@BlueComet400 posted:Agreed, Marty. Any business whose principals/employees are there to promote its product and acquire customers, having only paid the entry fee and not committed to booth space, is simply taking advantage of the situation. I have participated in trade shows / conventions to promote my business, and every time, I was required to rent booth space.
Just so you and Marty know (I said this in an earlier thread), "OGR" in the recent past PAID for booth space even though we did not set up ... AND not one new advertiser or new subscriber was obtained when we did our promotion at York last year. We gave away a lot of money and product to those that participated and once again, just like the past decade, went into the hole. Of course we did this promotion for several reasons not limited to trying to sell our apparel, but to create some excitement and promote the York meet. We provide FREE sub-forums here on the OGR Forum for both TCA and York demonstrating our support. Also, keep in mind that everyone here at OGR is a member of TCA and all of us were members BEFORE our association with York. Heck, I was a member of this forum for quite a few years before coming aboard the OGR train. I think more than anything else, everyone needs to understand that businesses (and even non-profit organizations like the TCA) will not be around if they don't have financial support. Heck, out of the millions of pages views we have here and tens of thousands of members, only about 400 of you give $1.00 per month for a supporting membership. Using the quoted statement above, does that mean the rest of you are taking advantage of OGR? We don't think so and are very fortunate and proud of the members of this forum even though we all don't agree all the time. Nothing wrong with that rather it is more of how we disagree. Anyway, OGR made a decision several years ago to attend the Fall York meets. Setting up a booth or booths is less likely for us for a variety of reasons that I won't go into here but we are committed to paying for a booth so that at least we are doing our part to support the York meet. Oh, and I don't think the EDTCA thinks OGR is "taking advantage of the situation".
I will let this thread run a little longer but if it gets to far off the rails, it will be closed.
