> Along the same lines, I would find it interesting, and possibly a tie-breaker when planning how to spend my discretionary money and time, to know who the speakers were going to be at Convention and what they were going to speak about. For some reason it seems to be traditional to never announce this. (...) Now that we have the internet, why not let people know about the speakers? I often find the speakers to be the most interesting part of the convention. > > Devon
Having been one of the speakers at IOLI in Montreal, I can tell you it came as a huge shock to me to find out that nowhere in the written material of the convention was my name mentioned or the title of my talk listed. I come from an academic background and in that community, this would have been grounds for the speaker canceling the talk. As it was, I cried and then tried to make the best of it. When later I realised that I was considered a volunteer and not even a guest or equivalent to a teacher and that my talk was not even mentioned in the reviews of the event, well, I don't feel very inclined to offer to share my historical research anytime soon. ... More's the pity, since I had spent over a year researching the images and information and I believe that the talk itself (on the production of lace in New France by the female religious orders and the lay women they trained) was rather well done, and it had already been vetted by historians of religion at the University of Ottawa where I teach. Oh well, the excuse I was given by the IOLI organisers was that it was traditional to keep the speakers a secret. Small solace ... Lucie DuFresne past-president Ottawa Guild of Lacemakers Ottawa, Canada - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]