Quote Originally Posted by EdD
So, who made it to the show? Who wants to give us a review? Ed
Well, since the buck starts and stops right here with yours truly, I'll give you my perspective and hope that others join in. Thanks to Ohiotuber for coming and introducing me to a lot of FAOL'ers. With as many that showed up, we may have to investigate the possibility of having an Ohio Fishin. Let's get some beverages and discuss it in the near future.

Here's what I posted on another site this morning:

Thanks to all who came out and made the 5th Annual Northern Ohio Fly Tying Expo a huge success. I received a lot of feedback yeasterday, positive and negative, and some changes are already in the works for 2008. The primary concern was that a lot of folks could not find where the show was located on the campus. We share in the responsibility for that problem. The college did not have the "Special Event" signage in place for our show, but rather they had it in place for another event happening on campus at the same time, and by the time we knew it was a problem there was nothing we could do to fix it. Next year we'll have our own signage and a better map on the website. This was our first year for this venue, so we knew there would be some things to be learned. On the plus side, every complaint I received was from someone INSIDE the show, so it was good they finally found their way through the maze of buildings and parking lots.

The other issue was that when the River Gillie from Scotland went outside to do his spey casting demonstration, he told me to just have the people "walk out the doors and keep going straight ahead. They'll see me!" Well, it turned out that he made a slight detour of "100 yeards to the right, in front of the south parking lot, over the hill and below the tree line" where he found a spot to his liking. These were the directions I then gave people for the second outdoor demonstration. That was actually a little humorous.

The most encouraging comment I heard repeated was that the all of the educational seminars and demonstrations were top shelf. As I checked each classroom, they all appeared to be filled, and a couple we actually standing room only. All of the instructors are "home-grown" talent, so it goes to show just how much knowledge we have right here in our own backyard, and how eager people are to learn more about fly fishing and all that it has to offer. For those of you familiar with North Coast Fly Fishers, you know we pride ourselves in education, so we feel extremely good about organizing an event that so many people benefitted from. We already have some ideas for additional educational seminars for the 2008 show.

Thanks, again, to all who came out. Your admission dollars will make it possible to for North Coast Fly Fishers to continue to fulfill the mission of FFF: "Conservation, Education and Restoration." And a special thanks to all the FFF Clubs, Fly Tyers and volunteers who DONATED their time and talent to make this event a huge success. And to my wife Linda, thanks for sitting there all day selling 50/50 tickets. It's time we took a mini vacation away from this madness. Vegas, anyone?

Joe Valencic
Chairman, Expo 2007