Virginia Blog Conference Too...(No, That's Not A Typo)

When I first considered it, I knew that it would not be possible to move the "Official Sorensen Blog Conference" to Martinsville. It was a pipe dream at best. Waldo explains it well in a comment on Kilo's site;

Any letters or phone calls would go to my wife, who works at Sorensen. She's on vacation with me, now.

Many months of preparation have gone into this. Thousands of dollars have been paid for deposits. Dates have been considered, accepted, failed, rejected. Speakers have been arranged, plane tickets reserved, hotel room blocks booked, etc. Though it's nice that an idea has popped up in the past few days that bloggers should get together in Martinsville, it's not possible to abandon months of work, a half dozen speakers, and a considerable sum of money in order to, at the last moment, select a new location.

I think it'd be swell for a bunch of bloggers to get together in Martinsville, but there's nothing to be done for this particular gathering. It'd be very much like canceling a wedding the month before and trying to re-arrange it for a short time later. Expensive, awkward, and it would make a lot of people angry.

My fallback position still stands, though. I propose a separate (though maybe not equal) conference in the Martinsville/Collinsville area.

As I stated in my original post on the subject, the idea was first conceived as a way to allow Will to reconcile himself with the Henry County citizenry, but I believe it can be much more than that.

Some Virginia bloggers will not be able to attend the Sorensen thing, some perhaps will not want to, some will even want to do both. For that reason I would suggest a different date.

Shaun Kenney has expressed a curiosity regarding an agenda for such an event. I can't answer that now, but I do welcome any suggestions. I would also like to hear from any of you with suggestions for speakers. I feel that I could persuade several local persons to speak. (I will go way out on a limb and suggest Barnie Day and Eric Helms Monday for starters, I'll even invite Ward, Roscoe, Virgil, and Rick.) Personally, I would like to hear from Norman, Waldo, Brian, and Conaway.

I guess, in short, what I'm saying is... I will put this together, lack of experience or no. I just ask from you, the Virginia Blog community, some help.