Hello! This newsletter is going to be reasonably brief, but hopefully informative.

ACCOMMODATION:
The hotel has written to me to quote me room rates for anyone wishing to stay onsite. Briefly, the double rooms are E148 per room per night. We might have got a better rate but for the fact that the all-Ireland football final is taking place on the Sunday of the convention. Actually, because of this, you are advised to book your room as soon as you can, as they'll start going fast. Be sure to mention that you're going to the con to get the special rate. As soon as Deirdre and myself get a chance, we'll go around the immediate area on foot, to see where else has good rates, and I'll report them in a future newsletter.

On the subject of the hotel, and for those of you who are interested in such things, the total cost of the hire of the hotel for the weekend comes to just over €3000, which is not too bad, all things considered. Having said that, were still a bit off being in a position to pay all that, so, if you haven't joined yet, now would be a good time!

You can find the Ashling Hotel website at www.ashlinghotel.ie and you can contact them about booking a room by writing to them at info at ashlinghotel.ie, remembering to substitute the "@" symbol for at.

P-CON WEBSITE:
The P-CON website has had a complete makeover, courtesy of our wonderful and hardworking webmaster, Ian Sheppard (can you tell I'm not paying him for this?). Central to this was our lovely new logo, drawn for us by Donal Casey. We have plans to use this in a banner ad for the con, which were hoping to get people to put on their websites, in exchange for our taking one of theirs. If you're interested in helping out, let me know, and well get it organised. Meanwhile, go look at the con site. It's still at www.slovobooks.com/phoenix/.

GUESTS:
Ian has been pulling my leg about the fact that the ratio of guests to attendees seems very high. I continue to assure him that A) this is because people love coming to Irish cons as guests, and B) that its early days yet, and that people also love coming to Irish cons as attendees. Having said all that, I'm genuinely delighted to have all our guests on board. A full list of the cons guests can be found in the Guest Section but you'll all have to bear with us, as we are a little behind on writing up all the guests bios. Particularly to blame is committee member Anne M Kletcha, who is in charge of that end of things, but as this is really only a pseudonym of my own, I blame myself They'll all be up before the next time I write to you, I promise.

COMMITTEE:
To a certain extent, this convention doesn't really have a committee. However, there is a form of consultative body in place, although I'm primarily the one taking responsibility for the financial well being of the convention. In plain English this means that if the con loses money, I'm the one who is liable, so I get the final say. I really don't see that happening, but it certainly helps to keep you on your toes! So, the non-committee are: Pádraig Ó Méalóid as chairman, guest wrangler and general text generator; Ian Sheppard as webmaster and artistic director; Deirdre Walsh as membership secretary and proof-reader; Angie McKeown as Northern Ireland correspondent and electronic press agent; Gareth Kavanagh as college society liaison and token youth; and Ann M Kletcha as the committee's imaginary member. You can see us all on the Committee page.

AGENTS:
If any of you are interested in helping to publicise the con, we can use all the agents we can get. We already have representatives in Finland, North America, Australia, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, but we welcome volunteers from all other parts of the globe. More on this in a future newsletter.

As I said, this is a brief newsletter, as I was particularly keen to let you all know about the hotel rates. Another mail from me reasonably soon, with perhaps a bit more news in it.

Regards,
PÁdraig Ó Méalóid
Phoenix Convention