Lake Nebagamon Reunion Planning

On Monday, Oct. 18, we drove to Lake Nebagamon to investigate the possibility of holding a Carlson family reunion in the summer of 2011. It was a beautiful, cool, fall day and Nebagamon was both the same and different. The town has some things that have not changed -- like the Auditorium, and ...

the DQ!

Maranatha Bay looks the same...

...and so does Honeymoon Point

The old Carlson cabin looks good.

Seidler's cabin looks good too. And the dock apparatus is impressive.

This is the revived "Lovik" cabin now owned by folks named Takkuken.

Here is the Hustad cabin...

...and this is another Hustad cabin.

On the road in from the Cleveland Road we met Mark Amstutz. He is Donna Hustad's husband and a Political Science prof at Wheaton College. He was up for the day and was closing up their place. We had a nice visit and learned several things from him.

They have built a beautiful place on the site of the old Carbaugh cabin. This is their place.

This is a beautiful log cabin where the Gotaas cabin stood.

Here is the Lindberg place.

The old Cedarholm cabin now owned the Steuerwalds.

Veerman's cabin.

On the site of the old Lockyer site has this impressive place.

Is this the extra (?) Hultman cabin?

Original Hultman place

The Shaeffer (sp?) property...Mark Amstutz had an interesting story about Bob Shaeffer.

Visit to ACSI Headquarters, Colorado Springs, CO

On Wednesday, June 23rd, Connie and I had the opportunity to visit the beautiful headquarters building of the Association of Christian Schools International in Colorado Springs. Our immediate purpose was to meet with Becky Hewes, the ACSI Exhibit Coordinator, and to set up the PAFC exhibit space locations for the upcoming Christian School conventions this Fall. We will exhibit at 13 different conventions and it was helpful to sit down personally to make the booth selections. Additionally, it was a blessing to see the ACSI facilities and meet several of the staff members. Here is the building entrance.

This is the view looking toward the mountains from the parking lot.

Becky and Connie at the Information Desk

Lobby area adjacent to Information Desk

Becky in her office

IT Department

Other side of the IT Department

Board Room set up for Curriculum Editorial Review Committtee

Second Floor Waiting Area

Office of VP for Academic Services

Editorial Department

Partial view of the Graphics Department

(There were about 6 Designers in this Dept.)

Overall view of the warehouse

Depth of warehouse aisles

Meeting Dr. Brian Simmons, ACSI President

Chapel assembly area

Paul Kienel, ACSI founding president built this conference table

Photos of ACSI Global staff members

Pennsylvania Homeschool Convention

This year at the CHAP Convention we had a good booth location in the 600 row, next to the large My Father's World end-cap display. We were partially screened from the vision of people approaching from the center aisle, but our table cloth logos were visible.
The large "Bible Curriculum" graphic also helped our visibility, but it was necessary to place our tables as close to our aisle as possible so that people would see us. We had two 8 foot tables, plus our short 30 inch table that we brought from the home office. We used two racks to exclusively display teacher manuals (hard copy and CDs) and then displayed all students books flat on the table for easy viewing. This worked very well.
Here is the view from the center aisle. I would like a more predominant location or signage, if possible.
Rainbow Resource is a company that is now selling our books. They had a very large display, with hundreds of books available for sale at the convention. They organize their materials by subject matter and we were able to easily locate our Positive Action materials.
Here are our PAFC books for sale in the Bible section of the Rainbow Resource booth area.
I was very interested in observing the set-up strategies of other vendors. A Beka Books had eight booth spaces and lined them up in a long, linear fashion. I did not think this layout was as effective as the end-cap, or "center island" layouts of other large vendors.
BJU Press used the "center island" approach and they actually occupied fourteen booth spaces and created several islands that were accessible from four different sides. They created an open feel and their signage was visible from every direction.
Another very visible display was Alpha Omega. Their graphical image was not too impressive, but they were centrally located and very visible by using a six booth end-cap set-up. They were launching a new online homeschool program called Monarch, and I think they were somewhat successful in attracting attention by having a well placed location and open feel.

Projection Display at Convention

I thought this display at the Galveston convention was interesting and effective. They ran a loop video on the main display screen, but could also project from the two keyboards and monitors.

The display formed a curved screen. When you approached the exhibit your attention was drawn to the screen and the presentation that was being projected.


On the podium there were two monitors and keyboards. These individual computers were running the "school administration" software that the vendor is selling. Prospective customers were able to have hands-on interaction with the product.


The digital projector was hidden behind the monitors and literature rack.

The laptop running the main promotional loop was hidden and protected inside the podium. Also, all electric cords and cables for the peripherals were hidden from view.


Our course this display has to be pricey, but it was impressive and effective. If we were ever going to do a display in a very sophisticated situation -- this type of set-up would be worth considering.