National Main Street Conference -- Baltimore, May 8th - 11th

The logo for the 2005 National Main Street Town Meeting (Annual Conference) in Baltimore. From an email from the National Main Street Center--
Spring is here and we're looking forward to a dynamic National Main Streets Conference in Baltimore.

Here's some good news:

Registration Deadline
We all need a little extra time, so we've extended early registration deadline to April 1.
Don't forget to register online to save!

Session Descriptions Added to the Website
Looking for more information on educational sessions? We now have complete session descriptions on our conference website. Visit the Read more about its funky neighborhoods and Main Street programs.

Visit the conference website for more information or call 202-588-6000 and ask for the Main Street Office.

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From Richard Layman

I plan on attending the conference and look forward to meeting you. I hope we can come up with a group of 6 or more people willing to divvy up various sessions, agree to take good notes and collect the handouts, and share. Each session period looks to have about 6 or so great presentations. And the tours, which compete with the sessions, look great too! (Tours are particularly great settings for learning best practices and new approaches that help us give our own situations renewed consideration.)

Also, there are three great pre-conference workshops, which are great opportunities to accelerate your knowledge-learning in new areas. I've seen Sylvia Allen on sponsorship (she is not to be missed). But now I have to choose between Kennedy Smith on historic theaters and Don Rypkema on real estate and development. Hmm. I'm glad I now have a few extra days to mull this over.

Preservation Maryland did what they thought was a good idea, schedule their conference simultaneous with the Main Street conference, but now I wish the conferences had been organized sequentially, because the PM conference sessions are different enough from commercial district revitalization that I will have to choose between them, yet I would have gladly attended those sessions as well, if only they didn't compete...