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Daytona 2009

I'm also wondering if you really need the word MEMORIAL
as it is kind of obvious you're remembering him
since the award carries his name

I overthink too much stuff
 
I just got off the phone with Bette Bechtel (Bern's wife).

I told her about the plan, and asked her what she thought about the best name for it. She thought that H. Bernard Bechtel Memorial Award was the best name, in her opinion. She said that although everyone called him Bern, he always wrote H. Bernard Bechtel on all published papers, or any other professional work he did. She was very appreciative of the plans, and thought he would be really happy if he were here to see it.

I went to the trophy shop today - they sure did have a lot of trophies and plaques there! It will take about one week to engrave it, once we make the order. They had a pretty good selection of items for around $50 - $75, including engraving.

We have 3 main types to choose from - the typical woodgrain plaque with a black middle part where the words are written, edged in gold. Or a clear acrylic, a couple with a really cool blue backing, or actual glass (not too many choices in glass). The woodgrain are mostly rectangular, but some of the glass and acrylic are odd shapes, or even have rough edges, like rough stone. We should choose which general type we want, and then I can post a couple of examples of that type. You can look at their site if you want to:
http://www.fredsawardworld.net/air/index.html

The prices do not include engraving - add $15. Also, Bill was thinking about adding "logo" type of thing on it - maybe a line drawing of a corn, or corn head? If he does, that adds $15.

Here is the wording, spacing (although it is all centered), punctuation, and capitalization used on the Laszlo award that Bill won several years ago, if you want to use it as a model (not word for word, of course!)

The Joesph Laszlo
Memorial Award

Respectfully Presented to
Bill Love
For an Outstanding Contribution to Herpetoculture
at the
27th International Herpetological Symposium
September 6, 2003 - Houston, Texas USA

If you look at some of their plaques online, some are all in caps, some not. You can see for yourself what various examples look like.

Please comment on the wording, and also the type of plaque we should choose.
 
At this point Kathy I am going to defer to your best judgment.
I took a look at the website and I can see where just about any of the standard plaques would work well for what we need. I think which type, colors, etc are all secondary to the wording anyways.

As long as it looks nice and respectable I think it will be fine - and I trust your judgment.

My only suggestion, and if we can make it fit - instead of just saying - "For the advancement of herpetoculture (or herpetology)", can we somehow have it say "In recognition of contributions to the advance of xxxxxx"? I just think it sounds better, but it is also wordier and will take up more space/cost more?
 
The engraving seems to be a standard $15 no matter what it says. It just depends on how big it is, and how large we want the print.

I will try to do the wording again, taking into account what has been said. The Laszlo award is on the standard woodgrain with black plaque. But the clear ones (or clear with blue backing) are pretty nice looking,too. Hopefully, several more people will weigh in. I don't want to feel like I am just making the decisions for everyone else when it is a group effort.

I will also rely on what Bill thinks, because he is a graphic artist, and has a good eye for this kind of thing. He is going to to put together the graphic to email to the trophy shop.
 
Kathy, go with whatever the community wants. I'm too new to this to forum and reptile community (after a 25+ year hiatus). --I want you to all be satisified with how it works out. I need to shut-up more often. Diarrhea of the fingers...yup, there I am, pictured on the Wiki...
 
At leaast you are here, participating, and coming up with ideas!

Not every idea will work. But the more suggestions we have to choose from, the more likely we will all (or at least most of us!) will be happy with the results.

I put up the thread about the dinner on the 4 forums that I had permission to do on KS, and only the ball python forum responded. The corn forum seems to have no interest. Maybe they think it is only for CS, but I wouldn't have posted there if we didn't want ALL corn fans to attend! I don't know why they are not interested.
 
kathylove said:
and only the ball python forum responded. The corn forum seems to have no interest. Maybe they think it is only for CS, but I wouldn't have posted there if we didn't want ALL corn fans to attend! I don't know why they are not interested.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the corn forum is off for the evening, it is, after all, fryday...
Did you mention to them it is not for CS only? Sometimes they might not know, or assume, if not told. yeah, I subscribe to that (ks) too, but they don't send me automated emails, and I'm too slothish to check. Neither does that other one, the faunathing. I really wish there was the option to get automated emails sent to me whenever a sinaloan female was posted on ither site, or particuliar corns, like, on ebay, one can ask for auto-emails when something occurs in the search to be sent... And with these non-ebay sites, I wish when I put parentheses around a search phrase, it worked. How old is the internets now? So anyways, like you really need to hear this crap, the answer is within you, and "Patience, sweet lass, all will be revealed", though they may miss the deadline, let's hope the friday night Goldschlager or whatever was worth it
 
Don't worry Kathy - this is the only place I got any interest as well and I posted on some other forums too.

But honestly, I know we are running out of time so if you don't get any other feedback from anyone else here to just go with your gut. I know I trust your judgment and I am sure others here do as well - after all you ARE Kathy Love!!
 
I purposely avoided mentioning this forum when I posted over there, as I didn't want to stir the pot of competitive jealousy or anything like that. I think most of the regulars over there know that I spend more time here, although I do post on the KS ball forum more than their corn forum. I just feel really at home here more than anywhere else. But I posted to contact me for more info, and did not direct them to this thread, as far as I remember.
 
Katie!! Now will you please e-mail or PM me your address, and I will have the treasure chests just sent to you. Or I'll PayPal you the money- whichever you want.

And I was reading about the hotel, and they said the suites have connecting rooms. Will you ask your friend there to put us in connecting rooms???
 
I, too, will defer to Kathy about wording and presentation.

I do think, however, we should focus it to say something about cornsnakes as this is the cornsnake dinner and Dr. Bechtel worked with some of the first albino cornsnakes. Maybe something like Katie suggested... "In recognition of contributions to the advance of cornsnake herpetoculture"

There are many other organizations that honor the general herpetoculture industry...i.e. the example that Kathy gave above from IHS. Since the large majority of the attenders will be cornsnake people anyway, I believe that is where we should keep our focus. We have TONS of people in this world we can value for their contributions to cornsnakes....just look at any morph and see the people who work with it and focus their attention--not to mention all the big breeders like Rich Z, Kathy, Don, etc--that have advanced this hobby

Did Dr. Bechtel's wife have a preference for general herpetoculture versus cornsnake focused?
 
I didn't ask Bette about general vs. corns, only about Bern's name and the use of "memorial". I think she would be happy either way.

At first, I thought something specific about corns or genetics would be good, because those were his passions. But I am concerned that after a few years of awards, we might be forced to look only for who produced the prettiest new color of corn the past year, rather than awarding it to somebody who spent years of furthering the goals with more than just one pretty morph. There are a limited number of "pioneer" people like that when discussing only corns. But many, when you open it up to more than corns.

"General vs. just corns, or corns and genetics" is something that I would like to see a lot of people decide. I think a few pages ago, at least a couple of people liked the general approach. I would like to hear a consensus of people agree before I consider changing it.

There are a lot more decisions to be made than I even realized. I plan to make the order on Tues, when the shop opens again (they are closed Sat - Mon). So any discussion has to be finished by then, and agreed upon.
 
Maybe somebody should make a poll...

I never actually did one. Can it be put right in this thread? We don't want to draw attention from Rich with a new thread. (BTW, a member is going to try to call Connie today to find out what form of his name to use, and to get him to the dinner).

If we have a poll, it should ask:
Do we want a plaque that is: a. woodgrain, b. acrylic (clear or blue backing) c. glass

Do we want it to be: a. general herpetoculture award, b. cornsnake award, c. genetics / morph award, d. some combo of these (comments?)

Maybe people would vote who don't actually comment. Maybe somebody else can think of other things to ask in the poll.

If anyone wants to put the poll up, go ahead and do it. Just don't mention the recipient's name in the poll.
 
Hey Kathy - I really don't think we need to do a poll for this. I think it is going to take too long and get too many varying opinions on the matter. For the most part, there has been a small group of us organzing all of this and I think everyone will be happy with whatever we decide to go with. Since I have been working on the hotel/dinner aspect, I thought it would be great to let someone else run with this idea.

My personal opinion -I honestly like it better with cornsnake herpetoculture. We do have quite a few people I can think of offhand that would fit just cornsnakes for at least the foreseeable future. And as the years go by, some of the people who have only been in it a short time may rise up to be large contributors as well and then be eligible. Plus - as we have stated, most of the people who attend our function are mainly cornsnake people anyways.
Down the road if our GTG branches and more people are included, we can always reword the award, just like we can tweak any aspect of the GTG.

For the plaque itself, I am partial to the woodgrain ones...don't really know why, I just think they look "nicer", but that is just my opinion. In the end, it is the thought that counts and I am sure Rich will just be tickled that we did this to begin with and not really care what it looks like.

Whoever is going to talk to Connie - can you see if they can get some info about Rich? Like when he go into cornsnakes, why he got into cornsnakes, some other useful insight that might be helpful when doing a presentation of the award for him?
 
I will pm that info you asked about Rich.

OK, keep talking amongst yourselves about everything. I will post what I think we should do as soon as I am ready, and then everyone can comment some more. I realize that no matter what we do, some would prefer it a different way, but most will be happy. I just don't want this to seem like something I did on my own and forced it upon everyone else, lol!
 
I know exactly how you feel Kathy! That is how I have felt from the beginning of organizing all of this and why I asked for input on so many things. You really can't have too many people involved or you lose all control over the entire situation, and yet, you need to get vital suggestions from people to try to make as many happy as possible. It is a fine line to walk as I have been finding out firsthand!
I may work in travel, but I have never done a "meeting" on my own like this so it has definately been a learning experience. Overall though, I think it has gone rather smoothly and I think the majority of people will be happy with how everything turns out!

Now I am starting to think about how I want to pack everything to bring it out and stuff like that...
 
hi Katie,
well I was going to pm you but I guess is the same here..well we are not going to make it this year to Daytona. next year for sure count me in!!!
thanxs
Hector
 
Haha...funny you should say that, Katie...

everything you have organized seems so smooth, like you have done it hundreds of times already, lol!
 
kathylove said:
If we have a poll, it should ask:
Do we want a plaque that is: a. woodgrain, b. acrylic (clear or blue backing) c. glass

Do we want it to be: a. general herpetoculture award, b. cornsnake award, c. genetics / morph award, d. some combo of these (comments?)

Maybe people would vote who don't actually comment. Maybe somebody else can think of other things to ask in the poll.

If anyone wants to put the poll up, go ahead and do it. Just don't mention the recipient's name in the poll.
Click to expand...

Personally, I like the wood grain ones. The other kinds, every time anyone touches them, they have to be cleaned to look good again. Part of my (real) job is keeping a few dozen of them clean. And sometimes, over the years, depending on quality, acrylic gets cleaned with the wrong stuff, gets cloudy, discolored...and since it is going on an adventure after being received, glass might be an additional labor to safely transport.

ArpeggioAngel said:
My personal opinion -I honestly like it better with cornsnake herpetoculture. We do have quite a few people I can think of offhand that would fit just cornsnakes for at least the foreseeable future. And as the years go by, some of the people who have only been in it a short time may rise up to be large contributors as well and then be eligible. Plus - as we have stated, most of the people who attend our function are mainly cornsnake people anyways.
Down the road if our GTG branches and more people are included, we can always reword the award, just like we can tweak any aspect of the GTG.
Click to expand...

Were corn/snakes the only kind of reptile or amphibian that Dr. Betchel kept?
I don't see why you can't have both- the
H Bernard Bechtel Memorial Award,
and, for this year, inscribe it to Rich,
for improvment and further advancement of morphological diversity in cornsnakeyland
 
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