California Educational Data Processing Association
	DataBus - Vol. 38, No. 2 February-March, 1998

Russ Brawn, WestEd

Similar to the responsibilities you may have in your home district or county office, one task of your CEDPA Board is to keep an eye on the horizon, anticipating membership needs beyond the present and next year. This is most obvious in our search for future conference facilities. Good space is hard to find, even harder to arrange into a schedule which will comfortably fit into the school year at a rate which our strained public education budgets can afford. Add to this the fact that our space demands are a bit out of the norm. We're a focused group with a regional (as opposed to national) membership which limits the number of attendees, yet the support we enjoy from the vendor community demands a lot of exhibit space. As a consequence, facilities attractive to us fill up quickly.

The end of the millennium placed a particular strain on quality conference space. Every group and their brother seems to be determined to make that year their 'conference of conferences'. As an established player in this field (in the year 2000 we'll host our 40th conference!) we weren't to be left out. Last year we quietly arranged for our year 2000 Conference to be held at the Fess Parker DoubleTree Resort in Santa Barbara.

While still a Red Lion property, the Fess Parker was the site of a very successful SIG meeting, and the facility never left our radar screen as a future location that could be experienced by our entire membership. We are confident that each of you will enjoy the oceanside location and wonderful environs to be experience in Santa Barbara. This selection fills out our schedule through the year 2001, all at sites which provide exceptional facilities and support staffs. This year we return to the Marquis in Palm Springs, home of the 1996 Conference. In both 1999 and 2001 we return after a ten year absence to Monterey, city of one of our best ever attended conferences, in the newly refurbished DoubleTree.

Save the following dates while we look toward the year 2002:

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