Ken sez:

>Maybe I am the only one who values meeting people and finding out about their
>lives, their dogs life, the cat, the children and their funny neighbor
>that shoots
>rabid racoons or the cousin that hunts renegade emus at night in the
>Mississippi
>woods.

Yep, you are.  Have you so soon forgotten why you were run out of
preservation-L on a rail?  :-)

>The idea of planning a conference, any conference and nothing specific,
>ahead of
>time and trying to steer the event is what I started talking about. You
>can either
>have very strict controls in place which prohibit any time for people to
>talk with
>each other or to discuss what is really important to them, or you can
>loosen the
>controls and try to generate an emotional climate free of the fear to talk
>openly
>and candidly. I'm not into the idea of telling everyone what to think or
>how to
>speak, I'm into the idea of giving over the media to the participants so
>that they
>can provide their own sense of context, meaning, and control.

Here's a vote for balance.  I believe that conference organizers have to
give some context for the meeting; you need to select a theme around which
to focus discussion.  Then a selection of speakers on topics related to the
theme to foment creative insurrection, followed by roundtable discussions
structured to let/encourage folks (to) cut loose.  This makes room for Mary
D.'s concern for research papers, and accomodates Ken's desire for personal
interaction.  I like very much John Leeke's approach to working with the
general public, but I think Ken's query relates more to the need for
preservationists to have venues to hobnob among themselves

I grow increasingly concerned about the high priests and priestesses of
preservation formulating standards in an
increasingly-insulated-from-the-general-population academic pursuit of
perfection.  We promulgate perfect preservation, but our educational
efforts to bring the layperson, the general public, along with us has not
kept pace.  Until we do this, most of us will continue to experience a
dearth of informed clients: the clients that Bruce has hoarded for himself.
This has I suppose contributed to the feeling Mary K. expresses about folks
"toeing the party line" in order to present a monolithic view to the
outside world.

I have news for you...much of the outside world thinks we are nuts already;
totally detached from reality with our standards requiring historic fabric
to be conserved to the Nth degree, and our micromanagement of detail in
historic district administration.  So showing them that we don't
necessarily agree among ourselves about every nuance of preservation isn't
going to make any difference in the big picture as to how we are perceived
by "them."  (Besides, they won't notice we don't agree among
ourselves...they're not paying attention to us anyway.)  But healthy
dialogue and disagreement within certainly may sharpen our focus and
ultimately enable us to do a better job of preservation.  Remember,
creative solutions come from the challenge of problem solving opportunities.

_______________________________________________
Dan Becker,  Executive Director       "Conformists die, but
Raleigh Historic                                 heretics live on forever"
Districts Commission                                   -- Elbert Hubbard

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