SHA has met in January for 30 years and this time slot has been discussed
by many. For example, see the recent letter by George Miller, who is
urging a move, in a recent SHA Newsletter. January has a lot of
advantages such as hotel rates,schedule of the academic world and when we
do go south it is nice for those from the snowbelt. I have even been told
that some people in the sun belt like the slot because they enjoy seeing
snow and cold air. The problems, of course, are all too clear.
 
Moving the slot,however, is a very complex matter. It willbe moved if the
conference location itself is ever snowed out as almost happened in Ohio.
Moving to March is rediculous. We can not move immediately forward (January,
February, or March) as we will run into even more severe storms. We can
not move back into December because of the holidays and end of semester
problems.
 
There are only two good slots: Fall (October -November; not September)
and Spring (April - May). The Fall slot is better because there is a lot
of rain in the Spring. However both these slots also have a major problem
besides the much higher hotel prices and problem getting booked. These
are the ideal slots so many other scholarly organizations selected them
long ago. We can not conflict with the AAA (November) or the SAA (May) or
the CNEHA (October), obviously, but there are also many "hidden" groups.
We probably should not conflict with the Plains Conference,SEAC etc. A
real hidden example, and there may be many more, is theSociety for
California Archaeology which meets in April and draws almost all
archaeologists, including historical archaeologists, from the West Coast.
 
Moving the SHA Annual Meeting will be a complex and major undertaking.
We will probably have to wait until the Blizzard of 2010 snows us out of
our meeting venue in the Yukon.