Road To Creating Change Houston 2014 Diary

Ever wondered what it was like or what goes on to not only plan a convention, but make them run smoothly?   Well, it takes a lot of work from dozens of committed people to plan it in the year before the event date and hundreds of volunteers during the event to make it happen.

In the world of large conventions, especially in the GLBT community, one of the largest is Creating Change.   I think you've read in these electronic pages how excited and thrilled I am along with the Houston LGBT community to have the premiere TBLG conference coming to Houston in 2014 for the first time on our end of I-45. 

Some little city on the northern end of I-45 has held it twice.  Gratuitous civic rivalry shade thrown at Dallas over, back to post.

I'm excited that many of you will be coming to my hometown and the Hilton Americas Hotel because it'll be the first Creating Change I've been able to attend since 1999.  That's way too long. 

I've been to several interest meetings since the rumors started flying that we were going to possibly get Creating Change last June.   But now the reality is sinking in that we are a mere nine months away from the January 29-February 2 dates we have scheduled for it. 

At 7 PM CDT in the Montrose Center the work began to organize the massive task of putting together Creating Change 2014, Houston style.

Our co-chairs for the 2014 event have already been selected.  They are Bryan Hlavinka, Christina Gorczynski, Augie Augustine and Lou Weaver.  They are not only the faces of our convention,  they have the task of overseeing the 15 subcommittees that are going to do the nuts and bolts work of helping to assemble CC14.

Those subcommittees are Development and Fundraising, Local Promotion and Outreach, Volunteers, Programming, Youth Support, Elders Support, Disability Hospitality, Bisexual Hospitality, Community Housing, Local Hospitality and Information, 12-Step Recovery, Spiritual Needs, People of Color Hospitality, Transgender Hospitality, and Media/Public Relations.  

The four subcommittees I was interested in were People of Color Hospitality, Transgender Hospitality, Media/Public Relations, and Programming.  

However out of the four that appealed to me, I could only pick one to focus my primary efforts on.  I was concerned about what would happen when my fall speaking schedule cranked up.  I didn't want to spread myself too thin or take leadership in one and my speaking schedule started pulling me all over the country to the point that the subcommittee's work would suffer.   So I decided to focus on People of Color Hospitality and I'd offer my help to the others I was interested in if it was wanted or needed.  

Of course, Media and Programming filled up fast along with.Transgender Hospitality.   I decided to join People of Color Hospitality as the one I'd focus my efforts on and signed up for that one.   

After a few minutes I met the people who I would be spending the next several months ensuring that our piece of Creating Change 2014 is well organized and run.   We're responsible for ensuring the People of Color Hospitality suite would have the Houston flavor we're all seeking to project to the world when y'all come here and ensuring that it and CC14 reflects our diverse community. 

After we selected our chair (Melissa) and co-chair (Ryan) (nope, was too slow on the draw so I'm the admin for it) we didn't waste any time trading contact information, setting up a meeting date and agreeing to a time that fits all our schedules for our subcommittee meetings.   We got started bouncing initial ideas and visions off each other as to the collective result we wanted to achieve.

The same thing was happening with the other 14 subcommittees the people in attendance at last night's meeting were committing themselves to in that room and the one next door. 

You can follow our efforts on Twitter @CC14Houston, we have a Facebook and Google groups set up. And yeah people, the $25,000 record fundraising target for a Creating Change is in serious danger of falling.  We ain't playing about obliterating that record.   We're also shooting for 4000 conference attendees for CC14.

For those of you in the Houston area who missed last night's meeting, it's not too late for you to join in the fun of planning this event.  The next meeting is happening on June 4 at the Montrose Center starting at 6:30 PM CDT and we have them scheduled through January 2014.   You can also get in contact with the co-chairs and they can plug you into one of the committees they oversee.

And I'll be keeping y'all posted through my window on the process.