NEFHS Conference

Mon, 2010-04-26 22:16 — Robin Olson

I'm sitting in my hotel room at the Crown Plaza in Worcester, MA. after attending most of The New England Federation of Humane Societies Conference (say that five times fast). The hotel appears to be located in the center part of town, right next to some glorious old churches and WPA era buildings. My GPS didn't seem to know exactly where this hotel was so I had a not-too-thrilling-drive around town late Saturday night. Needless to say, there are some parts of town that don't appear to be places where one wants to drive a BMW. Our building is newish (less than 100 years old) and I'm sorry to say a bit creepy-okay, a lot creepy.

I was trying to figure out how to explain the decor. In the “common” areas, no pun intended, it appears that someone went to an auction of many hotels that were closing and bought up everything they could. The range of styles of furnishings is from 1970's dreck to 1990's faux antiquey. There are brown upholstered lobby chairs that look innocent enough, until you foolishly try to sit in one of them, at which point your buttocks is squeezed like a tube of cake decorating icing, then squirted into a vortex that drags you downward to the ground. They're VERY tough to “de-chair” without first having to roll to the floor, as though you're on fire and attempting to “stop, drop and roll” yourself to safety, after which you quickly stand up, brush yourself off and try to appear normal.

I know I should talk about what I learned at the conference, but the scent of lye? soap? was so strong in the hallways and guest rooms that it seared my sinuses a bit and caused me run to the window to crank it open to gasp a gulpful of freshish air.

The rooms have been updated and they are relatively nice. The caveat is the fabric wall paper behind the bed NEEDS TO BE VACUUMED! It's covered with dust. I can see where the wall was wiped down and where it was not. It would be a very bad choice for someone with cats. That is for sure.

I'm trying not to write a whiney beyatchy review, but I believe that the crunky location, the equally crunky, err, dreadful food, the overly lit lighting and the overly warm conference rooms, just left me feeling drained and gassy (no meat for us meat eatin' folks and all dem healthy veggies go straight to “fumes.”). I also couldn't help but compare it to BlogPaws, which was a lot of FUN, high energy, a great location and good food.

Maybe that was the problem? It was the energy of the folks at the Conference? Yes, I should blame myself first, so blame me, but then blame..what was going on? I did not feel the warm welcome or the general friendliness I've felt at other conferences.

I took classes on Infectious Diseases, Working with Adopters, Social Media for Shelters, and got to see this new way to quickly socialize feral kittens. It ONLY takes a few HOURS. I'm somewhat suspect of this procedure, but it sure seems to work. I'm going to plug it so you can check it out. Fearful to Friendly. While I feel the author is on to something, I do warn you that the web site is not too informational and it points to buying a DVD. We saw some of it, and with all due respect, it's rather long and needs some editing. If you can glean the info from it with the soundtrack turned off, you're golden. I think there is valuable info there, but I would love it if it could be presented more succinctly and professionally. That said, if you can turn a kitten or cat or dog around really fast, it's worth the money and the tedious sound track.

I also learned that I'm basically f-cked. Between having coccidia and ringworm in my house, the only way to get rid of it is really to BURN the house to the ground. The ringworm will live on in HAIR for YEARS and the coccidia is not killable, if that is a word. I'm not going to get my panties in a bundle about it. It's too late. What is done is done. My cats, knock wood, are fine, but the next litter of fosters I get will be the test subjects. They say to treat the kittens for Coccidia if we had it in the foster rooms, but I am reluctant to medicate kittens unless they really need it.

I also learned to listen more to potential adopters, to not judge them first (yeah, like I'm going to be able to do that!) and speak less AND that for a few bucks, I can drive a mile and get a really BIG grilled cheese with HAM sandwich.