NARCON 2010 official thread
 

NARCON 2010 will be held in Worcester,MA at Clark University March 13-14, 2010. As you may know, Clark University is where Robert Goddard did some of his early work. The first liquid fueled rocket flight took place in nearby Auburn and, weather permitting, we'll be holding a commerative launch on Sunday March 14 on the site of that launch (now a golf course). Our keynote speaker is in charge of collections at the Goddard library where Goddard's papers are kept.

Worcester is located near I-90 and is a little over an hour from airports in Boston, Connecticut and Rhode Island. We have a block of rooms reserved in the Crown Plaza Hotel.

Food will be available for lunch and dinner on Saturday. There is a bistro and a cafeteria in the same building. The cafeteria is all you can eat at a reasonable price. The NARCON planning team has sampled the food and found it to be of good quality. A more formal dinner will be held in the evening before the keynote speaker and town meeting.

We have many of the seminar slots filled but we could still use more speakers. If you like to volunteer to talk about your specialty please contact Bob Krech at speakers@narcon.org. Don't be shy. You're going to be talking to a bunch of rocketeers just like yourself.

We've heard from several vendors already and will be contacting the ones we know about in the next couple of weeks. Vendors interested in participating at any level can contact Guy Wadsworth at vendors@narcon.org.

Fliskits is creating the commemerative kit and providing it free to the first 60 people who register. As you've probably guessed, it will be one of Goddard's rockets.

Registration and more information can be found on narcon.org. Questions can go to info@narcon.org or just ask them here.

wish I could make it, but its too far away for me to attend. I've got another one of Dr. Goddard's rockets I've scaled from a picture of his a couple of years ago. I'd really like to get my hands on one of those kits. Any idea when they'd be available for purchase?


Thanks,

another Goddard ;) :chuckle:

Those kits are expected to go live on our site the night before NARCON begins. :)

can't wait to find out which one of his rockets it will be. I'll have to do a couple of pre-orders of it. I just launched my other Dr. Goddard scale a couple of days ago, took some nose cone damage, so I've got some work to do on it. As soon as I get it redone I'll get some pics up for it. Wish I could make it up there to Mass. sometime soon. I really need to visit there.

I thought I'd give this thread a bump as a reminder to those of you who think you might like to attend NARCON 2010 but haven't registered yet and to provide some information to those who have registered.


Registrations have been coming in faster than I expected so if you want one of the 60 free kits you should register soon.

If you're planning on staying at the hotel you should make your reservations now. We have reserved what we think is an adequate block of rooms but that reservation goes away in mid February. There is another event in Worcester that weekend that will use about about 2/3 of the rooms in the area so if you wait until the last minute you may not be able to get a room.

If you've already registered for NARCON and want to add either the dinner or a T shirt you can do so by going back to the registration page and selecting what you want without checking off the registration box.

As the proud sponsor of NARCON 2010 FlisKits will be releasing several new kits, the most notable will be the two Goddard rockets:

• Nell - Goddard's first liquid fueled rocket
• L13 - one of his later creations as depicted in Peter Alway's Rockets of the world

FlisKits is donating 30 of each of these kits so that the first 60 registrants get their choice of a free commemorative kit at NARCON!

Further, for those who aren't early enough to get a free kit, FlisKits is providing a $5 gift certificate in your registration packed (only for those registrations after the first 60) that can be used at our booth at NARCON!

You can expect range box stickers as well as single digit versions of the new kits *and* the Decim8 to grace the list of prizes available to NARCON participants this year.

Add that to the location of Clark University, a fine list of speakers and sessions, a great collection of some of the best vendors in the industry and you have the makings of the best NARCON ever!

If I could be so bold...

Aim for the commonwealth and try not to miss!

:D

Is there a commemorative marker on the golf course at his rocket's launch point and/or at its impact point (which was in his Aunt Effie's cabbage patch)? I'm disappointed to hear that the site is now a golf course, but it could be worse--it could be a "concreted-over" sub-division!

http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/N...xt/66000654.pdf

Thank you, Bob--that's a good, concise capsule history of his work. Since the golf course (and the rocket launch site on it) is still owned by Goddard's relatives (the Ward family), it's in good hands.

If you're planning on coming to NARCON you should start giving some serious thought to a hotel room if you're not local.

There will be no empty hotel rooms in Worcester or the surrounding towns on Saturday night March 13 because the MA Special Olympics is occurring in Worcester that weekend and they need at least 600 hotel rooms on Saturday night, and there are only 981 hotel rooms in the city.

Now is the time to make your hotel reservations at the Crowne Plaza if you haven't done so. We reserved a block of 50 rooms for Friday and Saturday night and have filled 30 so far. The Crowne Plaza is the best hotel in Worcester and at $89 a night with indoor parking is a steal (a $40 discount off the lowest priced rooms). You will not find a better price (or a hotel room if you wait) within 20 miles so a word to the wise.....

You can make your NARCON hotel reservations at the NARCON 2010 website. http://www.narcon.org/lodging/lodging.html

Simply follow the link on this page to the Crowne Plaza Reservation website to insure that you get the special $89 per night rate.

The hotel has the option to make the block of rooms smaller if they notice the reservation rate is dropping off. Right now they're happy.

NARCON 2010 is less than a month away. Here are some details if you're planning to attend.

Most of the block of hotel rooms is gone but you should still be able to get a room at the NARCON rate. If you have a problem please let us know.

After Sunday 2/28 you will not be able to order a T shirt or dinner. This is necessary because we have to provide a head count for those the next day. You can still register online up to 3/7. You can also register at the door but it would make things easier for us if you do it in advance.

In a couple of weeks we'll be sending out an email to everyone who has registered with links to maps and the schedule. They'll also be available on the website at that time. The mailing is going out using Constant Contact. If you're already getting the NAR Electronic Rocketeer you should receive the mail. If you're not registered for that you may get an email asking you if it's okay.

An update on the two NARCON 2010 commemorative kits, Nelle and L-13:

Instructions, pattern sheets, alignment guides and the package cover art are complete and through proof-reading. We will be ordering these documents shortly.

Custom parts will be ordered this week and we expect to be kitting them up the weekend before NARCON.

Our new catalog, which will be in the registration packet, is done as are the commemorative NARCON stickers.

It's all coming together folks! You don't want to miss THIS NARCON! :)

jim