FGS Conference - Thursday

The Mayor of Springfield welcomed FGS Conference attendees to Springfield.  The Keynote speech was given by the Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero.  The conference statistics were shared.  2,000 attendees from 48 states (including Alaska and Hawaii) and five countries.

The Conference is held at the Prairie Capital Convention Center, right next door to our hotel (boy, how convenient is that!)

The Exhibit Hall opened at 10 AM sharp.  We had an hour to shop and drop our door prize tickets into vendors door prize boxes before heading off to sessions at 11 AM.  What a scramble!  Had to go back to several vendors later in the day.

I snagged a ticket for the Illinois State Genealogical Society Luncheon.  Great food and speaker at lunch time.  The afternoon had me pulling Room Monitor duty for one of the sessions.  Not a bad gig.

The Exhibit Hall was open until 8 PM.  FamilySearch handed out large cookies and bottled water.  As she walked from booth to booth calling out door prize winners, Patricia Oxley, Exhibits Chair, had a line of potential winners following her all around the exhibit hall.  Really funny to watch.  Great fun!