I was going to keep quiet on this subject, but then Tom Polk mentioned, in regard to the Salt Lake City conference, that: >> I am taking some ques from the SAA conference to help us. Tom, please. please don't take too many ques from the SAA conference. I'm so proud of SHA for finding reasonably priced conference hotels and so perplexed over SAA's indifference to the financial situation of many archaeologists. I think SAA's track record on outrageously expensive (yet tacky) hotel venues is awful. ( for example: Opryland and Disneyland). So, If january lets us get affordable rates at great hotels, please let stick with the plan. I loved the layout of the hotel. I thought the centrally located area with tables was brilliant. You could find whoever you wanted to talk to, and find a place to sit down and gab. The reasonably priced hotel food was a real pleasant surprise also. The tours were great, and I loved the reception in the museum. Did that exhibit have neat stuff, or what! (however, many of us would have been a lot happier if the organizers would have shared their plans with the hotel concierge! Specially tour info. & pick-up plans for day one before the registration desk opened) And EVERY year, I'm upset with scheduling and upset because popular sessions are being held in small rooms. Does the board get feed back from the room monitors? Seems like a little bit of record keeping and analysis of which session organizers and topics attract the most people, might be beneficial. I know there are some regional differences, but there are some overall trends also. I think we are getting too big, and too fragmented into specialities for institutional memory to handle this. Hey, are we going to get a bus tour and introduction to research in the LDS library? Hope so. Linda Derry, [log in to unmask]