Thought that since I had gotten back from out East and Iowa I&#039;d post some thoughts about the HPOCA meeting amd anything else that might cross my mind.

I was glad to get out East again, but I was very glad to get back to the Midwest.  Had a pretty good time in PA and then VA visting my son and his family for awhile, but they do have a lot of people and traffic there.

The meeting was my first were I hung around for the whole meeting and it was an interesting experience.  You do get the opportunity to meet an awful lot of nice people at one of the meetings.  I did learn my lesson and at any future meetings I will have a bragbook of the tractors my brothers and I have.

The host chapter and the hotel did a great job taking care of us.  The banquet on Sat night was very good and there were some very intersting people at my table.  One of them had even been to Princeton, Illinois!

The playday at the Zimmerman ranch was a highlight that very interesting.  Landis has quite a business and collection of CLETRACs.  If he eats everyday like they fed us it is a wonder he doesn&#039;t weigh 400 lbs.

There are a couple of things that could be done that I think would help the attendees have a better time.  The first would be a schedule of events for the activities that are planned.  Maybe the national guys and the local guys would have to coordinate a little more, but it would be great to know when and where things were happening.
A schedule could be included with the handouts you get when you register and pick up your banquet tickets.  That way peolple can make plans when to sightsee, eat etc. and still not miss things like the films Landis had, the board meeting and the general member meeting.  I talked to acouple of people on Sat night that had done a little sightseeing Sat afternoon and missed the meeting because they did not know it was being held that afternoon.

At the meeting I was surprised that handouts were passed out (not enough copies for everyone) and then members had to make decisions after a brief scan of them.  My recommendation would be that these documents also be included with the materials handed out at registration.  I know from experience many people will not ask a question in a large group meeting. However, if they are given the opportunity to look over the material beforehand they will try to get answer or make a comment to the person responsible for the information.  I intend to be at the summer meeting in SD and I guess I&#039;ll see if any of this happens.

One part of the meeting I found enlightening was the 45 minute &amp;quot;discussion&amp;quot; the members of the board and I had on Friday morning.  I can attest name tags work!  They found me!
Now some on this forum seem to think the board does not provide equal opportunities to all.  They do seem to have favorites, why Ollie got 2 full hours of their attention and I only got 45 minutes <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->.  But then Ollie has belonged to HPOCA a lot longer than I have. 

We did have apretty good discussion.  I believe we had an exchange of ideas.  I made it clear I thought they made a PR mess out of the way they had handled the termination of Sherry.  I told them I did not think that all the club members should get a say in things like contract terminations, but they as the elected officers and the appointed board members had to be better prepared to explain their actions.  They never did convince me that they could not have had Sherry sit in on the part of the excutive session where they took their action.   I probably did not convince them of  much either, but what the heck I did get to talk to them one on one.

Thursday night I talked to Chris and Becky for awhile which was very enjoyable.  I&#039;m sure that the magazine will only get better as they work on it.  I&#039;d like to say that second one was better,but I have not got mine.  I understand they did not have anything to do with the change in publication date, but it does seem that the USPS is slower in the middle of the month than it is at the first of the month.