Neighborhood USA (NUSA) Conference begins

Many of you have heard me talk about the NUSA Conference. It is an annual conference held over the Memorial Day weekend. It is in a different city each year. The different cities bid on having it at their city. I believe they have now decided on the  next several years. This year's conference is in Indianapolis, Indiana at the NEW J.W. Marriott Hotel. There are approximately 650 participants from all over the USA and Japan.

Neighborhoods, USA is a national non-profit organization committed to building and strengthening neighborhood organizations. Created in 1975 to share information and experiences toward building stronger communities, NUSA now continues to encourage networking and information sharing to facilitate the development of partnerships between neighborhood organizations, government and the private sector.

Remembering  back, the NUSA Conference was held in Sacramento in 2005. If you want to know more about NUSA and the organization please  click here.

Tonya Wagner and I (Sandi Benward) took off from the Sacramento International Airport at "O dark hundred" Monday.

We arrrived in Indianapolis via Denver about 3pm. The hotel itself is a city in itself. We have been exploring the hotel as well as the surrounding area. The surrounding area is mostly the Convention Center, 6 other major hotels, parking lots, Victory Field Baseball Stadium, Indiana State Museum, and the Indiana Statehouse Building and some State Offices. Weather is great infact it is a little warmer than usual and going up into the 90's for the weekend. And as some of you know this is "Indy 500" race this Saturday, so lots of race car fans in town. HOORAY!! No we are not staying for the races.


Attended the NUSA Board Meeting. It is a large board of about 24. Just regular last minute business for the conference, making sure everything is in place, that the host city is ready, approving and paying the bills. Besides the 7 slots that are up for election this week, there are 2 other open slots. There are 9 people running for the 7 offices. It was decided that the one open slot has only a year to go so they decided not to fill that one, the other slot has two years to go so the 8th person with the most votes will get that seat. Each board member serves for three years. So we will find out the results of the election on Saturday at the regular general membership meeting.
For those that have come early to the conference we able to check in at noon today and get our packets. Always an advantage so participants have time to read over all the information and be familiar with the conference area. AND I DID!!