A strictly unauthorized, opinionated & hopefully-helpful look at NARTS Conference.

Follow one attendee’s adventures before, during, and after Conference. This blog proved so welcome over the last years with both attendees and those who had to stay home that Kate’s doing it again for 2012. Check out all the info on Conference at NARTS.org, all Too Good to be Threw has to offer about Conference (including having your own, if you have to stay at home!), and what Auntie Kate has blogged on the subject over the years.

Please Note: Kate Holmes and Too Good to be Threw have no financial stake whatsoever in the NARTS Conference or any of their functions.  I just really think it would be good for your business if you come, and I’d like to meet you, and I can personally attest to the great ideas, enthusiasms, and lasting friendships I have made at the many past Conferences in which I volunteered, spoke, and participated. Hope to see you there! –Kate Holmes

Thanks for stopping by!

I appreciate your visit to KateAtNARTS.wordpress.com. Please visit my blog, AuntieKate.wordpress.com, for the final wrap-up of NARTS Conference 2012, and for over 1200 more posts about our wonderful industry!

Wow, I’m on TV!

Well, of course I’m not… but look at this great shot  from workshop attendee Vena Holden of Selective Seconds IN!

Kate’s NARTS Conference workshop, “What, ME have a blog?” was on the big screen, and 2 little ones, this morning at Conference.

Thanks to everyone who came to my workshop (there were SO many workshops, it was hard to choose which ones to attend!), and now that I am back on the hotel’s Internet access, I will get pix up from yesterday’s bus tour, soonest!

If you have photos you’d like to share on your smartphone (AKA smarter than me), love to have you email them to me @ SarasotaKate@yahoo.com …also if you were in my workshop and want to see how “comments” work, add one below!

PS One thing I forgot to tell you? Don’t overdo the exclamation points.

What a find!

The hotel lobby was filled with strangers-no-more. There’s nothing like a little silliness to

What will be YOUR Burning Question?

When I was a kid, I babysat for the Gilmores. They lived in a white house with a white picket fence and he was a lawyer. Pretty boring folks, huh?

But they had one quest in life that made them stand out in my mind: every time they dined out, in our village or New York City or in Paris, they always ordered the Baked Alaska. They were going to find the most perfect rendition of Baked Alaska they could, so they searched every place they could.

I hope you bring with you, to Conference,

a burning question.

One you really want to get some viewpoints on, searching for the perfect answer for you.

In fact, bring two.

But be sure to ask your question of everyone you can. I guarantee you’ll get a thought-provoking variety of answers, enough viewpoints and ideas that you’ll be able to whip up the perfect Baked Alaska… umm, solution!… when you return to your business.

Burning question mark borrowed from instructables.com. Baked Alaska from blog.foodily.com

T shirt Tuesday: Oh, the lies.

I dare you. Imagine the

The last-minute packer

Click the suitcase for more last-minute help

Are you a last-minute packer? Me too. I figure

Approach me, you irresistible you

Are you shy? A “private” person?

Afraid that you won’t get

Good question, Lana. Here’s the answer.

Over on Facebook, Lana asked, as a first-time attendee, what InfoShare at Conference was all about and

12 Do’s and Don’t’s for Attending Conferences.

All the same stuff I’ve been saying for years, from

Where will I lay my weary head?

(I was gonna call this post Sleeping Around or No Rest for the Wicked… but I didn’t want to shock folks, just wake ’em up…pun intended.)

If you’re still