As the July 31st date for the workshop looms ahead, Stephen and I spent the last week trying to balance getting everything done that can be done, without getting ahead of ourselves.  I realized this week  that event planning like this can be verrry circular. This is because there’s a laundry list of things that need to be done (reservations, finalizing the agenda, sending out information on listservs, catering orders, etc), but at some point they are become interdependent and, this week everything was mostly dependent on the list of attendees. We set a registration deadline for July 13th (last Friday) but as I scan my email inbox, I can already tell responses to our invites are still filtering in, slowly but surely. It will take a certain amount of faith for sure, to start dividing those confirmed into breakout groups, and make decisions about seating, coffee, materials, etc when just over 50% of invited people sent responses back. An interesting obstacle to this planning process is the dissemination of information;  it appears that sometimes that because of the number of agencies involved and communications about AIS(Aquatic Invasive Species)/marine debris, I can easily be left out of the loop about who actually will be attending. Often, confirmation of attendance has come to me from someone else, or in an email chain forwarded to me.

Now as the registration process comes to a close, we finally can do all of the things that depended on it. I have a feeling that first on my list will be to go through the list of those requesting travel support, and open up a discussion with the steering committee and Oregon Sea Grant’s fiscal officer, Melissa Metz, about the status of funds and who we can afford to send to the workshop. It might be a little but of a scramble getting there, but I’m excited for the workshop and to see my efforts come to fruition!