Lectures at the Convention: Can you please Make it?

A

ASHOOR

Administrator
Staff member
We have all heard how attendance to lectures and political rallies at the coventions is on a constant decline. This is pretty sad and embaressing.  Why can't we learn and get some cultural awareness while still having fun and socializing? we can certainly do both.

I have a personal friend (who is also an occasional user of this forum) who set up a lecture at a past convention and there was a total of two people present only!!!!!!!!!!!!! How embaressing?

I urge eacn and everyone who is going to the convention: please do your best to attend these lectures and other forums. If we don't, future conventions may not have them at all and the convention will lose their original meaning and usefulness.

Let us fill these lectures and make the organizers know that people are still interested in these educational events and it is not just about the social and 'mery merukh/AVN gossip/add me on facebook' and everything else that happens in the lobby or in the rooms after 2 AM...  :shades:


ASHOOR
 
Ashoor it's funny you mentioned this I was talking to my friend who I will maybe going with and since I have never been to a convention I was asking her questions. I asked about the lectures and she said that she has never been to a lecture. She has attended convention 9 times! I told her I would like to attend some lectures there. She straight out told me that she wouldn't "not her thing". Since I have never been to convention I'm not sure if others actually go to learn something, just party or both.

So anyone want to come to the lectures with me? lol I want to meet everyone and have fun but I want to learn more about Assyrians in general from these lectures as well.
 
Dalida said:
Ashoor it's funny you mentioned this I was talking to my friend who I will maybe going with and since I have never been to a convention I was asking her questions. I asked about the lectures and she said that she has never been to a lecture. She has attended convention 9 times! I told her I would like to attend some lectures there. She straight out told me that she wouldn't "not her thing". Since I have never been to convention I'm not sure if others actually go to learn something, just party or both.

So anyone want to come to the lectures with me? lol I want to meet everyone and have fun but I want to learn more about Assyrians in general from these lectures as well.
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Good for you Dalida! Although it is her choise, but I wish your friend was like you too.

I am telling you, there will come a day when these convention will be a mess and nothing more than just hosa w chaos, and no educational value.

It is basic: day time = education and lectures , night time = fun and partying

but as it is right now, day time = sleeping and recovering from the night before lol.

Rumrum, and I believe Waleeta have been to many conventions before and I am sure they can relate to what I am saying.

ASHOOR
 
Dalida said:
Ashoor it's funny you mentioned this I was talking to my friend who I will maybe going with and since I have never been to a convention I was asking her questions. I asked about the lectures and she said that she has never been to a lecture. She has attended convention 9 times! I told her I would like to attend some lectures there. She straight out told me that she wouldn't "not her thing". Since I have never been to convention I'm not sure if others actually go to learn something, just party or both.

So anyone want to come to the lectures with me? lol I want to meet everyone and have fun but I want to learn more about Assyrians in general from these lectures as well.
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DD i'll go with u  if u want me to i would like to know what they are about.
 
Barwarneta said:
DD i'll go with u  if u want me to i would like to know what they are about.
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Yeah that would be great. I had spoken to Jacob about the lectures a while back as well so I will bug him to come with us. lol None of the people I know from here(Toronto) that are going to the lectures.
 
I always attend lectures at the convention.  I've seen great presentations by Rosie Malek Yonan and wonderful panel discussions that Waleeta's been a part of.  Yes unfortunately you could count the number of people in these presentations on one or two hands.

My problem is never that there is nothing to do during the day, like some people complain, I never have enough time to do everything I want to do.  Last time I went was the last Chicago convention and during the day there were presentations, movie screenings, and the soccer games.  At night there is only the party.  I never got to a single movie screening because I was either in the lectures or at the fields watching the games.  I wish they would put some things at night opposite the party, cause honestly sometimes I wouldn't mind catching a documentary instead of drinking and partying.  But I know I'd probably be the only person in the room for the screening.  That's just the way these things are.

Dalida, I'd be honored to go to the lectures with you. :)
 
ASHOOR said:
We have all heard how attendance to lectures and political rallies at the coventions is on a constant decline. This is pretty sad and embaressing.  Why can't we learn and get some cultural awareness while still having fun and socializing? we can certainly do both.

I have a personal friend (who is also an occasional user of this forum) who set up a lecture at a past convention and there was a total of two people present only!!!!!!!!!!!!! How embaressing?

I urge eacn and everyone who is going to the convention: please do your best to attend these lectures and other forums. If we don't, future conventions may not have them at all and the convention will lose their original meaning and usefulness.

Let us fill these lectures and make the organizers know that people are still interested in these educational events and it is not just about the social and 'mery merukh/AVN gossip/add me on facebook' and everything else that happens in the lobby or in the rooms after 2 AM...  :shades:


ASHOOR
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From my personal experience of going to national conventions, and I have been to 4 of them,  I have noticed that the younger generation for the most part do NOT attend the educational lectures, which is pretty sad to see, since there are a great deal of grave issues to be informed about including humanitarian issues and political ones as well. The humanitarian ones are the ones that really concern me the most because of the cruel and unjust acts such as genocide and persecution that are being perpertrated against Christians in Iraq even today. When you have NON-Assyrians such as sociologists, politicians, and historians who are deeply concerned and worried about Assyrian issues MORE than the Assyrian youth themselves, then that shows you that there is something CLEARLY wrong. If the majority of the youth is apathetic towards it's own people, and the youth is the future, then who is going to make a difference and put an end to the injustice?

Sociologists are warning that Assyrians are on the brink of extinction all over the world. In Iraq, the Assyrians are facing genocide and persecution and are being wiped out systematically for both religious and ethnic reasons. In the Diaspora (the rest of the world), Assyrains are facing assimilation meaning they are losing language and culture due to various reasons such as marrying non-Assyrians. In the Middle-Eastern countries where Assyrians have fled to, they are dealing with even CRUELER and INHUMANE issues such as SEX TRAFFICKING. The trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation occurs in many minorities including ethnicities such as Assyrians and Armenians where girls are being DECEIVED, BOUGHT, and SOLD in the global slave trade and are being used as prostitutes in brothels. Assyrian girls are being fooled in to going to other countries to look for good-paying jobs and they are being kidnapped and forced to become prostitutes. Some of them are being kidnapped and are being raped and put to work. The GOVERNMENTS of countries such as Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Kuwait, Bahrain have ALL turned a BLIND eye to these issues.

You can see there are a drastic amount of horrendous issues that people need to be educated about. I think as a human being and humanitarian, even if these people were not Assyrian, I would still be concerned about them because there is a lot of HELL they are going through.




 
Our Federation is broken with leadership that cares more about making money and staying in power over our organizations than engaging and educating our youth.  That's why.
 
I love attending these. I missed out on the San Diego ones unfortunately, but otherwise I'm always there. The last convention I went to before that in San Jose (I think it was 2004), there were actually a lot of people in attendance for many of them.
 
i go to as many as i can. I usually don't get completely wasted so that i can wake up early and do fun stuff.
even though it's in CHicago i refuse to sleep in until 4pm then wake up and go to parties i love enjoying the daytime activities.
 
Wow Ashoor, this post really hit the mark with me!

I experienced this first hand during all the Chicago conventions (2000, 2003, 2006) that I worked in...most notably in 2006 when I was co-chair of the "Education Committee" which handled the lectures/seminars.  It was me and Dr. Norman Soulkha, who the main chair but I admit it, I did most of the work lol

It was A LOT of work... getting the right format and balance of subjects for people to attend.  And I'll be honest, I personally knew that the turnout won't be great, especially with the youth.  Since its only a weekend, the committee crams everything together without caring about timings.  During the day, there are the sports tournaments (soccer, basketball) so the majority of the youth are at those events supporting their friends/relatives.  There is little room for attending lectures/seminars because by the time they get back (late afternoon) everyone is getting ready for the parties and the lectures/seminars are practically finished anyway.

They really target them for the older crowd.  The only exception I can think of was back in 2003 Chicago when the back-then Assyrian Student Union (I was president at the time :)) created the Lamassu Lounge, which was an open forum inviting all academia and youth to attend to discuss their issues/concerns.  I must say it was a great time and we had reps from USA, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Australia, and probably more but I forgot lol  From there we made Generation Allap, which is a Yahoo forum I still admin and is active.  But after 2003, the events started dwindling with little or no organization.  Waleeta has participated in some great forums as well, which from what I remember had good turnouts too.

That's what it comes down to, organization and advertising.  If the committee is organized and actually advertises to the youth at given points throughout the convention (party, sporting events, etc) then I think we can have above-par turnouts.  If not, then we shouldn't expect any less.  I have no clue who is in charge this year for Chicago since I have been out of the loop in planning, and no lectures/seminars are posted on the website yet.  I will of course try to attend them if they seek my interest, and might help out, but so far its not on my to-do list.  This year is strictly a social affair ;)
 
This hotel is literally right next to the train which takes you directly downtown for about $1.75.  I doubt many people will be around during the day.  If they've even planned any lectures.

In the last 6 conventions or so I've been to, only two years were good - the year (Ramsen) RumRum planned them in Chicago, and the last one in CT when Donny George spoke. And that's it.
 
waleeta said:
This hotel is literally right next to the train which takes you directly downtown for about $1.75.  I doubt many people will be around during the day.  If they've even planned any lectures.

In the last 6 conventions or so I've been to, only two years were good - the year (Ramsen) RumRum planned them in Chicago, and the last one in CT when Donny George spoke. And that's it.
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Thanks for the shout out W!

CTA isn't $1.75 anymore lol it's closer to $2.50 one way now :/
 
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