The last few years have involved a fund-raising event for my wife, Abbe's, medical brigade to The Honduras and these have been held in conjunction with GAS get-togethers. The last two were at Dave Sheckleton's place, and I had been under a very wrong impression regarding what happened financially last year. I knew we took in three grand, and thought this was quite a haul. I found out a few months ago that actually we took in only $700; the other $2300 was from financial donations called in to the medical people who were there. (They were the group sitting together beneath the trees some distance away from the rest of us--we enlightened audiophiles.) So I have had to come to the grim realization that the hours--probably 300 I estimate--for getting all those audio goodies into the silent auction wasn't exactly, shall we say, cost-effective. I could have raised much more money flipping burgers at McDonald's in that amount of time. Plus, the non-audophile people simply did not like the format. Out of fairness, I have to be understanding. I remember when I was an undergraduate in philosophy school, our professor who was a collector of antique fishing reels, and his brother who did the same, had a big philosophy department gathering in conjunction with their group of people who were interested in antique fishing reels. Well, those reels were interesting to me for maybe 10 minutes. After that, I didn't have any interest at all in that part of the show.
So the Honduras group, in their late-fall meeting, voted on what to do at the next meeting and the vote was unanimous to not have it at someone's domicile, but to instead have it at a public venue. (Abbe and I abstained during the vote.) So ... it ain't gonna happen this year, folks. If you want to come, there will be a meeting at St. Louis University Campus, Tegeler Hall, 3550 Lindell (between Grand and Compton). This will be on May 20 @ 2 - 5:30 P.M. There will be food, libations, but no audio gear. (Which, in a way, is a relief to me. Dealers obviously were getting tired of hearing me ask for their cast-offs, with me lamely suggesting they could make more money by using the gear as a tax donation. In truth, I don't blame them. I get tired of people asking me for donations through my business.)
This year's event will involve a trivia contest, cost of admission $20 per ticket. I don't know much about trivia contests. The last time I did one was when I was in high school. I think I was a junior, and it involved four of us on the debate team taking on the rest of the high school. (A small high school; fewer than 100 students in all four grades.) The debate team won. The teachers were angry at us. It all seemed silly. I never did it again. At the meeting of Abbe's group when they were talking about a trivia contest, they thought I was kidding when I suggested that instead of a trivia contest we have a profundity contest. I dropped my foray, the trivia contest will happen, and I probably won't be there. Abbe says these events are very raucous, noisy, and (she didn't use the word, but I inferred it) vapid. I would rather stay at home and try to do something more Dionysian than a trivia contest, like work problems in symbolic logic.
Many thanks to the Sheckleton's for hosting the recent such events, and to all the GAS members for helping with the conjoining of the event, but obviously this method hasn't proved itself financially, and out of fairness I have to concede that if other people don't want to do an audio event because they aren't audiophiles I have no right to argue with them.
We'll have to do something else for an audio event. Maybe organize it around a different motif. I certainly am open to ideas.
Thank you again for everything, and if you like trivia contests, then you might be interested in this year's event!
Glumly,
Francis Baumli
