X-Message-Number: 4368 Date: 07 May 95 23:41:55 EDT From: Jim Davidson <> Subject: Houston group forms The first meeting of life extension enthusiasts at the home of Jim Davidson and Tara Horrigan went well. In attendance were hosts Jim and Tara and guests Dr. Steve Price, MD; Clifford Carley; Rupert Hazel; Anthony Garcia and Laura Coker-Garcia. At least six other people have indicated an interest in attending future meetings. Three important developments arose from this meeting: 1. The group agreed to meet again on Sunday 18 June 1995. This meeting will probably start around 3 pm for the benefit of the hosts, who will again be Jim and Tara. 2. The group agreed to investigate the economics of forming a Houston-based response team to provide service to suspension members of cryonics organizations who live in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. 3. The group agreed to host a conference on future-oriented subjects in October 1995, with the intention of having the conference on an annual basis. As a result of some printouts from Cryonet, Dr. Price indicated a strong interest in getting an email account and subscribing to Cryonet. A few words about those who attended might be appropriate: All the attendees are professional people, most use computers, ages ranged from mid-twenties to early forties. Dr. Price practices internal medicine, Clifford Carley is a professional video and still camera operator, Rupert Hazel is an engineer for Rockwell at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Anthony Garcia is a programmer for a documentation scanning company, his wife Laura teaches middle school, Jim is a training specialist for BusinessWare Learning Centers, and his fiancee Tara owns a small business. For the next meeting, agenda items include: Naming the group Regular meeting schedule for the coming 12 months Response team discussion Conference discussion General discussion Barbecue If the weather is clear, we can try setting up the 6-inch reflector telescope after sundown. In terms of forming a Houston-based response team, the group is interested in sources for training. Anyone with information is welcome to post it to Cryonet (Anthony and Jim each subscribe) or to one of us individually. We are also interested in acquiring equipment. We agreed that an investigation into the local laws which are relevant would be essential as a next step. Any Texas lawyers on Cryonet? Most of all, we want to investigate the market for response team services in the region. If any of the major cryonics organizations would care to share the raw number of suspension members they have in the TX, LA, OK, AR, and MS states, that would be very helpful. We intend to charge annual fees for response team readiness, charge direct fees for response team services, plan and operate the response team as a business, and pursue the activity only if it can be operated on a break-even basis. (I can see the smiles now.) We did discuss the possibility that our conference might operate on a profitable basis, and that the conference could function to subsidize the response team activity. No decision has been made on that. In terms of the conference, we discussed several topics we would like to have discussed. These include anti-aging medicine, cryonics, nanotechnology, space, science fiction becoming fact, and fundamental physics. Among the discussion areas we envisioned, legal, political, and technical issues regarding these different fields were considered important. In addition to local talent at Rice University, the Houston Area Research Center, Texas A&M, the Texas Medical Center, and the University of Houston, the conference organizers hope to attract several nationally known authors, scientists, and professionals. Names that were batted about include Dr. Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, Greg Benford, Charles Platt, David Brin, H. Jackson Zinn, Ralph Merkle, Saul Kent, Mike Darwin, and others. We hope to contact these folks (more formally) as soon as we have a definite date and hotel arranged. The conference is tentatively being planned for the Columbus Day weekend. Dr. Price is investigating conference facilities in The Woodlands and hotel facilities near Houston Intercontinental Airport will be evaluated. We are very interested in identifying co-sponsor organizations interested in working with us to make the conference successful. We would like co-sponsor groups to provide at least one speaker at their expense and publicize the event to their membership and press contacts. In exchange, the co-sponsor groups will each get a free exhibit hall booth, admission for about 5 of their key personnel, and other benefits. We plan to charge admission of around $70 for the 3-day event and obtain discounted airfare and hotel accommodations. We are considering a meal function included as part of the basic program price. We look forward to meeting again in the near future. If anyone on Cryonet is planning a trip to Houston, let me know. We'd love to get together with you or perhaps plan one of our meetings around your trip. Jim Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4368