Minutes from our April 2010 meeting

There were seven members in attendance.

The Dallas Mars Society is preparing a proposal to host the 2011 Mars Society convention in Dallas.  The meeting opened with a report on progress.  Mars society members are reviewing potential venues in the area and have found several places which look like good options.

These options include the Embassy suites and Hilton near Grapevine Mills mall, and the Westin hotels in Irving and the Galleria area.  Tom toured and received bids from Embassy Suites and from Hilton.  Curtis toured and brought in information on the Westin hotel in Irving.

We discussed things we are looking for in a venue.  These things include:

• Physical resources for about 250 attendees
• 150 -200 room nights, or about 40-50 rooms for 4 day convention
• Meeting areas considering convention running four days, Thursday through Sunday:
• Registration area Wednesday night
• Large room each morning for seating about 300 persons
• 4 breakout rooms each afternoon seating about 30 to 50 persons classroom style
• Tickets and vendor areas each day
• Mixer area each day for coffee and snacks.
• Tickets, vendor/mixer area the same area if possible, and close to the main area and securable at night
• Reception area on Thursday
• Formal banquet area Saturday night seating about 200 persons
• Two rooms Thurs through Sun evening for evening activities
• Executive meeting room for the steering committee for one afternoon, with room for about 40 people
• Convenient location, easily accessible
• Convenient access from the airport, a plus if there is free shuttle to/from the airport
• Nice and reasonable in price

Don mentioned he would tour the Westin hotel in the Galleria area before the next meeting.  We planned to discuss the venues further next meeting and planned to complete the proposal in June or July of this summer.

This year’s convention will be held in Dayton, Ohio August 5th thru 8th.  We discussed setting aside funding from the treasury for t-shirts for this year’s convention.  Several members are considering attending this year’s convention.

We also voted to purchase more Robert Zubrin’s Case for Mars books.  We voted to donate some of these books to April to hand out at her SMU summer class.

The Dallas Mars society, the NSS local chapter, and Bent Tree Bible fellowship recently supported Perry Middle school’s space week through construction of a space station, mars landscape, other exhibits, and class presentations.  Perry reported that they received a funding award to expand their space exhibit for next year.  Perry is planning to add a second module to the space station with this funding.  We are looking forward to participating in the exhibit’s construction and Perry’s space week next year.

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