Posted by lc bob on May 11, 1999 at 20:00:36:
In Reply to: Let`s start on the CH Convention posted by Linda B on May 11, 1999 at 14:54:36:
Geez! what an incredible crew!
If there were a professional baseball team with half this much enthusiasm they'd make the 1998 Yankees look like pikers. saaaaaaay - you people aren't into baseball, r ya? :) hmmmmm ... the PainMasters, the HeadSpikes, the BeastTamers?
but i digress. the convention, bob.
LindaB has posted an agenda that's right on.
everyone else has offered considerable time and experienced talent to promote a confluence of pain that would make the inquisition look like Disneyland. a single question confounds us.
where? (drummer's geographic aptitude notwithstanding *smile*).
i suggest we all take a breath. this is a great idea, in both senses of the word. maybe smaller bites?
let's evolve a CHead org, rather than try to produce one out of the gate.
what if we started with "regional" Organizations to Understand Cluster Headaches (OUCHs)?
we could either have regional OUCHs all on the same weekend and communicate via the web/net (even clusterheadache's chat room) ... or we could schedule them at successive times (so latter OUCHs could gain the benefit of problems and solutions found at previous OUCHs). the groups would be smaller, easier to house and organize, and each might attack a subset of LindaB's agenda points. after a time, we would get better and better at organizing them, the regions might grow bigger and bigger until we actually have national OUCHs and then (who knows?) a worldwide OUCH!
the benes might be ... after a few small OUCHs, we'd have a history of serious OUCHs with attendant suggestions, complaints, diagnostics, aids, etc. to attract drug company support (lessening the chance of them blowing us off as a bunch of crackpots)... precedents of possible media attention that would promote competition between media outlets to cover future OUCHs - even possible support from some media moguls ... our own OUCH experience making them better and more productive ... we could solicit OUCH speakers and a whole bunch of stuff i haven't thought of.
it solves our international - even interstate - hurdle. we could take pics at each OUCH and post 'em here. we could elect an Embassador (like the Madelyn Albright of CHdom) of Pain attend each OUCH to lend consistency and give the impression of the larger community ... of course, this would have to be either an episodic out of cycle or a CHead sigO since any OUCH attendee in cycle would be at best a partial participant ...
ok, ok ... i promised not to write more epistles ... and here this is already unwieldy.
bottom line: smaller, ongoing, regional OUCHs as a start of something bigger. like DJ starting a tiny website in april 1998 and having it grow into this incredible wonderful life-changing entity it is now.
think small - dream large.
wha'd'ya'all think, CHbros and CHsisters?
-lcb
p.s. i propose a motto: (aahhhh - you all know what it is ...)