Meeting in Verona, Friday 27/09/2013

[reut]

Hi all,
Talks about it already started in "European" thread, but I think it's better to have a separate discussion about the meeting only.

I got confirmation from Stéphane that he is ready to meet us on Friday, 27/09.
His schedule is not finalized yet so take this as tentative-almost-sure date. I think, the time will be around noon again, after the practice.
The exact time we will know only a few days beforehand.

Last year the meeting in Verona was, on my opinion, very successful. It was friendly, warm and interesting. But this year the challenge is bigger as we already have twice as many people as we had last year. This also means that to make this year's meeting as successful as last year we will need to have some more strict "rules". We have some experience with bigger meetings we organized for Russian fans, so hopefully things will work fine here too.
I will try to make a basic list, but I can already say that the most obvious one is:
"Please, think first of all about what is comfortable for Stéphane. Try to think about him and how he feels meeting so many people at once"

I'll repeat it once again, this is not autograph or photo session. And this is not "gift feast" (note, I can't promise you will have time to give your presents to Stéphane personally). This is your chance to meet Stéphane, to know him better. This is your chance to talk to him, to ask him questions that interest you. Of course, it's better to ask him something new and original and not something he was asked many times already. But I trust Stéphane's fans, they always have very original and interesting questions.

We have a few ideas about the place where we can meet. As just stairs of the Arena, like the solution we found last year, won't do for so many people. We're checking some options and we will update you. We will try to make it somewhere near city centre and Arena.

We need to know who is coming. So, please, write your name here if you plan to come. It doesn't mean that if you decide in a last minute, you can't come. Every Stéphane's fan is welcome to join us. But we prefer to know if we have 20 people or 50, as this makes a bit of difference.

Please, don't send me PMs as I won't have time to read them and answer to them. All the news will be in this thread as fast as I know them, I promise.

[Anna]

perfect
thank you for the separate topic!

[MaRaMaya]

Thank you very much for the separate topic Reut

I'm very happy to have news so early

Thank you Reut and Anna for your Great Work ..... and naturally thank you to Stéphane himself for accept to meet us another time

I will be there - like last year I can't wait

[yshia]

Thank you Reut, really, for your work; we know it's not easy to organize something like this. Thanks to Anna too and to Stéphane of course.

[reut]

Language, questions, discussion

As I mentioned above this meeting is about discussion, talking, conversation.
The language of our meeting is English. I know that for some of us it's less convenient, I know that some of us are a bit more shy about their English, but nobody there will be native speaker, including Stéphane. It is OK to make mistakes, don't be shy to talk! But, please, keep this meeting in English so that everybody at the meeting will be able to understand you.
Last year it happened so that some of the conversation was in Italian and Stéphane had to translate, this is not OK. First, because more time was spent for one question while some of us were part of the time confused about what was going on there. Second, because, of course, it's not Stéphane's "job" to translate. If you're afraid your English is not good enough, please, ask some of your friends to translate for you in a half whisper.

Your questions should be prepared in English too, of course. Once again, if you need help, ask some of your friends before the meeting to help you.
Update: I talked to Anna and we thought of appointing "translators" for the meeting. Those you will be able to ask for help before and during the meeting (as long as you don't do it very loud and don't disturb others). We will have one from Italian, one from Russian and probably one from Japanese?

If you can't come to the meeting, but you have some questions you want to be asked, please, write them here. I can't promise we will be able to ask all of them, but we will try to ask some.

[Anna]

Place update:
I spoke with some people from Arena's offices, and they give us permission to do the meeting inside the Arena. This doesn't mean that Arena will be the chosen place, as we need to ask Stéphane before, if it's ok for him, and of course we will need to go somewhere else if there will be bad weather.
So we are also working on some other place, but Arena is one option.

From the office they say that we can enter in the morning and stay as much time as we want, so maybe there could be also the chance to see part of the practice. The ticket to enter costs 4,5 € for big groups (more than 15 people), so if we decide to do it there, it's better to enter together - because single tickets costs 6 €.
Let's see what they will answer from other options

[MaRaMaya]

Thank you Anna for the nice news about the meeting .....

Let's Hope for the good time and the sun ...... If the meeting could be done directly inside Arena would be a Great memory ..... weather permitting
Last year the practice in Arena at 9.00 a.m. were already underway

I am waiting to know also the other possibilities that are you studying - the other options

[maple]

Reut,
Anna,
Manny, many thanks for all the arrangements and efforts to make the meeting special and memorable!

From my country, myself and 4 more (who does not have AS account) are hoping to attend. If specific name for those 4 persons are required, let me know. I will make sure to let them know all the policies you mentioned here.

If anything I can help you with, please let me know. I just can't wait visiting Verona very soon and seeing all of you and Stephane.

[reut]

Hi maple,
this is great that you and your friends can join us!
Please, be our "contact person" for the group of Japanese fans. Also, can you be our translator (to/from Japanese) if needed during the meeting?

There is no requirement for specific names, we don't make a list. That's OK, we just need to know how many people we will have there coming. But I'd be really glad if your friends can join AS and share their impressions with all of use after the meeting.

[Ronja]

I will come
I quess there won't be anyone else from Finland (or Scandinavia)?

[maple]

Sept 18, 2013 13:44:44 GMT 1 reut said:

Hi maple,
this is great that you and your friends can join us!
Please, be our "contact person" for the group of Japanese fans. Also, can you be our translator (to/from Japanese) if needed during the meeting?

There is no requirement for specific names, we don't make a list. That's OK, we just need to know how many people we will have there coming. But I'd be really glad if your friends can join AS and share their impressions with all of use after the meeting.

reut,

No problem. For Translation, my English ability is limited, but if there is any requirements, I will try to help as much as possible - Actually most of the attendees from my country are able to communicate in English so no problem anyway!

[tamako]

Thank you for all.
I'll be in Arena 27th！

I must study English more harder・・・lol・・・

looking forward to see you☆

[aleachim]

Hello ladies,

I am happy that Stéphane agreed with meeting. I wish you nice moments and impressions from the fan meeting and from the show!! Please, give Stéphane greetings from other members of AS, that cannot be in Verona:)

Here are 3 questions for Stéphane, if there is time enough:
1) Are you going to the European Championship in Budapest in January?
3) What do you like on couching skaters (for example currently Japanese)?
2) How about your pet?

Have a nice time in Verona:)

Best regards from Czech Republic.

[reut]

Hi, aleachim. Of course, the "priority" will be to those who are present there, but if there will be some pause and people will take time to think, this pause can be used to ask some of the questions.

[reut]

Hi all,
it's less than a week to the meeting and to the show, how exciting!
Unfortunately things are still not 100% sure and probably everything will be finally confirmed only on Thursday.

I think to make a meeting at the Arena might be really special, so hopefully Stéphane agrees and the weather is fine. As the meeting is supposed to be after the morning rehearsal, I guess somewhere around 11:30-12:00, I'm afraid to meet at 9:00 is a bit too early. On the other hand, of course, it's up to you, when you enter. As Anna wrote you can spend there the whole day even, if you want.

One more thing I wanted to update you about. Girls from lambiel_ru will take 5 minutes of our time at the beginning of our meeting to continue their "matryoshka" project and to present Stéphane will the album of the previous season. (You can take pictures of this "ceremony", but, please, don't share them in the "open Internet").

Some "rules":
- Please, think about questions and translate them to English. If you have many questions, try to choose those which on your opinion are more interesting for the wider audience, for more fans and not only for you;

- As I mentioned above, just in case, we will have translators: maple from Japanese and we need someone from Italian forum for Italian (Anna wanted to be, but she will be very busy, so let's not put even more pressure on her, right?) And we will have one from Russian too.

- We need someone with the camera who will be able to film the meeting. We already have one "camerawoman" from lambiel_ru who agreed to help, but it's always better to have another video, just in case;

- Will we have someone who can record the audio of the meeting, upload it and share the link here as fast after the meeting as possible? As there will be many people waiting for the news and video usually takes a few days till we have it;

- All the fans who couldn't join this meeting will appreciate a lot your stories. Yes, of course, you'd prefer to share them first in your groups and forums, in your language. But, please, come to this forum too and share your stories here too;

- I know everyone wants to make his very own photo of Stéphane, and it's not good enough when there are other, much better, photos from the same event... But this is not press conference and I don't want him to feel as if he is at one. It is a meeting, he wants to meet you, to see your eyes and not your lenses. So I'd really prefer if we have a few photographers we appoint, with good cameras, and the rest will just enjoy. In any case you should avoid using flash. And we'll be glad to see your photos here. Please, come to share them with us;

- We won't make personal photos with Stéphane but we will make one big group photo;

- Please, don't interrupt the meeting for giving presents during your question. If Stéphane has time at the end of the meeting, you'll be able to give it to him personally. If not, we will take all the presents together and pass it to him, and he will check them later in his room. He said many times that he doesn't need presents, but I know that people don't believe or don't want to believe. Anyways, think about maybe making one good "group present" instead. For example, to pack all the presents from Japanese fans together, all the presents from Italian fans together, etc;

- Usually the time Stéphane sets for such meetings is half an hour. But if he feels comfortable, if the conversation is interesting, if he is not in a hurry we have a good chance to spend more time with him. So it's our own interest that everything goes as nice and unstrained as possible.

Those "rules", hopefully, are not very strict and are not unreasonable, I think. With more than 35 people coming to this meeting they will help us to have some order and to move things smoothly. As I wrote above, the most important thing: please, think what is comfortable for Stéphane first of all.