The Best Western Hotel High Point, formerly the Radission, will begin accepting room reservations the end of this week for the upcoming 2010 International Custom Rod Building Expostion to be held on February 20 &21, 2010. The rates this year will be $84 per night, good for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. I will post again later in the week once I hear for certain that they are ready to go. There are several other nearby hotels, all within walking distance if you prefer to stay elsewhere. Go to www.rodexpo.com and view the "lodging" page for those phone numbers and general locations.

The Expo will again be held at the fabulous ShowPlace Center just behind the hotel. With the current state of the economy I'm a little surprised, but very happy to report that out of a possible 70 booth spaces, 32 have already been sold. The overwhelming successes of previous Expo events continues to create a "buzz" that allows us to build and grow each subsequent year. I'm already hearing of plans being made by some of the booth holders and can say with certainty that the 2010 event will be the largest and best of them all. The admission fee will again be $10 for a day ticket, or $15 for a 2-day ticket. Considering the amount of "stuff," the special prices and overall scale of this event, along with the free seminars, you're not going to find a better value anywhere in the rod building world than what takes place at the Expo.

The RodMaker Reception will again be held on Friday evening for all RodMaker Magazine subscribers. That worked out pretty well for most folks last year and we'll do it the same way this coming year. It will again be free of charge and will feature food and over $5000 worth of door prizes. You do not have to buy anything to be entered for the door prizes. As usual, they will all be given away at no charge. Last year, among dozens of other prizes, we gave away a Renzetti rod lathe, a Batson Enterprises rod lathe and an Eco-Wrapper. This is all really good stuff and the 2010 version will top the 2009 event.

I expect to fully update the website towards the end of the summer. By that time, we'll also have the seminars roughed out. Jim Upton is again heading up the program and we have a few surprises in store for the 2010 seminar program.

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