Okay, so I've tried to parse through everyone's comments on the timing for the C/FA and IOD.
First off, at least for this season, I'm going to nix the idea of doing the IOD via email or some such. For one thing, I think that lots of people enjoy the aspect of doing it together. My experience is that very few people miss the IOD on any given year, and for the most part it's a choice that people can make whether to attend or not, with the dates announced well in advance (the preliminary schedule was posted in September this year, and I'm only changing it now due to popular consensus with no known objections). Moreover, doing it remotely would be a logistical nightmare. Either it would take months to complete with people sending in picks or I would end up with 30 lists, most of which would be full of pages and pages of contingencies. And while my lawyer brain may enjoy logic puzzles, I'm just not up for subjecting myself to that. If someone can think of a good way to make it work, I'm willing to consider it for next season, but not for this one.
As for scheduling, it seems like the consensus is to hold an event on Saturday night. What I don't know is whether people want to hold both the C/FA Auction and the IOD on Saturday nights, or whether we should stick with one on Saturday night and one on Sunday afternoon.
Since the schedule already has the C/FA auction on a Sunday and the IOD on a Saturday, my thought is that we have the following two choices:
A: C/FA on Sunday 2/19 at the usual time (10:30 central or thereabouts) and IOD Saturday 3/4 at night (5 pm Eastern seems to be the consensus)
B: C/FA on Saturday 2/18 night and IOD Saturday 3/4 night
Everyone please let me know your preference by 11:59 pm Tuesday 12/13 and I'll post the result the next morning. If anyone has any serious objections to moving either event to a Saturday night (ie already made other plans in reliance on the previously announced schedule), please be sure to let me know before then as well.
