[vcf-midatlantic] Gerry Lawson's 82nd birthday - Today's Google Doodle

[Christian Liendo]

My question would be, once we did this. How do we explain to future
presenters why we can't pay for their presentation?

How do we explain to past presenters why we didn't pay for their presentations?

Once this is done, the group is setting a precedent and I don't know
how that would affect the group in the future.

This is really outside of my scope, maybe my concerns are unfounded. I
don't know and hopefully people who are more experienced in this than
I can chime in about this concern.


On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 10:43 AM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic
<vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>
> Today's Google Doodle is about Gerry Lawson who helped design the Fairchild
> F and on the team that pioneered the video game cartridge. Gerry has been
> deceased for 11 years. He is one of the few African Americans who have been
> inventors in the early vintage computer and vintage video game industries.
>
> Related to this: I have been presented an opportunity to have another
> African American with similar experience come talk at VCF East: Ed Smith.
> Ed Smith started out working for APF Electronics, Inc. which released The
> Imagination Machine, a hybrid video game.
>
> Would any of you be interested in hearing his story?
>
> So here's the catch. Ed Smith wants a speaker fee of $5000 and travel
> expenses. As far as I know the Vintage Computer Festival has never paid a
> speaker fee. We honestly can't afford such a large fee. It is beyond our
> budget. We have paid travel expenses for a select few speakers who can't
> afford it and/or are very important speakers. I'm contemplating doing a
> fundraiser for this. Just a straw poll. How many would donate towards this?
>
> I would love to hear his story.
>
> Thanks for your input!
>
> =========================================
> Jeff Brace
> VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President
> Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner
> Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity
> https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/>
> jeffrey at vcfed.org