MACNA XX September 5-7, 2008 in Atlanta
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The Atlanta Reef Club is the proud host of the 2008 twentieth annual Marine Aquarium Conference of North America! We already have Pre-registered and paid as many as the total attendance of most of the prior MACNAs, so it should be huge! Combine that with the tallest hotel in the Western Hemisphere, great speakers, and the largest aquarium in the world and we have everything necessary to have a good time.
The hotel is great, and the room night of $119 is unbelievable, it usually is in the $250-300 range. We were able to negotiate pretty well, but rooms are going fast. GET YOUR RESERVATIONS NOW! THE HOTEL WILL FILL UP! We have already confirmed reservations that exceeds last year's final tally, and had to renegotiate three times for more rooms, but we WILL FILL UP.
There is a lot to do in Atlanta if people come early or bring significant others - CNN, Olympic Park, the Georgia Aquarium, the Children's museum, the world of Coke, and Hooters (hey, I know my audience) is within a 5 minute walk, and MARTA goes from inside the airport to the hotel for $1.75 - so no cab charges. The same MARTA can take you to the Braves, shopping centers, etc. We are also getting together a kids program (popcorn and movies in the hotel) to allow parents to go to the banquet and speakers. We will offer that at cost.
Oh, and the banquet is food by Wolfgang Puck. No open bar like Pittsburgh, but good food inside a great banquet hall inside the largest aquarium in the world with two windows - one toward the largest indoor aquatic exhibit in the world (over 6 million gallons - the size of a football field) that includes four whale sharks and the other one toward the three beluga whales.
We anticipate about 1500 people and 125-150 vendors/exhibitors, as well as tens of thousands of dollars of raffle prizes, including a trip for two to Fiji, and behind the scene tours of the aquarium.
Here is the list of current speakers. More speakers will follow:
Banquet Speaker:
Joanne Ruxton
Behind the Scenes as a Underwater Wildlife Producer for the BBC
Joanne studied Zoology at London University and moved to Hong Kong in the 80's. She joined the World Wildlife Fund Hong Kong in 1990 to establish their Marine Conservation Programme; a significant task in a place that had no legislation to protect the coastal waters and where massive development was taking place before the handover to China. After four Marine Protected Areas had been set up, she joined the BBC’s Blue Planet team in 1997. Since that time she has been involved in numerous underwater film projects.
Other Confirmed MACNA speakers:
Dr. Bruce Carlson
Dr. Sylvia Earle
Eric Borneman
Anthony Calfo
Dr. Alex Brylske
Dr. Kimberly Cobb
Michael Cottman
Jake Adams
Dr. Al Dove
Ray Davis
James Fartharee
Cathy Sakas
Larry Jackson
Marj Awai
Jim Walters
Dr. Rob Toonen
Scott Fellman
Robert Fenner
Phillip Root
Steven Pro
Christine Williams
Matthew Wittenrich
Kelly Jedlicki
Charles Delbeck (will confirm in April due to potential schedule conflicts)
More speakers will be confirmed soon.
Please use this thread to ask questions and I will try to check in to answer them. You can also check out our website. If your administrator could make this a sticky that would help alot.
So who is going from your club?
Steve
