From: hheagy@delphi.com
Subject: national convention
Part of the problem is that the Essence convention which is a
group of black musicians is holding their convention on the tail
of ours and they are paying a lot more money for rooms than we
are.  We had a similar situation in 1991 when we had to look for
more rooms.  New Orleans has always been the record setter for
conventions to date whenever we have hosted it.  I hope the
national will keep that in mind for the future.
Also, ever y time the national center decides to take
reservations instead of letting us deal directly with the hotels
some kind of problem results in either lengthy delays in
receiving confirmations or this kind of debacle with the rooms.
Hotels are better equipped to take reservations than we are and I
think in the future we should leave the reservation taking to the
hotels and let the hotels leave the problems of the blind to us.
This is also custodialism in its most blatant form; after all,
the next step may be that we have to book our flights, trains or
whatever through the center.  I think for all N.F.B. national
functions we should be allowed to deal directly with the hotel
and eliminate the middlemen.
Harvey
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