Location

This year Spring Conference is going to be held in the heart of the Adirondacks with trips focusing around Chimney Mountain. The campground we will be staying at is Thornbush Acres Campground. The campground has a huge fire pit for night activities, a field for various games or sports during the day, and several campsites for us to stay at. Most likely, colleges will cluster together at several campsites. This leavse great opportunity for college competition: design your campsite and compare them to each others'. The sites can likely hold 3 tents comfortably (depending on size, etc) so register campsites accordingly. Best of all: Spring Conference has exclusive access to the grounds!

The event will be taking place from Friday, April 25 through Sunday, April 27. The campsite will be available mid-late afternoon on Friday and everyone will have to leave by mid-afternoon on Sunday.

Information

There will be a website with campsite availability. On this site, You can also get an idea of how many people will be attending conference, from what college, and whether or not RIT Outing Club has received your registration and/or payment. An itinerary and other information such as maps, directions, and GPS waypoints will show up on the website as they are finalized. the site will be located at: http://ioca.sonicfiber.com

Cost for the event (which includes dinner on Saturday night, the cost for the campground, and the dancers) will be as follows:

$30 for registration received before March 28, 2008; payment postmarked no later than April 7, 2008.
$35 for registration recieved before April 7, 2008; payment postmarked no later than April 9, 2008.
$40 for registration on or after April 9, 2008. This is also the price at the door.

Trips

There are all sorts of trips that the Adirondacks have in store for us. Unfortunately, in April the water is deadly so that leaves us land bound. But, there are tons of really cool things to do here!

Here are a few ideas:

Spelunking:
» Chimney Mountain

Hiking:
 » Snowy Mountain - A 4.5 mile hike to breathtakign views of lakes and mountains
» Watch Point - 1.5 mile hike to overlook Indian Lake
» Chimney Mountain - About a 2 mile hike up to the caves
» Crotched Pond Trail - 1.8 mile trail
» John Mack Pond Trail - 1.4 mile trail

It is rumored that mountain biking is allowed on trails in this region. If anyone can find out more on this, please inform RIT Outing Club so we can let everyone know!

RIT Outing Club will be providing a whiteboard on our campsite (as well as online) listing all the trips that groups will be going to (or have already gone to) during Conference. The idea behind this is to help see the various trips available and help conference attendees coordinate how to get in contact with the leaders of the trips, figure out what they want to do and when, and ultimately find a way to get there. If you or your club has a trip they want to advertise to the rest of IOCA, let us know and we will put it on the board, or just wonder on over to the RIT site during the conference and we will be glad to add your event.

Registration

There are two ways to register: as a group leader or as an individual. If you are a member of your college's Outing Club, contact them to register. If they are not officially organizing your club or you do not affiliate with a college outing club then you need to register as an individual. The following information needs to be provided with each person registered:

For campsite preference, we do not have specific campsite layouts at the moment. If you are in a group, specifiy which people want to stay together by making your own groups (eg. 6 people in Group 1, 3 people in Group 2). We will assign campsites accordingly.

Send this information in an email to the IOCA 2008 Spring Conference Chair:
Andrew Ragone
ajr9166[at]rit.edu
Subject: Spring Conference Registration

Secure registration will also be available sometime mid-March, so check the website: http://ioca.sonicfiber.com. This method is instantaneous and is the best method to register by.

After this is done, you will receive a confirmation email back. Then you know you are registered. Make a check out to RIT Outing Club or a money order made out to Andrew Ragone and drop it in the mail to:

Andrew Ragone
IOCA Spring Conference
80-3 Colony Manor Drive
Rochester, NY 14623

When sending payment, make sure to include a note with the names the payment is for and what group the payment is coming from. All group registrations are assumed to be registerign together, contact us if this is not the case.

Any questions about registration or the conference in general can be sent to Andrew as well (ajr9166 [at] rit.edu) or asked via phone: 201.406.0298 (SMS/Voice)

We look forward to seeing you at Conference!