What’s Happening with the 2019 Float Conference? – OSP 06

Graham and Ashkahn are here to fill you in on all the exciting updates to the Float Conference, now that it’s a non-profit, along with what to expect this year. 

They’re hopping in quick to let everyone know what’s going on before early bird tickets close, so definitely check the link below if you haven’t got tickets yet!

Link to purchase Early Bird Tickets for the Float Conference!

Also check out the Start a Center Workshop & the CPO Course before the Conference!

The current list of speakers for the conference

Check out the Friday Activities for the float conference!

Additional links to the nonprofit bylaws, meeting minutes, board procedures (AKA The Danger Rules), and all our past financial information as well. 

It wouldn’t be a float conference podcast episode without some information about the armaments of European Empires. Here’s some useful information about different types of swords used by the Spanish Empire, as well as where you can buy replicas of them. 

(I have reached out to several board members about their favorite collective noun for animals, but haven’t heard back yet. If you’d like to get this information updated, please contact us directly at ashkahn@floathq.com with information from Float Conference Board Members.)

Listen to Just the Audio

Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

 

Ashkahn: Welcome guys. This is a … we’ve got a fresh little episode of the Occasional Solutions podcast for you here.

Graham: As you can tell by our beautiful graphic where daily is scratched out, we put a lot of thought into rebranding this thing. So, as you might be able to guess from our little intro music there, that was me and Ashkahn by the way.

Ashkahn: Oh, yeah. And I’m Ashkahn.

Graham: And I’m me. I’m Graham. We hand make every intro from scratch. That’s every single-

Ashkahn: We have to get up at 5:00 AM –

Graham: Go down to the Sound Market.

Ashkahn: Yep. So, you’re welcome-

Graham: For that. Anyways, you might be able to tell from this most recent intro this episode is on the Float Conference.

Ashkahn: Yeah, yeah. So-

Graham: Which is around the corner.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, we’ve been getting the question recently. people, and I talk to people in the industry, chit-chatting around, hanging out with the … shooting the gum against the gum wall, you know?

Graham: Oh yeah. We do it all the time.

Ashkahn: We get asked a lot “what’s going on with the float conference?”, which is a reasonable question because if you haven’t heard there’s been some big changes. Basically, we used to organize the entire float conference for-

Graham: By hand.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: Up at 5:00 AM every day organizing that conference. Conference marketing.

Ashkahn: So, that was like seven years we did that, and then this last year, so August of 2018, we decided to turn the whole thing into a nonprofit, and kind of turn it into an industry run group.

Graham: Which it turns out is a lot of work. We’ve talked about it elsewhere, but yeah. That was no small feat.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Here I just say it and it’s one sentence, but you have no idea. Months, months of work. But anyway, so we’re on the kind of tail end of that transition, and we’re coming up on the first-

Graham: Nonprofit run float conference.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, it’s kind of like chapter one of book two here is what’s going on. So, yeah. We just wanted to hop on, and kind of like about a month out from this event give people an update, and let everyone know what’s going on with it.

Graham: And the first big update to give is that you should, if you haven’t gotten your tickets, you should hop on right when you’re listening to this and make sure that you get the early bird tickets while the getting … Get the tickets while the getting is good is what I should’ve said there.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, the actual conference is the end of September. It’s the 28th and 29th, Saturday, Sunday, 2019 for those of you listening to this. For those kinds of like historians in the future kind of trying to understand the great boom of float tanks listening back on this episode. So, that’s happening. It’s in Denver, Colorado which is pretty exciting.

Graham: Also, the first year that it’s outside of Portland, Oregon. So, it’ll be really cool to have a conference in a whole new city.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, the early bird is basically a pretty serious discount on the tickets. There’s even a cheaper discount if you’re bringing a group of people. So, it gets cheaper if you have a group of two or a group of three, and basically it’s kind of priced that way because as the float conference it’s really hard for people to sign up last minute, it throws all the numbers off and it makes it very difficult to order anything, and all that sort of stuff. So, there’s kind of a big incentive for everyone to sign up at least four weeks before the event. So-

Graham: That’d be really cool if people signed up six months ahead of time. Yeah, we gave up on that long ago.

Ashkahn: So, there is a pretty big jump there. So, August 23rd is definitely deadline which is coming up in just a handful of days here. So, don’t miss that.

Graham: And that’s the eighth month out of the year.

Ashkahn: Yeah, and the 23rd day of that month for those of you who track things that way.

Graham: 2019.

Ashkahn: So, yeah, that’s I guess pretty much-

Graham: Big. That’s big news.

Ashkahn: That’s really the only thing you need to pay attention to.

Graham: Go get you’re … You’ll definitely regret it if you have to pay a lot more money afterwards, and-

Ashkahn: Yeah. We’ll regret it because we’ll be like we told you so, and you didn’t listen. You know? It’s just going to be … It’s not going to be great for any of us.

Graham: Even the ticket software is probably going to regret it because it’s like oh my God. I have to process this extra money now?

Ashkahn: It’s going to be angry. It gets angry. Yeah.

Graham: So do that.

Ashkahn: Definitely do that.

Graham: And again, the conference September 28th and 29th. End of early bird tickets August 23rd. If you’re not writing this down, grab a pen. There’s going to be a lot of-

Ashkahn: Floatconference.com, I guess that’s the website.

Graham: Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of information coming your way. Almost all of it’s just on floatconference.com. So, really I guess that’s the main thing that you should remember.

Ashkahn: Yeah. But some people out there don’t like to do what they think is investigative journalism, and take up this information. So, we’re here to kind of share some highlights for you. Why read-

Graham: A whole website when you can hear it dictated live by me and Ashkahn?

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, floatconference.com.

Graham: Http://floatconference.com.

Ashkahn: So, yeah, I guess let’s give some highlights. There’s a bunch of really cool stuff happening at this year’s float conference.

Graham: It’s true. There’s going to be attendees, there’s going to be speakers.

Ashkahn: Speakers.

Graham: There will be sponsors.

Ashkahn: Tables, tablecloths. We’re not just going to have bare tables out there.

Graham: Yeah. Get out of here. We’re not that kind of conference. Okay?

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: It’s time you raised your expectations. Some of the speakers though, some of these cool speakers that we’re going to have.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, we have some cool new people that have never been out to the float conference before that-

Graham: And boy, are they in it for a surprise. You know?

Ashkahn: Yeah. Actually, just a bunch of really cool research which I’m excited about.

Graham: Me too.

Ashkahn: There’s a guy named Matt Driller who-

Graham: Dr. Matt Driller.

Ashkahn: Dr. Matt Driller who’s coming out from New Zealand which is pretty exciting. You may have even seen this. Maybe like … What was it? Like 12, 18 months ago-ish?

Graham: Yeah. Sometime.

Ashkahn: He published-

Graham: I think it’s about 18 months. Yeah.

Ashkahn: Yeah. He published a research piece that totally made the rounds. I remember seeing it when I came out and being like, “Cool. Another decent big float research article.”.

Graham: For sure.

Ashkahn: And then, low and behold, now the actual guy’s going to come out and speak at the float conference, and present his research which is really exciting.

Graham: And it was cool. It was, yeah, on elite athletes down there. The actual full title of the article just in case you were curious is ‘Flotation Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy and Napping on Mood State and Muscle Soreness in Elite Athletes: A Novel Recover Strategy?’

Ashkahn: So, if you want the answer to that question, you’re going to have to come to the float conference and find out.

Graham: Yeah. It is really exciting though. It’s always cool to have a new researcher who hasn’t actually been out to the conference before or out to present on their work. Yeah. That’s actually one of my … the ones I’m personally most excited about.

Ashkahn: We also have Dr. Josh Hagan. So, if any of you out there were at the float conference two years ago in 2017, we had kind of a couple people come out and present data from this research that the air force was doing from something called STRONG. It was the human performance research that was being done in the air force lab, and they presented the data that they had at the time, and some of the universities that they had been collaborating with and been taking samples of blood from student athletes, and processing it there in the lab. Basically just kind of looking at the effects of floating on performance, like physical performance and seeing if you could optimize that.

Ashkahn: And the person who was actually in charge of that whole program was Dr. Hagan. He wasn’t able to come out himself to the float conference that year. So, some other people came out and presented the data. Actually since that time, he’s now switched. He left kind of that department at the air force, and now is at the West Virginia University, and I guess was enough into floating to continue doing float research despite kind of making that jump. So, he’s actually now in the kind of university setting doing research on floating, and should hopefully have even more kind of data generated from that that he’s going to be able to present.

Graham: More blood collected. Yeah. No, that is, yeah, it’s really exciting. Just getting access to a lot of the research that was done in the military or having that developed further in the kind of private sector is really cool.

Graham: Another one along those same lines, Dr. Jerry Walker. Also, in the air force, and also … I’m not sure if he’s exactly doing research outside of it. This is one I don’t know as much about, but I am interested that he’s a clinical psychologist as well as a researcher which I think is cool. But yeah, I actually don’t know too much about Dr. Walker at all. Do you know?

Ashkahn: Not really actually. I was surprised when he kind of approached the conference that like I hadn’t really heard much about the work he had been doing before. But I think what sounds really cool about it is that we heard about all this work the air force was doing with floating a couple of years ago, and they were doing a lot of research specifically about like optimizing human performance, and getting people to be able to like train harder, and work harder, and all this sort of stuff.

Graham: It was kind of like the Navy Seals stuff that was going on.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Yeah. Because I think it was inspired from that research basically. From what I can tell from Jerry Walker is that he’s actually doing research more on the effects of trauma and recovery from trauma which I also think is really cool. And I think when we as float centers think about research that the military is doing, our heads are in this place where we’re thinking about veterans coming in with PTSD and finding floating as relief from that. And it’s cool to actually see the kind of research slanted towards that actual application. So, that should be cool. I’m excited to see what he has to present.

Graham: Yeah, for sure. And I guess, yeah, in addition to the new speakers who we have coming in, there’s also some of the old favorites. Both tried and true, and some of the new people from last year who were big hits on the stage.

Ashkahn: Yeah, for sure. We have of course Justin Feinstein and his crew.

Graham: The infamous Dr. Feinstein. He’s more than famous.

Ashkahn: Flux who came out to speak last year about the kind of immune system response and floating is coming out.

Graham: The infamous MC Flux.

Ashkahn: Yeah, so he’s coming back out. He actually lives in Boulder, just right up the way from Denver. So, this’ll be a convenient year for him.

Graham: Yeah, for sure. Roy Vore, the infamous Dr. Roy Vore is also coming back out to, yeah, give you another humdinger on water sanitation in the float tanks.

Ashkahn: Yeah, definitely. Super great video to watch from last year. If you don’t know who Roy Vore is, hop on the float conference website.

Graham: Oh, yeah. Make yourself some popcorn, strap in that seatbelt that you keep on your couch for such occasions, and-

Ashkahn: Spread some e.coli on some toast. Get this baby going.

Graham: I don’t know about the last part, but yeah. Everything else. That is a really good … It’s a really good talk.

Ashkahn: Yeah. And the cool thing is Roy is actually just been doing more work in the world of float sanitation since last year. He came out to the conference, and he gave this talk, and since then we’ve actually been flying around and giving kind of a version of that talk to environmental health people at their conferences in different states, and he’s actually been crunching more numbers, and-

Graham: Took the show on the road. It was a smash hit.

Ashkahn: Touring, yeah.

Graham: We’re going off Portland with this one. Yeah.

Ashkahn: Yeah, and we’ve been doing a little bit more research. We’ve actually done that water activity test that he’s going to talk about, and so it’ll be cool. It’ll be actually new information that he’ll be able to present, and he’s just getting deeper and deeper into the float world which is great.

Graham: Yeah. So, really cool. Glen Lee Perry, of course they’re going to be out again which’ll be amazing. Those yokels in charge of Float Tank Solutions will be there.

Ashkahn: Yeah, those guys. Couple of handsome gentleman, if I might say so myself, named Graham and Ashkahn. They’ll be giving a little talk. That’ll be exciting.

Graham: And new MC this year, just in case you haven’t enjoyed the host who we’ve had for the last seven years.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Understandably.

Graham: Ashkahn. But one of the conference favorites is actually going to be hosting this year and agreed to come out. So, Steven Johnson will be behind the mic for even more of the time saying ridiculously profound things between every single speaker, I’m sure.

Ashkahn: So, yeah.

Graham: So, yeah. You have to now, Steven. I put the pressure on.

Ashkahn: It’s live. It’s live. So, yeah. You can check out the speakers page on the conference website. Everyone’s listed on there, and it’s, yeah, it’s pretty exciting. I think it’s going to be-

Graham: Speaker number 13 will shock you.

Ashkahn: That’s good. We’ll make that the title of it. That’s a good idea.

Graham: Are you counting down 13 right now?

Ashkahn: So, other exciting things that are happening during the conference. So, we mentioned the conference dates as the September 28th and 29th. That’s the Saturday, Sunday. Those are the two main days of presentations. Then, there is this day beforehand, September 27th which is a Friday, and there’s a bunch of things happening that day that are called Friday activities.

Graham: Ton of things.

Ashkahn: Ton of things.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: So, most of the stuff … Some of these do have a little extra price on them, but most of the stuff is free and just included with your conference tickets. So, definitely come out a day early and enjoy. There’s basically a dozen or more individual, cool workshops and classes, and various activities happening all throughout the day.

Graham: Beer bus tour of all the float tank centers in Denver which has been a hit in Portland the last few years. I’m really excited to actually get to visit some new float centers going on this year.

Ashkahn: Yeah, and there’ll be some cool people returning to do sessions they’ve done in the past like-

Graham: Did you say plaster?

Ashkahn: No, no, no, I didn’t. Nobody heard that. Corey, Corey Kastanzo, is coming out to do his didgeridoo session that he’s done for the last couple years.

Graham: For the third, yeah, I was going say this is his third time in a row I think?

Ashkahn: Yeah. Yeah. It’s super awesome. And –

Graham: Oh, what were you going to say?

Ashkahn: Oh, I was going to say –

Graham: Oh, sorry.

Ashkahn: Maybe you should go. I feel like you should go.

Graham: Tom Fine is going to teach another workshop which is always a hit. It usually involves floating, and then talking about your floats, and you get to do it with one of the original float researchers which is incredibly cool.

Ashkahn: Yeah. This one’s really cool actually. I was chatting with Tom at the very beginning of this about what might be a fun workshop for him to put on, and it’s basically a crash course in float research. So, if you have a float center and you just want to know a lot more about, hey, what do we know with research? What can I use as marketing? What is the kind of foundation of scientific knowledge for floating? He’s basically trying to create a workshop that breaks that down, and actually just kind of lays that out for people.

Graham: So, if you just kind of want to do whatever you want with marketing and wing it, and say-

Ashkahn: Make stuff up.

Graham: … that one hour in a float tank is worth 10 hours of sleep, this is not the workshop. You should stay well clear of this workshop. It’ll sort of ruin your hopes and dreams, and that avenue of life.

Ashkahn: Yeah. But if you want to be a responsible human being, then-

Graham: You should also avoid this workshops because it’s being taught by Tom Fine.

Ashkahn: Yeah. He is a pranksters, so you’ll have to watch out.

Graham: No. It’ll be amazing. It’s actually, yeah, I don’t think I’ll be able to make that one sadly, but I actually personally wish that I could.

Ashkahn: So, yeah, there’s just a bunch of cool stuff going on, and that’s all at floatconference.com/fridayactivities, or you’ll just see a little button in the menu up there. Then, you can read all about them.

Graham: And going on also on Friday, but on the Thursday right before that, we’re teaching a workshop through Float Tank Solutions which we’ve done kind of every year as part of the conference before, and now we’ve just separated that out. So, this is being hosted specifically by float tank solutions, and it’s really just kind of the research. A crash course in everything you need to know to actually open up your float tank center.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, it’s all day the Thursday before, and then the first half of that Friday. So, you’ll still be able to make a bunch of the Friday activities afterwards, and it’s just really nuts and bolts stuff. I start off and I talk a lot about the operations, and sanitation, and float tank equipment, and maintenance, and regulations, and health departments, and kind of that whole world of things.

Graham: Jake takes over. Yeah, talks about construction a bunch. Kind of all the things you need to know about how a salt destroys things. And again, this is really geared towards people who are looking to just open a new float tank center, but we always do have people come through every single year who already have open float centers, and just kind of want some extra information on operations, or to kind of know what the newest best practices are for materials, or things like that.

Graham: So, there’s about 70 to a little over a hundred people every year who ended up coming out. And yeah, again, the vast majority is definitely people who were just in that stage where maybe they have a location, or they’re even just on the hunt for a location, and that’s really who the workshop is geared towards, and it does a great job.

Graham: So, then on the second day, I kind of covered all of the financials and marketing side of things as well. So, going over what the heck it’ll cost to open one of these things, and then how you get people in the tanks. Yeah. That’s, again, the Thursday and Friday right beforehand. So, that’s September 26th then and 27th that’ll be going on.

Ashkahn: And then, if that’s not enough knowledge for you, there’s even a whole other workshop happening the day before that. So on Wednesday, so the day before our kind of start-a-center workshop, it happens there’s a class that is a CPO certification. It stands for certified pool and spa operator, and that is a certification that’s done through an organization. They’re actually just merged with another organization. So, they used to be called the National Swimming Pool Foundation, the NSPF, and I think they’re now the American Pool and Hot Tub Alliance.

Graham: Fancy new logo as well.

Ashkahn: Yeah, fancy new logo, whole new set of letters for an acronym which is very exciting for organizations like that. But this is like you might see in a lot of regulations, not just around the US, but around like many different countries that if you run a commercial pool or spa, that you actually have to have a certified staff member on hand. And this is the most globally widespread certification that meets that.

Ashkahn: So, it is just thousands and thousands of people all over have the certification. And it’s just kind of a lot of information about basically how to keep pools and spas clean and safe. So, you do a lot of understanding the different potential pathogens that go in there, how to kill them, different disinfectants, how the equipment works, equipment maintenance, a lot of the underlying logic between how you actually calculate what sort of stuff you’re putting in there. So, it’s an interesting course. Like a lot of this stuff’s really useful and kind of shockingly applicable to float tanks.

Graham: For sure. And it’s really nice having a teacher who actually understands what float tanks are, even though the course is obviously not geared specifically towards float tanks. The people who are taking it always have questions that are related to our field and who a standard teacher might not actually be able to answer or even know what you’re talking about.

Ashkahn: Yeah. This class is actually taught by our very own Jake Marty.

Graham: The infamous Jake Marty.

Ashkahn: Yes. Yes. So, yeah, one of the other owners with us, and does the … He’ll be teaching that construction section of the workshop like we mentioned. So, he’s actually certified to teach this entire class which is really cool. And a special surprise.

Graham: And, yeah, special guest, cohost I guess.

Ashkahn: So, yeah. Roy Vore actually who’s like … He helped write parts of the textbook that is involved in this class, and he’s deeply, deeply involved in it. He’s actually going to hop on and teach a couple sections, and be there for the entire class as well, and helping answer questions, and just be kind of the extreme voice of knowledge there. So, that’s gonna be really cool.

Graham: Which I’m just going to say in a really silly voice, is quite a treat. And then I’m going to say in a serious voice, no though, really though, it is a big treat. Yeah. You have the person who knows the most about this topic, and literally wrote the book that you have in front of you. It’s awesome. Anyway, it’s really cool that he’s taken such an interest in our industry, and is willing to come out and co-host it.

Ashkahn: Yeah. You can take the CPO class other places. They do pop up around, but I don’t know. If you have float tanks and you actually want to learn about this and take this class, this definitely … You have Jake Marty and Roy Vore. I can’t imagine a better, all-star team teach the CPO class. So, yeah, definitely a really cool opportunity that only happens once a year when we do it with the conference.

Graham: Then, I guess that’s a lot of the exciting things for what’s going on during the event. Stuff that you should know about if you weren’t kind of up to date on how things have been developing or changing with a nonprofit. Which honestly, listening to this, you’re probably like, well, it doesn’t sound like things have kind of changed that much if you’ve been out to the conference before, and that’s really on purpose. We want to keep that kind of conference magic, and a lot of the things like Friday activities, and having a workshop for new people entering the industry to kind of be brought in easily and have that information shared has I think always just been what makes the float conference what it is. So, yeah. As we’re going to a nonprofit, we’re trying to keep all those things that make it magical, and get rid of anything else, Ashkahn as MC, that might just have worn on people over the years.

Ashkahn: Okay. Yeah. I guess that makes sense. But yeah. It’ll be really exciting to be in a new city, too. I’m super stoked on just ourselves explore around.

Graham: Yeah, yeah. No, that is really exciting. I loved you as MC by the way. I was not speaking for myself. So, there-

Ashkahn: Oh, did you want to-

Graham: No, no.

Ashkahn: I should?

Graham: Yeah. No, you should go to this time.

Ashkahn: Okay. Okay, yeah. So, there is a bunch of stuff-

Graham: Administrative stuff.

Ashkahn: It’s like he knew what I was about to say. There is a bunch of administrative stuff-

Graham: Nailed it.

Ashkahn: … that has also been happening. This stuff’s a lot more behind the scenes. You’re not going to come to the conference and watch us have a board meeting, or anything like that.

Graham: If you do want to come to the conference and watch us have a board meeting, please submit that idea as they talk and-

Ashkahn: We can slot a couple hours of stage time for you. It should be pretty … I can get a gavel. I’ve always wanted to gavel.

Graham: We should definitely have half of us out in the lobby conference calling in to give the full experience. But no, that’s not what we’re … We don’t do that on stage. Yeah.

Ashkahn: Yeah. I won’t be wearing pants. That’s kind of my classic … most of my board calls. So, yeah, there actually has been a lot just going on on the back end to have the whole organization actually function. Which, yeah, the fact that things are able to be somewhat similar to what they were in the past is actually a huge feat of trying to take a huge load off one plate and balance it onto another one. So, it’s been pretty cool that I feel like we’ve been able to make that transition. A lot of it has gone pretty well.

Graham: For sure. Yeah. Again, we kind of announced on stage that we were going to do this, and had it planned, and then the reality of actually doing it. It turns out, yeah, lawyers really want to clock those hours and that money.

Ashkahn: The forms are complicated, and-

Graham: Who knew?

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: Who knew?

Ashkahn: The IRS, the whole government shuts down when you’re trying to get your tax exemption.

Graham: That’s right.

Ashkahn: All sorts of crazy stuff happens. It’s been cool. If you do want more insight into what’s been going on organizationally with us, there is a lot of resources we’ve been trying to make sure to put up on the website and be transparent about so people can engage in it and be able to have as much insight into it as they care about I guess. So, there is like a lot of our operational documents are just on our website. That includes our bylaws. We actually at some point this year developed a whole document about how our board operates and makes decisions, and what our voting structure is, and the process with which kind of we function as a board.

Graham: So, if that’s up your alley, man, you’ve got a treat.

Ashkahn: Then, boom. Boom.

Graham: It’s all up online for free. You can just go get it.

Ashkahn: It actually was really fun. Voting systems, that might sound kind of boring to you, but it is-

Graham: If you’re interested in voting systems, ask us a question about it and we’ll answer it in one of these Occasional Solutions podcast.

Ashkahn: Yeah. There’s a lot of nuance and a lot of different types of voting system, and ours that we use here in the US is like pretty much the worst version of a voting system that you can choose. So, it was really cool to be able to use a different system, and do things that are more logical.

Ashkahn: All the finances. So, when this conference ends, we’ll put the finances, we’ll do a financial report and put it online for this 2019 event. But we decided as Float On to just go ahead and take the finances from all the past years. So, 2012 to 2018, and make those public as well so people could see what was going on, and have some context for it going forward.

Graham: For sure. And it just feels nice. As we’ve turned the conference over to the industry, it really is your event. You don’t have to be the ones planning it. We’ll take care of that, and the board will, and stuff like that. But being able to see where it came from, and how many attendees have been coming, and even just down to the nitty-gritty of how much money is made from sponsorships versus tickets each year, things like that are I think really valuable pushing forward. Because it informs what kinds of decisions can be made for future years, and kind of even maybe what you should expect based on just the amount of money that we have coming into the conference from these things.

Ashkahn: It’s just important for transparency I feel like. Everyone has a right to kind of see that information.

Graham: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. You don’t have to convince me, man.

Ashkahn: Listen, I did really hard. There’s also all the meeting minutes. So, every time we have a meeting as a board, we take notes, and those are also listed on our website. This is all on our about page of the float conference, but we’ll put links into the show notes as well.

Graham: For sure. Along with at least three board members favorite animal collectives.

Ashkahn: Yes. That will be in the show notes, and a breakdown of the most typical types of swords made during the golden age of the Spanish empire.

Graham: So, if any of that information has been holding you up for opening a float tank center as well. Bam.

Ashkahn: Check.

Graham: Yeah, you’re welcome.

Ashkahn: Check that off the list. There’s other cool stuff happening with the board now, too. We’re actually just about to do elections for new board seats and new board members. So, that’s happening right around now.

Graham: Yeah. Really exciting. All the nominees have been nominated and-

Ashkahn: Yup. They’re self-nominated. You apply to-

Graham: Yeah. They just put in their own name.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Yeah. Name-inated.

Graham: Okay.

Ashkahn: That’s the term. That is the term for that. Yeah.

Graham: All right. Okay. No, good. I’m glad that I know that now. So, yeah. It was a very informative podcast. Even I get to learn things, you know? Yeah. So, we got a new cast of characters coming out. Should be exciting.

Ashkahn: And we also are right now taking applications for where the float conference should be next year. So, do you want it to come to your city?

Graham: Do you want it to be on a floating island in the middle of the Pacific?

Ashkahn: Yeah. It could be a moon conference if you guys want to pay a million dollars a ticket or so.

Graham: Probably more. Right?

Ashkahn: We’ll have to get the tote bags up there, we’ll have to the name tags up there. You’re right. Yeah. So, like 1,000,050 or so bucks a ticket, then we could do it on the moon. That’s just one option.

Graham: So, either way, vote. Yeah, because you can have a say in this.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So, there’s applications for that online, and yeah. Everything’s cool. I’m excited to see where it goes.

Graham: Yeah, for sure. And I guess to wind things up, there’s going to be a lot of good parties.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Wind things down. Wind things up … We wind them up to get them ready to explode, you know?

Graham: I said wind them down?

Ashkahn: No, you said wind them up.

Graham: Yeah. Well, let’s wind this up, you know? Yeah. That’s what I meant to say.

Ashkahn: Okay, yeah. And then just hold that tension for the next month until you come out to the Conference.

Graham: And then wind it down.

Ashkahn: All right, so let’s wind it up here.

Graham: Yeah, we can have parties. How many parties you ask? I don’t even know. That’s how many are going on. We got Friday night down at Samana Float Center which will be the that’s the opening welcome reception party gathering where we first introduce all of you and us to each other in the conference event at Samana.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: That’s going to be a blast.

Ashkahn: Yeah. There’ll be other parties. There’ll be a big, fun party on Saturday night at a cool bar.

Graham: Even bigger, funner party. Funnier? Funner? Funner.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Funnest I think. It’s going to be the funnest party is going to be on Saturday night, and I don’t know, man. It’s just going to be cool. So, you guys should just come.

Graham: Come out and party. The whole thing is basically one giant party, you know?

Ashkahn: So, that’s it. That’s really it.

Graham: Come on out. We’re going to be really excited to be there, and-

Ashkahn: We’ll hang out. We’ll high-five. Get your tickets before August 23rd. Do yourself a favor.

Graham: I’m willing to chest bump if you’re into that sort of thing, too. It doesn’t have to stop at a high-five, you know?

Ashkahn: Yeah. Graham will chest bump. We’ll set up a whole chest bump station. We can form lines. Write whatever you want.

Graham: Okay. Yeah, I’ll do it. No. Yeah. That’s good.

Ashkahn: Gear up for a serious chest bump.

Graham: Okay. All right. Yeah. That sounds like a good plan. Friday activity.

Graham: All right everyone. Yep. Keep it floaty out there as we always say.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Cool in the school. All right.

Graham: And yeah. If you have your own questions, hey, find some way to get them to us so that we can answer them.

Ashkahn: Come to the conference and ask us in person.

Graham: Yeah, come to the … “Will you chest bump me?”

Ashkahn: Yeah.

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