(I posted this around a few places. I find it amusing that I am posting it publicly in other places and behind a filter on my journal. Silly students.)

TNG4 was this last weekend and it was pretty dang awesome. Now that it is over I can confess to my serious trepidation surrounding the event. I have never been a real gung-ho member of a TNG group and I was concerned about us pulling this off. We had about 100 people throughout the weekend and that felt pretty perfect. Some of the classes were so full that we would not have been able to put more bodies in the room anyway so it is better that we didn’t have people who were frustrated by inability to attend the class of their preference.

The con was attended by people from all over the country. I was a little bit surprised by the low local turnout, but I got to meet lots of cool new people this way so I’m not complaining. It turned into a LLC-TNG light because this con was primarily TNG group leaders from across the country. I got to see a lot of new-to-me presenters, some of whom haven’t taught much anywhere yet. I highly recommend all of the presenters we had. If any local class organizers want contact information for them I will happily hand it out because I saw some of the best classes I have ever seen at this event. I’m kind of jaded and cynical about classes because I have seen a lot, but I was pleasantly surprised repeatedly all weekend. For the record, we had (in no particular order): Zuchtiger (Ohio), Sir Michael (New Jersey), Jae Januze (Colorado), Rita Seagrave (Ohio), Coral Mallow (Oregon), Tim (DC), Boymeat (NYC), Mr. Michael (Kentucky), Lee Harrington (Maryland), Jen and Pepper Mint (SF), Madame Lark (Humboldt), Cygnet (SF), Ryan (Oregon), Psychokitty (SF), and Rae Goldman (SF).

Personally I got a lot out of this event that I didn’t expect to get out of it. There was a lot of sitting around discussing why TNG groups exist. Given my own mixed feelings on this topic it was really neat to hear from the leaders of the TNG community why they started groups, why they think groups should happen, what the reception is like in different parts of the country, and how each of us individually have/have not benefited from TNG groups. Many of the answers surprised me. A number of people (including myself) were pretty open about the fact that we don’t get involved with TNG groups for personal support–we do it to encourage other people to feel more comfortable. It was nice to be able to hear at least a little open acknowledgment that we mostly know that TNG stuff is ageist, but so is the rest of society so we don’t feel too bad. Given how prevalent the attitude is among older members of the community that obviously the young’uns need to learn from their elders because the young’uns don’t know shit–no wonder we want to go do our own thing. Actually, we know a lot. And it was nice to see that focused on this weekend. Now that I have seen it demonstrated so clearly how much this particular little group knows I want to share that with the community at large because I’m not much of a separatist in general.

I’ve never been a leader in the TNG community and I doubt I will start now, but this was a good experience and now that it is over I’m glad I helped organize this event. I hear that Dallas is talking about hosting TNG 5. I’ve gone to 2/4 of the events so far and Boymeat isn’t going to any more so maybe I should make the next two just so I can tell him that I’ve been to as many as him. 🙂

Lenora

PS–I would be thrilled if this was cross posted elsewhere. If people have any feedback they want to give me directly, feel free to send me email at: boot_slut AT bigrock DOT com