Friends, as you can probably tell by now, the AJL Council, all of whom are volunteers (there are no paid staff members of AJL) has long been, and continues to be, very concerned with all the issues involved in putting on our annual convention. One of the convention issues we discussed at the last Council meeting led me to investigate how the Assoc of Jewish Studies handles some aspects of its convention. One of the interesting things I discovered by corresponding with their salaried administrator is that they separate conference fees and meal fees. They do go to bigger cities and hotels where they can offer kosher meals for those attendees who observe dietary law or want to join others at meals. However, since not all of their attendees wish to partake in any or all of the meals, and because kosher hotel meals are very expensive, therefore they make the fees separate. They try to make the main banquet less expensive so more people will attend. In contrast, AJL philosophy emphasizes the informal networking and bonding that takes place over shared meals and our convention registration fee traditionally covers little more than the actual cost of the meals. This is another area we may want to review, but again we need to keep in mind that this issue, along with the others we've been discussing, have been carefully and thoughtfully considered by volunteer AJL officers and council members for many years.
Debbie Stern Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the AJL =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
