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Three Monkeys Collectors Conference 2017 (announcement March 21, 2017) No Evil
Monkey Collecting Friends, It’s
official! Here’s everything you need
to know for our 13th Annual-ish No Evil Monkey
Collectors Conference. The site of this
2017 Conference will be: The
Holiday Inn Express 1931
Prairie Crossing Kansas
City, KS (the developed part of town called “The Legends” or “Village West”). Click
here for the website of the hotel, but you cannot get the No Evil rate here (see
below): More…………. This is
the same place where we held our 6th conference in 2010. The dates will be June 8 (Thursday) – June
11 (Sunday morning). That
weekend the Kansas City soccer team (“football” to our European friends),
Sporting KC, has a home match very nearby, so the Holiday Inn Express
normally raises their rates to $199 for those weekends. HOWEVER, the General Manager (Renee Hadley)
remembered us from 2010, so she lowered our rate to $149 per night. I suspect there will be taxes on top of
that, but it saves us $50/night over the normal rate. She also comped us
the Conference Room for all day Friday, June 9, and Sunday morning, June 11. Since we will each be paying for our own
meals any time we go out, and the conference room is provided at no charge,
there will be no cost to attend this year’s meeting! There will be a modest No Evil-related
Souvenir, which will be provided at no cost, but I would like to know in
advance who and how many are coming. To get
the special room rate: The $149/night
rate is offered to us because we held our conference there once before. To get this rate, you must call the Holiday
Inn Express directly at (913) 328-1024, and ask for Renee Hadley (the General
Manager). Mention that you are part of
the No Evil Group. You cannot get the
special rate on the internet or the website for the hotel; you must do it
directly through her. The hotel
has free breakfast and free Wi-Fi and an indoor swimming pool. It is about 25 miles from the Kansas City,
Missouri airport (Airport Code = MCI, for Mid-Continent International). The airport is served by most major
airlines, but Southwest Airlines has a very large presence there, and has
good and comparatively inexpensive (versus United, for example) non-stop
service from many large US cities. If
you need to transportation from the airport to the hotel, let me know. Our
agenda will be the same as what we have followed in the past few years: Thursday evening, June 8: Arrive, get settled in, and look
for other No Evil Collectors. Dinner
will be on your own, or with any group of friends you can put together. The Legends area near the
hotel has many shopping and restaurant options. You can see the restaurants, the shops and
a map here:
http://www.legendsshopping.com/directory/map/ The Holiday Inn Express is
Building R on the map. Friday, 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.: Meet in the hotel conference room to
discuss No Evil Monkey Collecting issues, history, etc. We can all walk to lunch together at
Culvers. After lunch we will set up
the Silent Auction and Sale of No Evils.
Bring anything you want to sell, and save room in your suitcase for
bringing home new sets!
On Friday
evening, we will have a meal at our house – something like tacos, pizza or
barbecued chicken, etc. I will provide
maps from the hotel to the house, but it is easy to find. Saturday, June 10:
Sightseeing and/or shopping, in groups or individually. At night we will have a reservation for the
group at a nearby restaurant. Each person
will pay for his/her own dinner. The
restaurant will be nice, but not too expensive. (Hal Walker, I’m thinking of Anthony’s or,
if we want to hear some live music, The Blue Room.) Here
are some of the local sightseeing options, with links to their websites: The Steamboat
Arabia (which sunk in the Missouri River in 1856 and has been excavated,
along with most of the gear on board): The
America Jazz Museum in the historic 18th and Vine District: https://americanjazzmuseum.org/ The Negro
Leagues Baseball Museum (adjoins the Jazz Museum): The
National World War I Museum and Memorial (The USA’s “official” World War I
museum, purported to be the best in the US, with interactive exhibits): Antiquing
(the part of town called “The West Bottoms” has recently turned into a flea
market and antiquer’s paradise): https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=west+bottoms+flea+market+kansas+city&*&spf=120 The
Nelson-Atkins Art Museum: The
National Museum of Toys and Miniatures: http://toyandminiaturemuseum.org/ If you
are interested in the Sporting Kansas City soccer/football match on Saturday
evening, June 10, it will be against the Montreal Impact. Here’s where you can get tickets and find
out details: https://www.sportingkc.com/schedule/download The
Kansas City Royals baseball team will be playing the Houston Astros in Kansas
City at 7:15 p.m. on Thursday, June 8, but will be away the rest of our
conference period. Unlike the Sporting
KC soccer stadium, the Royals’ stadium is not close to our hotel: http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/schedule/sortable.jsp?c_id=kc&year=2017
Shopping
at The Legends, The Plaza and other KC shopping areas – See the link above. As
Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote in the musical Oklahoma, Everything’s Up To
Date In Kansas City, so spread the word.
Once you know you are coming (and how many you are) let me know! No Evilly
Yours, Gregg
Ottinger Gregg
Ottinger 13503 W.
47th Terrace Shawnee,
KS 66216 Tel: (913) 268-0920 (home) (202) 289-8400 (office) Cell: (240) 461-4425 E-mail: gdo@duncanallen.com |