We had a lot of people join us at the Rocket Fuel Coffee Company for our last meeting and holiday gift exchange.  The crew had a lot of fun exchanging (and stealing) gifts.  A favorite drink for several members was the Hot Chocolate with white chocolate or the Italian Sodas.  Apparently we impressed the owners of the coffee shop.  They asked if we wanted to return for future monthly meetings we usually hold on the second Wednesday of the month.  The owners were willing to give us a 10% discount on our orders.  It was also not required that everyone purchase in order to participate.  Our meetings would still start at 7:00pm (but that wouldn’t stop people from arriving early to get drinks or food if they wanted).  The library meeting room closes at 8:30pm, the coffee shop closes at 9:00pm.  Both locations have free wi-fi.  The coffee shop is on main street (and a main bus line).  The library would be a classroom type setting where the coffee shop would be more of a living room style setting.  Both locations are open to the public but we can close the door to the room at the library.  There are positives and negatives to both locations.  We haven’t signed a contract for the library for the 2014 year.  What do you guys think?  Stay at the Clearfield Library or move to the Rocket Fuel Coffee shop?  As this is your club, please let Captain Stark know what your preferences are.  We haven’t made a decision yet without getting input from the crew.

Ok for our next poll we want to hear from everyone about what they would like to see in the future of the USS Ticonderoga.  Is there an activity you would like to do?  Do you have a community service event that the club could help out with?  Any suggestions for the ranking system or the way meetings are run?  Do you have thoughts about the website or newsletter or anything?  This is an opportunity to post any suggestions or comments that you would like about the club.  Just click on “Comments” below and let us know what you think.

So one of our other goals with the Ticonderoga website is to help with the interaction and feedback from our crew and friends.  To accomplish this, we will have a poll every once in a while on our blog section.  Our first poll deals with some long term planning that the Seventh Fleet is looking into. 

We have a proposal to charter a bus to Denver for Starfest on April 15-17, 2011.  The question for everyone is, if the cost was $80-100/person, would you be interested in chartering a bus to go to Denver?  Early proposals have the bus leaving from Salt Lake City late on Thursday the 14th and arriving on Friday morning.  We could check into the hotel early to relax and get some of the better rooms.  When the convention is over, we could leave on Sunday and arrive home early Monday morning.  In the past we have stayed over night on Sunday to avoid driving through Wyoming in the middle of the night.  With this proposal we could save a day on the hotel costs.  This would also be a bus with a bunch of your Star Trek friends on it and it will have DVD/TVs on it so we can geek our way to the con.

Starfest is a huge Star Trek/SF convention that has been held in Denver for over 35 years.  It is put together by Starland, an SF mail-order company that also runs several Denver area haunted houses.  There are several Star Trek actors and authors in attendance.  Studios will send an actor to promote an upcoming movie or TV series.  There are a ton of room parties, panels, movies, model show, art show, horror, anime, gaming, comics and more.  Saturday night is capped by a massive costume contest and parody play by the convention volunteers.  They recently had to expand the convention into two hotels because of how large it had become.  There is usually an attendance of 1,500-2,000 over the weekend.

Our friends from the USS Pioneer help us out by getting discounted general admission tickets for the weekend.  These usually run in the $45 range (these are usually over $55 at the door).  There are also several packages for reserved seats and shorter autograph lines.  There is a sit down restaurant across the street and a Wendy’s nearby.  Refrigerators are provided in the hotel rooms as well and there are two hotels to choose from.

Since the early 90’s, members of the Seventh Fleet have been driving and flying to Denver to attend this convention.  It has almost become an annual mecca.  In 2010 practically no one made it to the convention.  A goal for 2011 from several Seventh Fleet CO’s is to have as many crewmembers as possible attend the convention in uniform.  If you are interested in going or if you would like to provide any feedback on conventions or bus trips, just leave a comment below.  Thank you in advance.