I want to add to Bob's message about the Austin SHA meetings.  As a  former 
SHA Conference Chair, I appreciate all of the work that goes into these  
meetings.  This was a well done production.  We seem to be getting  back 
toward our high point of SHA conference attendance which was in  Williamsburg 
(1500 attended), a great thing.  
 
I liked the hotel layout, and the easy access to downtown restaurants and  
bars.  The banquet was well done and the food good.  The speakers  and 
overall structure of the ceremonies were very well done.   The sessions were 
good, as well as the bookroom, though I was  disappointed that there were not 
more vendors.
 
The scavenger hunt on Saturday night was fun for many people, I believe,  
and my wife and I found some nice places to eat that we might not have  
otherwise.  
 
Great meeting 
 
Mike Polk  
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 1/12/2011 21:32:22 Mountain Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Congratulations to our colleagues who organized and brought off the  
2011 SHA Conference in Austin, Texas. The meeting was attended by 
over  1,200 people, the sessions were good and well scheduled, and the 
hotel was  excellent in its arrangements and location. The Austin 
Hilton was right  next to historic Sixth Street one of the oldest 
corpus of early buildings  in the city.

The Business Meeting was well organized and run; not  overly long. The 
Banquet-Awards Ceremony was also very well run and quite  enjoyable, 
even emotional at points. It was also announced that George  Miller 
will be the 2012 recipient of the J. C. Harrington  Medal.

Austin, which many of us had never visited, turned out to be an  
easily walked city with numerous historic locations (Texas State  
Cemetery, French Legation, State Capitol building, U of Texas campus  
(LBJ Library) and Lady Bird Lake). Lots of good places to eat and, of  
course, the Weird Museum on Sixth Street (I was not aware that Texas  
also has a version of Big Foot).

Congratulations. Very well  done.