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NET IMPACT. SATURDAY NIGHT
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Saturday night.
I am writing this Sunday morning from memory as I could not bring a computer to the closing session or the closing party/ceremony at the Wild horse Saloon.
Liz Ma welcomes us and introduces Henry Juszkiewicz, President of Gibson Guitars, who gets a very loud cheer from the audience. He jokes that he should pull out his guitar and start playing, which brings more cheers.
He introduces Tensie Whalen, his long-time friend and fellow environmentalist. Tensie, the wrap up keynote speaker, is the Executive Director of Rainforest Alliance. Since I am doing this from memory, you might want to check out www.rainforest-alliance.org ,www.netimpact.org or http://www.owenbloggers.com/ and see if a transcript is posted later this week. Owen business school students were live blogging impressions and interviews.
Tensie explained the role of RA in certifying products, what it takes to work through the entire value chain to insure that products are certifiable, and the challenges and successes they have had. She is specially proud of their new coffee certification program which is now reaching close to 3% of the world's coffee traffic (sounds mall, but coffee is the second most frequently traded commodity in the world , next to oil, another thick black liquid that gives us energy).
After Tensie's talk and q&a session , Liz gets back on stage and brings up them staff who made the conference happen, and handed out awards. Given that this was one of the best organized conferences I have attended, all awards and cheers were well deserved.
And then we walked downtown to the Wild Horse Saloon for the wrap up party.
7 :30 pm. The Wildhorse Saloon.
The WHS is a three-story Country Western bar and dance hall. The best adjective I can use to describe it is cavernous, noisy, and fun. At one end is a huge stage with a theater-sized movie screen showing a football game. There must be 20 TV screens in scattered around the first floor all showing different football games (I didn't know there were that many games on a Saturday night, but then I am not a sports fan). In the center is a large and now empty dance floor surrounded by dozens of tables. Full-sized fiber-glass horses stream across the ceiling, huge horse paintings are on every wall, and fiberglass horses in various western costumes are sitting at some of the bars.
Upstairs on the second floor there are pool tables, foosball tables, dart board, more food, more bars, more TV screens with football games and more horses. Ditto for the third floor.
The place is filled with 2000 participants from Net Impact, many sitting together at their school tables. There are food buffets on each floor. The menu is salad, cornbread casserole, tequila chicken, pulled pork, (over) steamed broccoli, and apple cobbler. Beer was $5 and Bud Light was the official drink, although there seemed to be no shortage of local brew, tequila and Jack Daniels. Most people were happily eating, drinking and shouting to hear each other over the music.
The movie screen disappeared into the ceiling and the band started up about 8 pm and played a set. Liz took the stage with the dozens of volunteers who made the conference go so well, many wearing cowboy hats, and thanked them to cheers from the first floor. The band started up again and the conference was over and the party was on.
I am writing this Sunday morning from memory as I could not bring a computer to the closing session or the closing party/ceremony at the Wild horse Saloon.
Liz Ma welcomes us and introduces Henry Juszkiewicz, President of Gibson Guitars, who gets a very loud cheer from the audience. He jokes that he should pull out his guitar and start playing, which brings more cheers.
He introduces Tensie Whalen, his long-time friend and fellow environmentalist. Tensie, the wrap up keynote speaker, is the Executive Director of Rainforest Alliance. Since I am doing this from memory, you might want to check out www.rainforest-alliance.org ,www.netimpact.org or http://www.owenbloggers.com/ and see if a transcript is posted later this week. Owen business school students were live blogging impressions and interviews.
Tensie explained the role of RA in certifying products, what it takes to work through the entire value chain to insure that products are certifiable, and the challenges and successes they have had. She is specially proud of their new coffee certification program which is now reaching close to 3% of the world's coffee traffic (sounds mall, but coffee is the second most frequently traded commodity in the world , next to oil, another thick black liquid that gives us energy).
After Tensie's talk and q&a session , Liz gets back on stage and brings up them staff who made the conference happen, and handed out awards. Given that this was one of the best organized conferences I have attended, all awards and cheers were well deserved.
And then we walked downtown to the Wild Horse Saloon for the wrap up party.
The WHS is a three-story Country Western bar and dance hall. The best adjective I can use to describe it is cavernous, noisy, and fun. At one end is a huge stage with a theater-sized movie screen showing a football game. There must be 20 TV screens in scattered around the first floor all showing different football games (I didn't know there were that many games on a Saturday night, but then I am not a sports fan). In the center is a large and now empty dance floor surrounded by dozens of tables. Full-sized fiber-glass horses stream across the ceiling, huge horse paintings are on every wall, and fiberglass horses in various western costumes are sitting at some of the bars.
The place is filled with 2000 participants from Net Impact, many sitting together at their school tables. There are food buffets on each floor. The menu is salad, cornbread casserole, tequila chicken, pulled pork, (over) steamed broccoli, and apple cobbler. Beer was $5 and Bud Light was the official drink, although there seemed to be no shortage of local brew, tequila and Jack Daniels. Most people were happily eating, drinking and shouting to hear each other over the music.
