The Story of MiniCon

Kelly and I wrote up a few snippets (broken out by category) of how MiniCon came to be, and how we (and others) pulled it off. Since we want other Objectivist groups around the country to host their own MiniCons, we wanted to share some of this information. (We also want to be able to remember this ourselves for next time!)

I hope this isn't too confusing, but we each wrote in first person. I put the author's name next to the appropriate section, so you know who is talking.

Speakers (Kelly)

Before we decided to have MiniCon, our social group was talking about having a "what-you-know" lecture series. Basically, it was going to be a monthly gathering to hear a short lecture on some area of professional or personal interest by one of our member with social time afterward. That gave me the idea for the short, informal lectures of Mini-Con.

I put out a call for speakers to our whole group, and I only got a handful of volunteers, so then I made like the British Navy and started pressing people into service. I found that the best way to get people to agree was to think of a thing they were good at or highly interested in and tell them that I would like them to give a lecture on that thing. Once people understood that they didn’t have to be PhDs or produce professional quality work, quite a few people were willing.

I asked them to send me first a topic, then a paragraph or two summarizing their talk. I only had to ask one person to talk about something different. Jenn and I felt that the talks should be in line with the core of Objectivism (if they touched on it at all – talks about other things were welcomed), and the one speech we turned down was fringy, at best. The speaker chose a different topic, and all was well.

Purpose (Kelly)

We had a very clear purpose from the beginning, and I think that helped us stay on track and make decisions. We wanted to have a cheaper, local alternative for those who weren’t attending OCON, and we wanted it to include both social and educational options, all informal. We wanted it to include the new members of the AOS, as well as appealing to our same old crew.

As we made decisions (Should we have an intro class? Should we allow a fringy talk that might confuse newbies? Should we get a nicer location? Should we pay the speakers? ), we consulted our purpose and answered based on our stated values (Yes and no, cause we want to help the newbies. No and no, cause we want this to be cheap and informal.)

Locations (Kelly)

Our choice of location was based almost exclusively on three factors: First, is it cheap enough? Second, is it big enough? Third, is it close enough? We didn’t worry about it being too nice. (For $15, you get what you get.)

We chose a community recreation center with two good sized conference rooms and some extra space for us to set up concessions and T-shirt sales and handouts. The rec center provided the chairs. I looked into other sites, but many were just too expensive for us to be able to keep the costs way down. Hotel conference rooms and many nicer community centers were out of our price range. The libraries only allowed rooms to be reserved one day a week by the same group. I eliminated churches and schools cause I didn’t think they’d want us or we’d want them. Our community center ended up costing X for 9-5 on Saturday.

I couldn’t find a location open on the fourth of July, so a member agreed to let us use her home for the second day of classes. We only had three classes that day anyway, so the smaller and less convenient location worked fine.

Getting Volunteers (Kelly)

This was one of the hardest parts. Jenn and I were willing to put in a lot of hours, and we had several other members who did big chunks of work (Thank you, kings and queens of concessions, BBQ, T-shirts, and party!). We also had several members who couldn’t contribute the time needed for big projects but were willing to do small jobs as they came up.

The best way to get volunteers seemed to be the same as the best way to get speakers. I figured out ahead of time exactly what I needed a certain person to do, and then when I asked them, it was very specific. I made task lists for the volunteers who were doing larger projects, so that they knew the exact specific things I wanted done.

Pricing (Kelly)

I worked out how much the location would cost, and I charged the smallest amount possible for 20 people to cover the cost. I didn’t factor in advertising, but the extra people paid for that. I used the same policy for pricing the BBQ. We made the party “bring your own everything.” Basically, we tried to price the whole thing at cost.

Promotions (Jenn)

I handled most of the promotions for MiniCon, which included MiniCon-specific Facebook ads, promoting on my blog and through Diana Hsieh’s OLists (thank you!), and Twitter. Basically, I blabbed about it every second I got. :o) We also promoted the event  heavily at the Atlanta Objectivist Society Socials and on our Announcement list, since this group was our target market, and as a new group, we were hoping that this first big AOS event would attract new people and our core group of friends.

As Kelly mentioned, we had no idea at the very beginning that people would be willing to travel from out of town to attend MiniCon (but we were delighted that they did!), so the majority of our promotional efforts were focused locally.

Website (Jenn)

As Kelly got the schedule settled, we put the updated information on the AOS website. A few months before the event, we created a pre-registration form and posted it to the website so we could get an idea of how many people were actually thinking about attending MiniCon. That information gave us ballpark numbers to work with. Once the schedule was set, we posted our registration form.

Registration (Jenn)

We used Google forms as a quick and easy way to get forms up on the website. The advantage to Google forms is that access to the information could be shared among others who were working on various areas of registration. (The downside is that we didn’t have any email confirmation for people who registered.) Kelly kept close track of who had signed up for which classes, and managed the classes with maximums. She created the waiting lists for classes and events that were overbooked.

Packets (Jenn)

A few people contacted me after we’d started promoting MiniCon and asked if we’d hand out some of their promotional materials. We knew we’d have an area at the rec center where the concessions would be, so we agreed. Then this project sort of grew on its own, and we ended up with flyers from about ten different Objectivist groups, and received booklets on four topics from ARI. We passed out most of the folders and freebies at MiniCon and have more to pass out at future AOS events. Coordinating the receipt (and in some cases printing) of the materials took time, and at the end several of us (including two of my children! put the packets together. I made labels with the AOS logo and put them on the front of the folder, too.

Finances (Jenn)

This aspect was a little tricky to manage, mostly because we originally anticipated about 20 people coming to MiniCon. We accepted cash, PayPal, and checks, and I set up a PayPal link on the registration portion of the website. PayPal was great--though we took a hit on the fees. As PayPal notifications came to me (this was set up through my personal account using an AOS email address to help me keep it separate from my personal stuff), I sent them on to Kelly. This helped us both manage who had paid, and I liked that someone else had copies of the receipts. We made copies of the few checks we received and kept each other notified. We kept the cash in separate envelopes (t-shirts, registration, concessions) and a different person managed the envelopes during the MiniCon. At the end of MiniCon, we used the balance in the PayPal account to reimburse AOS members who’d fronted some of the costs for the concessions and BBQ, etc.

After MiniCon was over, I spent a couple of days creating basic (very basic) accounts of our activities so that we knew who still needed reimbursement and who had been paid, and one of our AOS members (a CPA) has taken that information and used it to create books for our group, which we’ll be using going forward.

I think this aspect will be easier next time because we’ll have real books set up for our group and can probably delegate the job of managing cashflow to someone. This was a nerve-wracking part for me, partly because we were dealing with other people’s money, and I wanted to be very careful about keeping everything accurate and also making sure we kept things “visible” so everyone knew that we were using their money for what we said we’d use it for.

We did make a small profit, which was a genuine surprise, as we tried to price this at cost. We used the profit to reimburse Kelly and me for other AOS-related expenses, specifically the t-shirt costs and previous advertising costs.

What We Wish We Had Done Differently (Kelly & Jenn)

• Set up our spreadsheets a little more carefully in the beginning so that the money and attendance would have been easier to manage as the Mini-Con drew near
• Factored advertising into our prices
• Charged more! (We definitely could made some more profit without making it too expensive.)
• Chosen a weekend that didn’t coincide with OCON (We had no idea out of town types would want to come, and some people really wanted to come to both.) Next year, we are choosing a different date (Memorial Day).
• Not planned a shooting expedition on Monday after the Mini-Con (We were all too tired, and it was cancelled. Everyone was done, I think.)
• Delegated a bit more--but this will be easier next time, since we won't be making it up as we go along
• Advertised more beyond just our local group. Next time we'll specifically target Objectivists who are out-of-town but could easily travel to Atlanta (the Southeast, mainly).
• We should have made it clearer that non-Objectivist spouses and friends were welcome to all of the events.

Comments

[Christopher]

Awesome post. Since discovering that OCON is far too short (this year was my first conference) I've been considering organizing Mini-Cons in Austin, Texas. The possible dates I'm thinking of are President's day and Columbus Day, as each are uncontroversial among Objectivsts (easter is out of the question) and are far enough away from OCON to be supplemental rather than replacements. The two issues that are causing me to hesitate are the financial (managing other people's money) and that Austin used to have mini-cons in the 90's, organized and lead in large part by none other than Yaron Brook, which somehow makes the job much more intimidating.

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