Now as you know, from a previous poll, Toronto surfaced as unexpectedly as John Kerry as the clear leader of the pack.of choices. It was also agreed upon in person in Philadelphia based on those results. However, nothing formal has ever been announced for a Fest in Toronto. This is for several reasons:
- It's too early yet -- Philadelphia is not yet behind us officially until the report is posted.
- No website has yet been created (other than a very rough itinerary page done just to give prospective participants a taste of what they might expect).
- Until this week, I was not even sure if I would be able to go across the border along with my son Michael, due to issues regarding my single parenthood.
Now, I let it slip in the most recent Sunday chat session that the date people expected might not be the correct one this time. A few people may have already made plans for July with taking time off from work, planning other trips or activities around this one, etc. The reasons for a possible switch to the fourth weekend in July (24-25) rather than the third weekend in July (17-18) are:
- By request of one of our core group who already had a scheduling conflict at work. At this time I felt it was early enough that (once again) not having announced anything yet, we could make a switch before the official initial announcement.
- Since a number of us associated with this board are also planning to take a multi-day trip in late June to visit parts of Georgia and Tennessee (also yet to be formally announced), a later Toronto Fest would give us more lead time, four weeks instead of three, in between the two trips to better plan the latter one.
So I ask that only if you are sure you want to come to Toronto this summer, please state your choice for which weekend. If neither one is good, then please specify another one that is better for you. A simple 51% majority will win this, so everyone who wants to participate in the Fest should vote. I will e-mail our participants from other cities who might not be reading this board every day, so they can come on and vote as well. For non-members I will take their votes by e-mail and add them to the totals. Let's keep this poll going until Sunday, March 14th, a two-week period, in order to give everyone who wants to vote an opportunity to do so.
Again please don't cast a vote if you know that you definitely can't or won't be going to Toronto to join us for this Fest.
Thank you.