choco_frosh | AGM 2019: A retrospective of planning (Reply)

For as long as I’d been ringing in Boston, we’d been talking about AGMs. About the one this year, and was anyone going; about the one last year, and how it had gone; and, of course, about the last that Boston hosted the whole NAGCR, and the various things that…could have gone better on that occasion. But above all, about what we’d like an Annual General Meeting of the NAG to look like. And so, by implication, about the possibility of hosting again.
This was spurred on, of course, by the encouragement of everyone else in the NAG; and so in May of 2018 we started looking at the question seriously. Schedule a planning meeting; ask Ed Futcher (veteran of many AGMs) to draw up a draft schedule so that we less-experienced ringers had a better sense of what would be involved; collect feedback from everybody; hold a vote on it. And, last but not least, divide up responsibilities. Bryn and Austin (newly minted as Treasurer and Tower Captain, as well) to oversee the whole shebang; Cally and Laura to organize the handbell course and tower ringing; and the rest of us to work out transportation, food, housing, fees, t-shirts, web design, and booking all of the (many) spaces that were going to be required.
From the first, we had a number of goals. Avoid major snafus; keep AGM attendence as affordable as possible (no easy task, in proverbially-expensive Boston!); and, of course, make the whole event as fun as possible. Unfortunately, neither the churches’ schedules nor those of most of the organizers were going to allow for a pre-AGM ringing course, such as has become common; but one of the things we as a group do very well is handbells; why not have a handbell course? And we knew that probably everyone there would want to “grab” all of the local towers, so we made sure to plan trips to all of them (and then make sure that we had a plan for each visit, so that we didn’t wind up with bottlenecks on staircases pe people wondering what came next!) Finally, while we didn’t know how many people would come, we hoped for a good level of attendence, but that meant that not everyone could be in the tower at any one time; so what other activities could be going on at the same time?
Over nearly twelve months, we put it the pieces together. I think the jigsaw metaphor actually works rather well, here: people working independently on sub-projects, but coming together to help get some particular part of the whole thing together; some times when it’s all going slowly, some times when things come together all of a sudden; moments where you get stuck; periods when people take a break from the puzzle, because they have other things to do. Ringing in Boston, after all, went on; so did the ordinary logistics of recruitment, training beginners, guild meetings. (And, in this case, the not-so-ordinary logistics of tower cleaning, rope replacement, and jury-rigging an air conditioning unit so that peel bands didn’t melt.) But in the back of our minds, throughout all of this, was the thought: we’re hosting the whole NAGCR in a few months!
And in August, the whole thing came together.

For several of us, the party started on Wednesday. That, of course, is when the handbell course started; but it’s also when the food got delivered (and had to have temporary homes found for it) and when an assortment of vehicles turned up with Tom Farthing’s bell simulator and Michael Hinton’s miniring. (A number of us now wish we had one of each in Boston!) So it was logistics and ringing all afternoon, followed by our regular Wednesday night practice: regular in its timing, but made festive with numerous visiting ringers, and our usual post-practice trip out for Thai food turned into a mini-banquet!

Then I mostly wasn't there for Thursday and Friday, so other people get to fill that in...