Austin Maya Meeting Hix Witz Volunteers

New Program Coordinator for UT Mesoamerican Center

2009-07-29T11:51:00.012-05:00

I am very pleased to introduce you to Paola Bueche, the young lady who has been appointed as the new program coordinator for the University of Texas Mesoamerican Center. Among her duties will be the job of organizing the annual Maya Meetings. Her start date is August 13, 2009.

Her official title is "Senior Program Coordinator of the Mesoamerica Center". Mrs. Bueche holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. She has extensive experience in program coordination, having worked as the Assistant for the Associate Director within the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Mrs. Bueche is fully bilingual in English and Spanish, speaks Portuguese and has studied Quechua. She is originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina and has been living in Austin since 2002.

Casa Herrera Interior Courtyard, Antigua, Guatemala.

Photo by Rene Ozaeta

She will also coordinate a variety of other events that will take place at the University of Texas' conference facility in Antigua, Guatemala.

Two More 2009 Maya Meeting Heros

2009-06-05T11:01:00.013-05:00

Our volunteers come from all walks of life. Above is volunteer Fabian Dominguez. This picture was taken in Albuquerque just before he left for his summer trip to Guatemala. He is a computer analyst for Farmer's Insurance here in Austin, Texas. He also is an advanced reader and calligrapher of Maya Glyphs!!! During the 2009 meetings, he went above and beyond the call of duty by helping us keep our computers running and our slide projectors projecting. To tell you the truth, we sort of pulled him in many directions at once. But as you can see in the photo, he is still in one piece. Thanks Fabian!

This hairy and friendly fellow is Jim Chiavaroli. At one of our 2009 organizational meetings he unwittingly volunteered to be our Audio/Visual Team Leader. We drafted him into taking this job after we found out that he had a knack with computers and projectors. And guess what - he is also a talented Austin tattoo artist who spent several years in the Yucatan where he fell in love with ancient Maya art and glyphs. He is now a beginning glyph reader and an advanced Maya iconographic artist. His advanced artist tallent is partly due to the fact that he has been practicing on people's skin for some time now. He can give you an awesome Maya art tattoo if you like. Just like Fabian, he did an awesome job helping us with keeping our computers and projectors running during the meetings. I remember that he was frequently at our volunteer/administration desk asking what needed to be done next. Muchas gracias Jim!

Meet Virginia Walker

2009-04-27T22:28:00.006-05:00

Virginia was our 2009 registration team leader. She is a PhD candidate in the Art History program at the University of Texas and she is studying ancient Malinalco, a fascinating site located in the basin of Mexico. Her organization skills are outstanding and she put them to work for us by delivering the smoothest registration process that we have experience in several years at the meetings. Her attitude and professionalism were greatly appreciated. Thank you Virginia!

Team Leaders Lynda and Bob

2009-03-27T08:34:00.004-05:00

Bob Wald and Lynda Manning-Schwartz were our Workshop Team Leaders this year. Here they are at Lava Java, sitting next to Adrianne Newman who in addition to being on the Publicity Team, also headed up the Publication Sales Team. The Workshop Team leaders spent many hours planning the setup of the glyphic workshops. They also were the primary contacts with the Workshop Instructors/Facilitators - getting information and documents from them in support of the glyph classes. Of all the teams, perhaps this one required the most time and forethought. All their planning paid off with workshops that flowed perfectly.

Here is Bob with friends (from left to right) Terry Kaufman, Nick Hopkins, Barbara MacLeod and Bob on the right.

Thank You Caitlin and Lulu!

2009-03-25T14:52:00.004-05:00

Lulu Henderson and Caitlin Earley were our 2009 Customer Service Team Leaders.

In this photo, taken a few days before the event, they are preparing to orient their team members on the "dos and don'ts" of Customer Service a la Maya Meeting style. If it seems like their audience sparse, its because most of their team members hadn't arrived when this photo was taken. In reality, I think that they had more volunteers than any other team this year.

Janis Memorial Flyer

2009-03-12T14:28:00.003-05:00

Here is the flyer for the memorial.

Memorial

2009-03-12T10:38:00.005-05:00

Lynda Manning-Schwartz sent this message to me (and to Aztlan) from Andra Graham, so I thought I would pass it along:

It is with a sad heart but warm memories of Maya Meetings past featuring Janis talking about frogs or snakes that I pass along this memorial invitation from his daughter.

Memorial Gathering for Janis Indrikis

Where: 590 Cedar Way, Laguna Beach, CA (house)
When: Saturday April 18th, 2009, 2:00- 5:00 pm

Note: If you wish to share a memory you have of Janis please feel free to bring a picture, poem or simply a fond story.

Lunch will be served.

RSVP: By April 4, 2009
714.546.7719 or sweetsoda@sbcglobal.net

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call me.

Kindest Regards,
Andra Graham
www.ocmoxie.com

Special Needs Transportation

2009-02-18T23:04:00.004-06:00

This year, the meetings will take place at the AT&T Conference Center. In addition, two of the events - the viewing of "Balancing the Cosmos" and the reception at the beer garten - will take place a few blocks away from the center. I created this map so that you can see these event locations. For those of you who are not able to walk to these places, we are offering a special needs transportation service, but you must sign up for this service at the registration desk so that we can know how many people we will need to carry over in our vans and cars.

2009 UT Mesoamerican Graduate Student Association Party (MaGSA)

2009-02-17T19:38:00.008-06:00

Maya Meeting Volunteers, Lulu Henderson, Caitlin Earley and Danny Law, who are also the organizers and officers of MaGSA are hosting a party during the meetings. It will happen on Saturday, February 28 and will start at 8:00 pm at the Dog and Duck Pub and everyone is invited.

Scholz Beer Garten Reception

2009-02-13T22:51:00.015-06:00

This year our the Maya Meeting reception will be held at the historic Austin site of Scholz Beer Garten. It was established in the year 1866. Here is a website that has more information about the beer garten:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/ahc/ohm13.htm

Here is the Beer Garten's homepage:

http://www.scholzgarten.net/

And are you ready for this? Here is their beer and wine menu:

Balancing the Cosmos

2009-02-13T11:00:00.008-06:00

A film called "Balancing the Cosmos" - Living Traditions in a Modern Maya City

As part of the Maya meetings and under the auspices of the University of Texas, College of Fine Arts, Department of Art and Art History at 6.30pm on Thursday 26th February 2009 at the UTC building.

This film is a revealing portrait of a modern indigenous Maya city, its people, tradition and ritual. It was filmed over the course of eight years in the highlands of Guatemala and based in part, upon the work of Allen Christenson author of Art & Society in a Highland Maya Town and translator and editor of the latest edition of the Popol Vuh. This film is a picture of a vibrant living culture and how it adapts to and embraces the modern world while maintaining its underlying tradition. Go to these two websites to learn more:
http://balancingthecosmos.com/
http://myspace.com/balancingthecosmos

I created this diagram in Google maps. It displays the location of the Maya Meeting events. The reception this year is at Scholtz Beer Garten. Click on the map to enlarge it and then save it to your computer, if you like.

Austin Maya Meetings Information

2009-02-11T11:15:00.007-06:00

To get information out in a more timely manner, I am going to start posting several information items on this blog. Thanks to Lulu and Caitlin for putting the following things together:

A document on frequently asked questions (FAQs) go here: http://www.emayastudies.com/GIS/MayaMeetingFAQs%5b1%5d.pdf

A list of hotels that are alternatives to the Convention Center go here: http://www.emayastudies.com/GIS/MayaMeetings.HotelList%5b1%5d.pdf.

To see a closeup of the conference location go here:

http://www.emayastudies.com/GIS/Location%20of%20Maya%20Meetings%20Closeup.jpg

I will soon post other information that might be helpful to you.

Google Maya Meeting Volunteer Event Calendar

2009-02-08T20:26:00.009-06:00

This is the Volunteer Maya Meeting Google Calendar that I created so that volunteer Team Leaders and Michael Scanlon can edit, update and keep track of what other teams are doing. So far, I am the only one that is using it -- it may take awhile for others to figure out how to use it. Of course the month of February is where most of our milestones will take place and then two days in March.

Lava and Java

2009-01-24T22:19:00.010-06:00

The Hix Witz Maya Meeting Volunteers' Publicity Team met at Lava Java on Monday, January 19th to discuss ways to increase awareness of the Maya Meeting Event that begins February 23rd.

Here you see from left to right, Pranav Merchant who is our Publicity Team Leader (looking very pensive), Lynda Manning-Schwartz (Girl Friday) and Adrienne Newman (Austin chocolate shop owner).

Dogs, Ducks and Beer

2008-09-18T11:46:00.004-05:00

Michael arranged for us to have an appreciation get together at the Dog and Duck Club in downtown Austin.
Here is the entire group.
Dave looks very pensive and yet intrigued about something doesn't he?
Here is Carolyn, Caitlin, and Anabella and the man with his back to us is the Art History Chair, John Yancey.

Say Hello to Lynda Manning-Schwartz!

2008-09-17T22:34:00.012-05:00

For those of you who count yourselves among the annual Austin Maya Meeting faithful, you know Lynda's smiling face very well. For many years, she organized the meeting registration and is still among our most active volunteers. This year one of her jobs is to be Michael's Girl Friday, performing important administrative tasks. Her other interests include the ancient Mixtec ("bring back the Mixtec workshops") and she also works as secretary for the Heart of Texas G-Gaugers (hubby, Charles is president) who are "group of families with a common interest in G-gauge railroading, whether indoor or outdoor, regardless of scale." Here is their webpage link: http://www.hotgg.org/?home

Good Luck Is With Us

2008-09-07T22:55:00.008-05:00

Saturday, September 6, 2008 the publicity team met to talk about strategies to get the word out about the 2009 meetings. From left to right we have Pranav Merchant, Michael Scanlon and Elaine Schele. Karen Smatana was also present, but she was taking the picture. We got together at the Starbucks at 38th and Guadalupe to discuss improving the web page, putting together frequently asked questions and getting the registration details together. Note the sign in the window behind Elaine's head where it reads "Good Luck". I consider that a very nice omen. Also, we always need more help, so if you are interested in being a Maya Meeting Volunteer email Elaine at elaineschele@gmail.com. We are going to have a variety of tasks for people to do before and during the meetings such as customer service, workshop assistants, symposium liaisons, and many others.

Aj tz'ib' Justin Kerr

2008-09-02T22:57:00.019-05:00

Aj tz'ib' is a Maya word for "scribe" or "he of the writing". I added it as a title to Justin's name out of respect for the many years of work that Justin and his wife Barbara have done to aid in making the iconography and glyphs found on ancient Maya ceramics available to the public and to scholars. To see and search his online database go here:
http://www.mayavase.com/. Justin has been leading the Iconography Workshop at the Austin Maya Meetings for 26 years and he will do so once again in 2009. His classes are always animated, with lively discussions about glyphs and iconography.

Here is an excerpt from an article about Justin and Barbara that first appeared in Archaeology Magazine, Volume 56, no. 6, Nov/Dec 2006 by Tom Gidwitz "Picture Perfect: How an ingenious former fashion photographer managed to capture on film the mind and spirit of the ancient Maya"

In a cluttered studio in New York's Flatiron district, a thousand-year old Maya vase spins slowly on a turntable. On its painted surface is a puzzling scene: a ruler sitting on a bearded dragon gazes down at a baby in the hands of a black-eyed death god." To read the rest of the article go to: http://www.tomgidwitz.com/main/perfect.htm

Video on how to do rollouts http://www.mesoweb.com/features/Rollout/index.html

Meet Karen Smetana!!

2008-08-28T09:33:00.007-05:00

Karen is one of our many talented volunteers who lives in Austin, Texas. Her task right now is to gather questions about the 2009 Austin Maya Meetings and to compile them into a list of FAQs to be posted to our webpages for people to get answers to their questions quickly. This is a great picture of her that was taken while visiting Prague. If you have a question to contribute email her at karens@motive.com.

She works for a company named Motive. Here is one of Motive's webpages that might be of interest to readers. It explains why Motive decided to locate in Austin, Texas. Go to: http://www.motive.com/aboutmotive/careers/aboutaustin.asp.

Location of 2009 Maya Meetings

2008-08-26T17:53:00.001-05:00

I am very please to let everyone know that the University of Texas AT&T Hotel and Conference Center is almost finished. It is an awesome location for our meetings that will take place February 23rd through March 1 of 2009. Here is a photo of the front of the building.
This is one of the classrooms.
Elevators - Pretty fancy, right?
Here is the front foyer with the University seal.

One of the many dining rooms...