hazelchaz | (Oo-waa-aa, at Smokey Joe's Cafe. Oo-waa-aa, at Smokey Joe's Cafe.) Ooh! One day while I was...

Photos now online:
Anaheim Cosplay and Planning Picnic at Yorba Park (23-Aug-2009)
little_serenity and magi_sammy represented the Decorating Committee.

Ohhh, what a long day, but a great day it was. I got up at 6:00 am, because I wanted to be at the park when it opened. I didn't hit that target, and our first-choice spot was taken for a birthday party by the time I got there, but our second choice was darned good too. I taped down butcher paper to mark about eight or ten picnic tables, and we had a bbq grill that had natural tree shade all day. sbeckstead was taking charge of the cooking, and I didn't want him standing in the sun all day.

Once I had the signs and the tape unpacked, I put up our "Cosplay (arrow)" sign on the main "Group Signs" board near the entrance. I later went back with the stapler and tacked the signs down more securely. (left)

By the time Alec Orrock arrived (right), at 11 a.m., I had unloaded all three vehicles. Saltine mostly just had the second "restock" supply for the sodas; the back seat of the Napmobile had (among other things) the main soda cooler, and the first "restock" supply which was another smaller ice chest loaded with a smaller quantity of the same assortment of sodas as the big starting cooler.

I learned that "Sexy Kat Kashi" now lives in the neighborhood, in the city next door. I recruited her to help with the next postcard mailing. (left)

One of the things I want to start doing: I want a bunch of postcard recipients let me know when their postcards arrive, so I can track how much of the mailing has actually gone out. (Because when I'm not involved, I don't know how long it takes. The June mailing this year was completed in August, for example; I would have known there was a problem if I'd had this tracking thing set up.)

Someone brought a strawberry-flavored Gurran Lagann picnic, with handmade decorations. Quite the production, and tasty too. (right)

Bekka the Alice, our Fan Guest of Honor, was at this picnic. We assigned her a Guest of Honor Liaison, and she spent a lot of time talking to Pearl (Live Program head) and other department and division heads. Which is why we flew her out -- to give us her opinions and ideas and suggestions. (left)

Kyle Hebert, our Voice Actor Guest of Honor, showed up for the day, and hung out with us all day. (right)

He brought his daughter Kayla (not pictured), and we talked about needing to pick her up at school on the Friday of the convention so she could spend the weekend at the hotel. Kyle said he'd need to be gone from the con Friday afternoon for this -- at which point I said, "or we could send a car for her?"

Stephen Poon, of the Spoony Bards (our Music Guest of Honor), hung out and made friends with a lot of people. Here you can see him sitting with Tony Benoun, head of Registration, at the picnic table that has the map of the hotel's ballroom level. (left)

What's Tony wearing on his hat? I printed up department and division identification strips on the jumbo printer, originally thinking we'd tape them to the tables where a given representative was sitting. But a number of the staffers decided it made more sense to wear it as a hat band, or a sash. I really liked the result -- you could easily see who was the person in charge of what.

le_moose, our Artist Guest of Honor, spent the day at the picnic. Here you can see her with Anton. (right)

I'd promoted the picnic as a potluck affair, and everyone came through with plenty of food. I think next time I want someone to check in everyone and make a note of what they bring, so we can make sure people take home their rightovers! (left)

We had 89 names on the sign-in sheet, by the end of the day. I suspect a few people may have joined us without signing in, but 89 is my official count for the day. A good size!

The picnic's official ending time was 5 o'clock. But it was a beautiful day, and it was Sunday -- nobody was really in a rush to go home and do Sunday evening things. An hour after the announced ending time, there were still people all over the place on the lawn and by the lake. (right)

When the picnic had been over for two hours, and we were almost done packing up the cars, people were still hanging out having a good time. (left)

When we had the whole place packed up, we tore down the signs. Once everything was loaded, we didn't tell everyone to go home. I just thanked all of them, and told them that I was heading to Carl's Jr. for dinner and it wasn't far away.

As I expected, a handful of people joined us at Carl's in due course, but I received a phone call that meant I had to go resecure someone. Kate's mom's car's brakes had failed, and she didn't have AAA towing, so I went over to make sure the two of them got home safely and the car got delivered safely to Tokyo Automotive. They'd run the brake fluid dry, and hadn't taken care of the car generally, so I was happiest leaving the car there. And even though they were a one-car family, Kate's mom would be able to get back to the auto repair shop via a single bus ride.

Meanwhile, ladymaxstarr and library_lynn were entertaining Stephen at our house. I had another stop to make that night -- I needed to print something out at the office -- and then finally it was time for us to get Stephen back to the hotel.

Thank goodness Melissa was available. (right) I dozed in the back seat.

The reason I wanted to go, apart from to say good-bye to Stephen, was to drop off the new hotel contracts for animelosangeles 7-8 (2011-2012) and an addendum to our contact for 2010. The new paperwork locks in our convention through 2012, and includes a room rate of $109 for single/double/triple/quad -- including the 2010 convention. We're also getting more space, and we're getting more of our earlier space on Day Zero. I'm happy with the contracts, and as long as our numbers don't take a horrible nosedive the convention's in good shape.