The story behind the gatherings held trough out the counrty.

WHAT'S A MINI?

Here is a little tid bit of info for those of you that may now know how these “gatherings” came to be.  Back in the early 2000’s Chuck Smith, who owned and ran Planet Christmas forum, thought it would be a good idea to have a central seminar, if you would.  Kathy Byrd came up with the name PLUS which was an acronym for PlanetChristmas Lights Up Symposium (Rich reminded me of that).  This was held in the mid-west for a number of years.  Since people could not or would attend this, there became offshoots.  Thus the name mini was born. Mini PLUS if you will.  Mini seminars became to spring up though out the country.  Now, Mr. Smith wasn’t all that fond of the use of the term mini, but that didn’t seem to stop people from using it.  As time went on, there was a major melt down over on the PC forum in which people left in droves.  Thus became the advent of the other now prominent forums as we know today.  There were several people that would refuse to use the term mini for their event, as to sever all ties to LOR and PC, and as such, you will find many terms or names used for events.  Fast forward; Chuck sells the rights to the event to a professional event planner and it is now called EXPO.  Same basic idea.  Today there are several minis held throughout the country such as NWPAC (I believe that is the name) out on the west coast, LUO, based in Ohio, one in Texas, a great one in the Chicago area, AC/DC (formally C3)and other smaller events in various states.

 Ours has grown in the past nine years from the back yard of Jeff’s house (most of you don’t know Jeff) then to Andy’s backyard for a few years, to my back yard to a VFW and to where we held it this year.  We have, and continue to, attract decorators from all over the country.  One year we had people from CA, MN and WA.  We have continued to grow in both popularity and head count, for which I can say I am extremely happy to see.  While for the most part this story is pretty comprehensive, there may be some details I have left out unintentionally. 

So next time someone asks you where you were last weekend, you can tell them that you attended one of the premier social / decorating seminars in the country.