at which we were going to vote on the 2016 site,there were two Helms Briscoe agents on site.  While we were debating otherbusiness, they were in the hallway on the phones with the finalists leveragingthe offers against each other to get additional last-minute concessions. At the time of the vote, they came in and told us which items on ourspreadsheets they had improved in the meantime - this one dropped their guestroom rate by $10/night, that one lowered their food/beverage requirement, theother one is offering new perks, etc.

The LNC is billed nothingfor this service.  If we accept one of the contracts Helms Briscoenegotiated for us, then they get paid by the hotel...kind of like how a realtorgets paid out of the seller's revenues.

Speaking as a person whodid a lot of work for the 2012 and 2014 site scouting processes, using HelmsBriscoe for 2016 saved me an incredible amount of time so I could do otherprojects instead.  

Their people have a lot of experience in event planning and negotiating thesetypes of contracts.  We can have experts on our side even if the LNCmembers aren't experts in the subject.

If circumstances change and something goes sour with the contract after it issigned, Helms Briscoe agents will step back in to assist us while we navigatethe problem with the hotel.

I was very pleased with the experience with them last time.

We should decide early on whether or not to use them for 2018, beforewe solicit any formal bids from hotels.  If we use them, Helms Briscoeshould submit our RFP, collect the bids, and take the ball from there.

  Alicia”

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