CWB C to C party.

[dalek]

Having sat on an audit committee and looked at the books on a provincial organization convention for a few years, by the time you put flights, food, hotel, staff hours and travel, extra setup costs and meeting room costs etc. for a 3 day meeting like that you'd be looking at $700/person minimum, could easily be over $1000.

[bucket]

You are correct dalek. If the cwb did the appropriate accounting for these things I think it could hit 10000/person for the week stay in Winnipeg.

These alumni conferences easily cost 1000/person per day.

Never see a line item/note for such an important thing in the annual report.

[gustgd]

I've been to a couple of these things
Once in Saskatoon 05 and once in Regina 07 plus the original week in Winnipeg in 04

I would bet once you include mileage and air you would probably be $1000 plus per participant
likely 400 participants per alumni meeting plus Management and staff
My opinion is probably 15 diferent speakers will get up at the general sessions and speak up 50:50 on left wing right wing some like me will speak more than once though I try and wait for someone else to ask questions. They don't encourage dissenting view's and keep the agenda full enough to limit questions.
Softball questions to management might be planted to take up time.
like most farm meetings you would be lucky to get 10% to ask questions in an open forum
My guess is that they invite about50% known pro board guys 30% indifferent/just there for the free stuff and 20% where they get their ideas and let the choice crowd feel they've been heard

I don't know how to get on the Combine to customer invite list but ask your CWB rep what it takes. It's a good course about some of the quality aspects of the Canadian grain system (mostly CGC standards)
I would pay for such a course if it was available, but I'll take it on the CWB's (Western Farmers)tab because I feel that with all of my money they've pissed away over my short career I've already covered it.