Paul,
It isn’t a matter of asking anyone to reliquish roles, or indicating that a poor job was done by anyone. It is just a matter of doing a post-mortem on this event, setting objectives for next year and starting to create a list of action items.
To my knowledge, no one ever reached out to the membership at large to ask for help, assign additional tasks, etc.
Every event I have ever been a part of has an event committee charged with every phase. These committees have subcommittees, charged with the major categories of the event (PR, set up, vendors, etc). Committees meet monthly beginning with the week after the event, as do subcommittees (encouraged to meet more regularly as necessary). The closer the event, the more regular the meetings.
Yes, it is very time consuming, bu thte committee approach allows action items to be identified and assigned to a variety of members to break the tasks into small, manageable chunks.
This is the part where I think NACHI usually comes up a little short. Effective planning would identify the tasks, and everyone would know what needs to be done and what dealines are set. They would also know who is in chage of what aspects so that there is someone to refer to for each part of the event and event process.
This process does not ususally develop over night and takes a lot of work ,but the structure and consistency it provides is worth it. Obviously, this event is in its infancy and more effective planning at this point will ensure future success, ease tension on those most closely involved with running it, and will incorporate more of the membership (allowing a sense of accomplishment and contribution.)
It should be noted that many volunteers will talk a big game and come up short, but involving more people usually means that there are more people to rely on to pick up the pieces and adapt on the fly.
Again, don’t take this as a call to oust the previous planners. Rather, it is a suggestion for how we might improve the convention. The bigger it gets, the more unweildy it will become.