Brothers and Sisters$
The Midwestern Begicnal GI Alliance conference was a reseaaingg
failure. Of the seven bases that were' invited (ßraad Forks AHJ, Self-
ridge AFB9 Grissos AS"BS Chanute AJB, Fi* Benjamin Harrison.«, It» Leonard
Vfeod, and our own Great lakes) only on© ga^e as advance soties that they
would attend. Itepressntatäves from two others arrived late Saturday alter«
noon and Saturday evening •••• long after we had given up hops of holding
a meeting.
2a the letter sent to the various bases» we asked that those who
would be unable to attend please respond in mm fashion so that we
Eight be able to obtain some feeling about «bat kinds of things would
be required to entice them ts attend such a meeting- To date we have
recieved zero replies. Some conjecture adght.be raised in hopes of
explaining the aiserable attendances Grand Forks* for exa2Bple9 is
several hundred miles fro» Chicago and travel would be e»poE3ive and
hard to organise in just a week and a half; Self ridge* s organisation
is built around an ASU chapter« and there has been sob» antipathy
between ASU and the Alliance since the inception of the latter group;
the orgaimtion at Leonard fefosd is nebulous and poor; and at Sre&t
lakes the recent reorganising efforts seen to haw caused a temporary
breakdown in costmunications.
She throe bass® that did send representatives were Orissoa (the
only one who notified us that they planned to attend). Ft» _Bea («hose
representative arrived late in the afternoon) and ©saaute (whose representatives arrived Saturday evening). It should be noted that the
precise time of the beginning of the meeting was omitted £rc® the letter
since there was some doubl? at the tiœe of the mailing when the «eating
place would becoœe available, fe hoped that any base which was interested in attending would «sake an effort to obtain this inforaatiea upon
receipt of the letter. (Addresses and phone numbers mm provided).
32b© failure of the conference brought out several organising
points that xmià to be considered^ Aigoag thes; more ti®e is required
to call a seating ia this region becatssa of the great physical sepor»
ation of the military installations; money for traveling expenses should
be nade available-if possible; personel contact (via phone or. "face to
face encounters) would be preferable to', written ecaraanicatioas; plans
for facilities should be solidified well in advance and* perhaps; exact structures should be outlined to transmit a clear and concise idea
of what will take place at such a gathering»