Keystone Comments

So I have had several posts here about the Keystone Conference (The last 5 or so). But I have not put down my overall impressions. I had written an event by event email for folks in my support group. But decided not to send it. I guess because it seemed to be pretentious to me. I mean I know many of those girls want to know what it was like. And some could not go because of work, or cost, or conflict, or just plain fear.

And that was the thing that surprised me personally. My diminishing fear. I had been told about it. Some of my friends have said, you go out as a girl, nothing bad happens, you feel good, you do it again. Eventually you start to ask yourself, well why can't I do this all the time? I would say, you probably can, but at what cost to you when those close at hand find out and do not understand. Anyhow, that is not the topic of this post.

Here is the thing at the conference, or at least this conference, as I only have a sample size of one. Everybody is there for the same reason, or at least this is what I saw. To stop being alone in dealing with what we are. To embrace it, to share it, and enjoy it. And boy, did I ever enjoy it.

I saw a host of girls (and a few guys) there, some are CD, some TS, some FT, some Post. Nobody cared. I made some new friends and I do not really care what their "flavor" is. That is between them, and their maker, and potentially their family and spouse. And yes there were a lot of spouses present.

The organizers were awesome, Kristy, Jeanine, and the other central PA girls were great. Friendly, open, approachable, sharing and caring. I might even tag along with my friend Natasha who goes to their group from Baltimore some time for a visit.

As to the execution of the conference. I told this directly to Kristy and Jeanine, I know that sometimes it looked like chaos to you being behind the scenes, but to us out here, it ran like a Swiss watch. The hotel staff, outstanding and professional. Transportation, spectacular. The venue selection, marvelous. The program and sessions, amazing. The speakers captivating. Even when there was a minor hiccup, it was nothing and handled quickly and matter of fact. And as a first time event these girls have it down. I heard people comparing it to IFGE and saying it was a better run effort by a long shot. And imagine this, a ballroom with something like 150+ TG attendees, in, of all places, Harrisburg PA.

Now I also know they came up a bit short on their costs. But a number of girls, myself included, pitched in to try and square things up. Thank you to Cheryl, "Miss Congeniality" for spearheading that effort. I hope they got close to breaking even.

And as a new girl, and new to these things, I now have a benchmark for what a well run conference should look like. Let's hope these others can hold a candle. I will be comparing as I am going to Be-All in June, and who knows, maybe SCC too. I expect to be back at the 2010 version of Keystone. Heck, you might even find me helping out ...