At 03:40 PM 11/19/2015 -0600, glaws wrote:
Concession: there is sometimes, and possibly in this case, the tendency to equate North America (23 countries per Wikipedia) with the United States. That is more a careless, linguistic peccadillo, I suggest, than a felony warranting a call-to-arms.
Very respectfully, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America> lists 45 countries (colourful table about 20% down the page)[1] including what "old-fashioned me" used to call "Central America" and "the Caribbean." North America is, at the very least, Canada, the USA, St Pierre et Miquelon and Greenland. The phrase "Koha North America User's Group would like to invite agencies and libraries located within the United States to host its third annual meeting" is *NOT* a "linguistic peccadillo", it is an explicitly discriminatory invitation. Paul [1] Including, btw, La Navasse which is seen by most historians as an anomalous US land-grab under the Guano Islands Act of 1856 which allows the US President to "consider as appertaining to the United States" any piece of real estate covered in ... guano.
B. Time of Meeting
I don't think meeting in a particular month carries the same weight of concern as your first point about inclusiveness, or even your last about attendance fees.
C. Attendance Fees
Libraries, few in the US rich, don't always have good conference rooms, especially if there are conference break-out sessions. That may mean renting some hotel meeting room space for $1,000 a day. If it requires a $20 charge per person to get some good facilities I think that's reasonable.
I have always, albeit typically privately, supported the idea of a reasonable attendance fee. I greatly appreciate it when a hosting organization provides coffee, maybe juice, and pastries for breakfast so that I don't have to run all over a hotel in the morning trying to find the $5 coffee and $4 donuts, being late for the inaugural address, and spilling now-cold coffee all over the nice lady in the row in front of me as I say "excuse-me, excuse-me" as I trip over people trying to get to the only open seat in the middle of the row in the middle of the room. Having coffee and donuts provided at the event is worth some coin to me and something more to the ex-nice lady soaked in cold vanilla hazelnut coffee which clashes terribly with her /parfum du jour/.
Greg
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Salvete!
The Koha North America Userâs Group would like to invite agencies and libraries located within the United States to host its third annual meeting held in early August, 2016. This meeting offers participants two days of instructional sessions and presentations, followed by a two day hackfest.
At risk of beating a dead horse, I am once again disappointed that
On 11/19/2015 02:19 PM, BWS Johnson wrote: this body has taken up the mantle of "North America". There are plenty of Libraries, Organisations, and Agencies within North America that do not fit your group's stringent United States centric viewpoint. I am also continually saddened that this body will only consider meeting in early August. It is further too bad that you all charge fees for your meeting. The three of these problems in combination send a strong repeated message that inclusivity is not an aim of your organisation, whether that be a valid conclusion to draw or no. I do so hope that at some point in future, this group might reconsider any or all of those matters.
Cheers, Brooke _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
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