I agree that Harry did it right, and deserves a lot of credit for hosting it as long as he did. The barbecue at his home was always the highlight of the week.
It's time for someone else to step up.
Thanks Jim. Putting together a real shoot as opposed to a few folks meeting to shoot for a few days takes a fair amount of effort. Since the past MI shoots were semi-"official" events of the Cafe and Dgrin web sites I felt obligated to make them as good as possible.
First one has to make the official announcements of the shoot at least 6 months in advance. You need to do this so folks can schedule their vacation time. Now the scheduling has to be during prime time down here which runs from mid-December through late Feb. December is out because of the holidays. The weather is not the best in early January so you're looking at late January and Feb. Then you have to avoid the period of the Daytona 500 (every motel room from St. Augustine to Melbourne is taken) and scheduled shuttle launches ( MINWR is closed and the motels are filled). You also want to avoid conflicting with Valentine's Day.
Once we included a West Coast shoot with the Space Coast shoot you had to find someone to run the west coast shoot. Now we usually scheduled the West Coast shoot to run from the first weekend through early Tuesday. The West Coast folks would drive over to the Space Coast and join the rest of us.
At our peak we had a little over 50 participants for the shoot. Some came for the full time and some came for a few days. You needed to get their cell phone #s so you could communicate with them during the shoot. You neeeded to arrange a group rate at one of the local motels and help folks who needed info on RV parks and other accomodations. I usually put up 3-4 folks at my house.
Now you had to schedule the shooting locations (you don't want 50 shooters at the Viera Wetlands at the same time). I usually scheduled shoots at local raptor centers and coordinated folks going out on boats into the Indian River Lagoon. Then you needed to put togther driving directions to the Viera Wetlands, the Orlando Wetlands, MINWR, Gatorland, and the raptor centers.
In between helping out the folks coming into the shoot (letting them know where to meet and where we would be on which days) I also tried to arrange a few meals where we could meet at the end of the day and get together. I usually made reservations for one or two nights at local restaurants (not easy because you never really knew how many folks would be interested in going).
On Tuesday night I hosted the "kick-off' BBQ at my house when the west coast goup and the space coast group met up for the first time. At our peak I had a little over 50 folks at my house for the BBQ. I had to get the house set up, figure out a menu, buy the food and drink, and cook the food for 50+ folks in-between getting up at sunrise to met the shooters and getting the day's shoot started. After the BBQ I had to clean up the house, beg forgiveness from my wife and then get up at sunrise for the next day's shoot.
The shoot took up 9 days of my time of shooting from sunrise to sundown plus the prep time prior to the shoot. I always had a great time and it was something I looked forward to. It was always a great satisfaction that folks enjoyed the shoots so much.
The key location for the shoot was the Viera Wetlands. As long as they were available the whole thing worked. Sadly that is not the case at the present time.
I can not and will not ask folks to lose their valuable vacation time and the expense of traveling here (some travelled over a thousand miles) unless I have some assurance that they will have a fantastic time.
As an alternative we might want to schedule a rookery shoot. Gatorland in Orlando and the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine offer incredible photo ops from Feb through late May.