Those of you who were there last year know what BTS is about. For the rest of you, check it out at HERE.
Realize that BTS 2007 is only about four months away. This will be the third year that SingleDivers.com will have a booth at the show. As in the past, it's been our members who have made the booth a success. It's not to early for us to sign up to help SingleDivers.com and Beneath The Sea. It's a great opportunity to see a great dive show, meet fellow divers, and keep up on the latest in our sport.
More info will follow, as it becomes available. Hope to see you all there.
Rick
WHO IS GOING & HELPING?
1. Kamala aka WreckWench of course! (Fly in Thursday depart Monday)
2. Rick aka Hipshot (working ?)
3. Ray aka Lattitude Adjustment (working Friday-Sunday for BTS)
4. Colin (You Rule) aka NYDiver (working to help and working on FREE lodging for people doing 10+ hours of volunteer work!)
5. Moose (help as many hours as possible. Has place for people to stay and possible extra transportation!)
6. Heidi aka Pocahontas (SD Booth! Yea!!!)
7. Catfish (Help because I found out about SD last year at the show!) - all 3 days
8. Ellen aka Fairy Basslet (I'll help SD)
9. George aka Tolly (SD booth all 3 days)
10. finGrabber (BTS all 3 days)
11. Cherie aka drckw
12. Kerry aka wingnut Sat & Sun
MARCH 24th HAPPY HOUR UPDATE:
Its time for our traditional BTS (Beneath The Sea) Happy Hour! It will be Saturday at 5:30 right after the show and it will go until the last person is standing...or sitting...or has left the place!!!
What: SingleDivers.com's Official March Happy Hour
Where: Embassy Suites Bar/Lounge right next door to the Concention Center
When: 5:30pm to ??? Saturday March 24th
Who: Any member of SD or anyone interested in learning more about SingleDivers.com!
Why: To have a blast of course meeting other Single Divers and watch Moose tell all kinds of stories!
How: Anyway you can...just be there!
IMPORTANT BTS UPDATE:
We are still finalizing a few details with the show as to how they plan to use our volunteers! Since we have some great members who fly into this event such as Fingrabber, NCMasterDiver, Dejah, Sea Urchin etc as well as several local very 'time generous' members such as Latitude Adjustment, NYDiver, Hipshot, drcrw, Tolly and now Moose & CatFish...we are able to give them something they REALLY need and that is volunteers on Friday the day that vendors get set up and they kick off the show!
Ray aka Latitude Adjustment will be doing vendor registration just as I will. BTS needs anyone else we can give them for Friday as the other dive clubs who give volunteers usually are Saturday and Sunday heavy. While we need volunteers for those days...we need as many for Friday as we can get.
Also we need roving volunteers. Our club is perfect for these as usually our members hang out at our booth when not volunteering or checking out the show. And we keep everyone on celfones or radios so we can find them if needed. The show REALLY likes that we can fill in as they need us and they have a central location to come too for assistance or extra help.
And of course SD needs volunteers but we fill the BTS requirements first and then use extra help at our booth! Sometimes that means Tolly and I are working the entire show by ourselves and I have to meet with vendors during this show as well as with prospective new members. Its ok cuz I love it!
This year is a very exciting year for us. We have the chance to really step up our help to the show and in return we will have a high visibility location for our booth. (We are hoping they put us in the main lobby which is what we are talking about but it will certainly be a great location.) Normally the clubs are along the back wall where sometimes the participants never even get too.
So in exchange for great placement at the event we will need volunteers spread over the 3 days with heavy assistance on Friday totally 140 hours. This is not as bad as it sounds...for example...Friday vendor check in starts at 7am. So the volunteers are there by say 6:45 and they put us to work. The show starts at 7pm so we can work alll or most of that time racking up LOTS of hours for our time committment.
The show will need some volunteers for the 'Fish & Famous' but you will need formal clothes. SD's HH will be right prior to that so I usually can not help BTS once the show has started. If you'd like to go to a formal event free of charge to see the famous people of Diving...then consider volunteering for this position!
Our plan is as follows:
1. Download the volunteer form from BTS website or below.
2. Complete it looking at areas you would be interested in working. ALSO PUT IN LARGE LETTERS THAT YOU WILL WORK WHEREVER THE SHOW NEEDS YOU! This is our critical value over other clubs.
3. Ensure that you put SINGLEDIVERS.COM as the club you are volunteering for.
4. PLEASE FAX TO...BTS's number on the form AND to SINGLEDIVERS.COM 214-350-2558 so that we can also plan with the show how to best use our volunteers!
All volunteers volunteering multiple days will get free entry to the show. Volunteer one day and you get one day entry. There is a minimum number of hours needed to get free entry per day which I think is 3 hrs but I'm not surre so we will check.
SD's BTS Organizers:
The SD volunteer organizers are Rick aka Hipshot and Kim aka Fingrabber and myself. However the truth is they are doing all the work...I just post and stuff! So if you get correspondence from them you'll know why. They are both tirelessly trying to figure out who is available for which days and how many hours they can donate if needed. They are also trying to figure out if you need a hotel room or driving in yourself etc.
So...to help them out would you please either post in the thread or send them ALL (fingrabber, hipshot, wreckwench) via pm/email the following info:
1. Which days you can volunteer if needed and for how many hours. If you do as Moose has done and volunteer for the whole day I can assure you that most likely you won't be used all day but at least we know we have flexibility for man/woman power!
2. Are you driving in daily or are you staying close by with friends or are you needing/planning to stay in a hotel?
3. Do you have specific timeframes that you can NOT work?
4. Do you have specific jobs you will NOT do? Or specific jobs you ONLY will do? For example you will NOT work the formal show or you ONLY will work the formal show.
5. Also let me know if you would like to work in the SD booth telling others about SD? Of course you can do some of that quietly as you perform other duties. The MASTER of this is Ray aka Latitude Adjustment and Deb aka Dejah. Ask one of them how they did it!
6. Let us know other resources/talents that you can offer such as transport, a place to stay for members, artistic talent for flyers, inexpensive copy resources nearby so we don't have to haul all kinds of flyers/brochures from Texas, etc.
A word from us...
I would just like to thank you all for your generous donation of time, effort and money to help us with this event. This event helps our organization grow and it helps us to meet LOTS of great new dive buddies! We really can not enough for your generosity! We have made a huge impression on the show and I expect that this year will be no different...in fact it should be better! And speaking of ...you all have ours!
- Kamala and George