Planning Beyond Our Means?

Zuckerman and I had hoped that the Society would benefit financially from the Energy Forum. Instead, we had dug ourselves into a deeper financial hole. When the bill arrived from the Washington Hilton Hotel, where we had held the Forum, we simply couldn’t pay it.

To make matters more terrifying, we planned to hold our general conference in the same hotel the following year, 1975. If we failed to pay the bill for the Energy Forum, the hotel would certainly not allow us to hold another conference, and no other hotel would touch us.

Zuckerman and I put off paying other bills until we had settled with the Hilton. Even so, we were shamefully slow in settling our hotel account, so the hotel would likely refuse to host our 1975 conference. Desperate, I appealed for help to Sheila Stampfli, a professional conference planner who had helped with our earlier meetings at the hotel. The Society’s credit was now worthless, but the hotel might trust Sheila.

Sheila and I went down to the Hilton and pleaded with the hotel’s sales manager. We argued that the Energy Forum was merely a one-of-a-kind experiment that hadn’t worked out, and we had made good in the end. We weren’t deadbeats. Our next meeting, we assured the sales manager, was a regular conference that could be expected to provide plenty of revenue. The manager, Gino Rosante, scolded me for half an hour, but, underneath, he seemed sympathetic. He finally yielded. He could trust in Sheila and her organization, but he clearly remained quite skeptical about me and the World Future Society.

I was a little skeptical myself, but I had little time to worry because we were already busy planning the program for the 1975 conference. Maybe that would be our salvation.

Next: Futurists gain influence in the U.S. Congress.