Apimondia 2017

[gavin]

Folks -you heard it first here - even before Apimondia itself gets it up on its own website ....

Book your cheap flights for 2017 for Turkey.

Courtesy of our own much loved Lead Bee Inspector, Steve Sunderland, our man on the ground in the Ukraine.

http://www.packageturkeytours.com/images/Turkey_picture_1.jpg

[Easy beesy]

And Glasgow in 2021?

[gavin]

And Glasgow in 2021?

Is that you offering to lead an organising committee? :D

Anyway, why Glasgow and not Sneckie, Dundee, Perth or Edinburgh?!

Sudden fret: there isn't actually a plan for that already, is there?

[fatshark]

The flight might be cheap but, if a recent trip to Istanbul is anything to go by, that's the last thing that will be affordable. Glasgow has my vote. See you there ;)

[Easy beesy]

Couldn't do any worse than the Ukranians!

[Adam]

According to the ABJ, there was a little bit of a bun fight at Apimonda this year do to a lack of organisation. Could Steve let us know his experience of it?

[gavin]

Or possibly Easy beesy, or Prakel, our other people on the ground in the Ukraine?

[Easy beesy]

Sunday had 4 volunteers to register the majority of attendees, speakers and exhibitors. No crowd control, unless you count the local police, and no queuing system. It was a scrum. Two printers for photographing everyone meant 5 hour wait for registration. Loads missed opening ceremony and as for the pathetic Ukranian Gala night...,,well that's a whole thread in itself. Lot of exhibitors left after one day, couldn't get their stock due to further extortionate fees from warehouse to trade floor and taxi drivers were charging 4+ times the local rate. Petty intimidating too if you were elderly or single female.

[prakel]

Sadly, I'm not! Circumstances totally out of my control scuppered our Ukraine sojourn; '13 has been a very hard/bad year for me. Now, being a positive sort of person, there's 2015 which should be quite doable with lots of existing contacts in that part of the world -never did know how to give up...

For now, my sights are firmly set on the Michael Palmer show at the end of the month.

[The Drone Ranger]

Sunday had 4 volunteers to register the majority of attendees, speakers and exhibitors. No crowd control, unless you count the local police, and no queuing system. It was a scrum. Two printers for photographing everyone meant 5 hour wait for registration. Loads missed opening ceremony and as for the pathetic Ukranian Gala night...,,well that's a whole thread in itself. Lot of exhibitors left after one day, couldn't get their stock due to further extortionate fees from warehouse to trade floor and taxi drivers were charging 4+ times the local rate. Petty intimidating too if you were elderly or single female.

Sounds great pity I missed it :)

[Easy beesy]

Aye, you'd have fitted in fine with all the cowboys aboot

[Phil McAnespie]

Sunday had 4 volunteers to register the majority of attendees, speakers and exhibitors. No crowd control, unless you count the local police, and no queuing system. It was a scrum. Two printers for photographing everyone meant 5 hour wait for registration. Loads missed opening ceremony and as for the pathetic Ukranian Gala night...,,well that's a whole thread in itself. Lot of exhibitors left after one day, couldn't get their stock due to further extortionate fees from warehouse to trade floor and taxi drivers were charging 4+ times the local rate. Petty intimidating too if you were elderly or single female.

Hope this is in the correct place Gavin but at least I'm trying.
Easy Beesy is correct. There were considerable issues with the registration and other circumstances and I also was unable to get into the opening ceremony, having queued for about 6 hours. However taking the event on a whole there were many positive sides to it. The lectures and other programmes were good and personally I made many contacts at the event. I was able to represent the Scottish Beekeepers' Association at the event in general, together with attending the Ukraine, Swedish, Tanzanian and Korean functions. I met up with a good number of SBA and BBKA members who had made the effort to attend and personally I believe that there would be considerable support for trying to bring Apimondia to Scotland. I had many conversations with the Apimondia executive members about this subject and am presently discussing matters with the SBA executive in consideration of this. Personally I would love to see this come to pass but time will tell. Apimondia has so much going for it and it was so encouraging to see so many people willing to devote so much time, money and effort to gather together and speak about the little creature we have such a privilege to enjoy working with.

[gavin]

Thanks Phil, much appreciated. It is great that you are making the effort to try to bring Apimondia to Scotland.