US LEGIONS TRAVEL TO BULGARIA IN JUNE

[FlaviusCrispus]

I am looking forward to meeting you all in Novae. I can hardly wait for this event! Wink

Have all of those invited to this event been informed of their travel arrangements yet?

[Matthew Amt]

Have all of those invited to this event been informed of their travel arrangements yet?

NO! Several members of Legio XX have submitted their names, but are wondering if the whole event is not going to happen because they have received so little information! What's the story? I will tell them about the Yahoo group, but the event organizers REALLY need to contact all the (hopeful) participants right away with the essentials. We have NO travel information, etc.

EDIT: Okay, I clicked on the link for the Yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/novaeroma/ , and got "There is no group called novaeroma. Please make sure you typed the web address correctly. If you have done so, the group may no longer exist."

I can't go, and I wasn't planning to be a contact for this, but this is ridiculous!

Help!

Matthew

[richsc]

Julie & Lawrence Brooks sure seem certain, and are leaving from Dulles on Tuesday, which is a long drive for them if there is a problem. The others in Legio XX are not at all certain: they need confirmation ASAP as I submitted their names back May 15. What happened to the Yahoo group??

[FlaviusCrispus]

Julie & Lawrence Brooks sure seem certain, and are leaving from Dulles on Tuesday, which is a long drive for them if there is a problem. The others in Legio XX are not at all certain: they need confirmation ASAP as I submitted their names back May 15. What happened to the Yahoo group??

NO! Several members of Legio XX have submitted their names, but are wondering if the whole event is not going to happen because they have received so little information! What's the story? I will tell them about the Yahoo group, but the event organizers REALLY need to contact all the (hopeful) participants right away with the essentials. We have NO travel information, etc.

Avete,

Although we were repeatedly assured by Mr. Cologni that travel plans were being made, by the middle of last week no confirmation had been forthcoming when all communications from him, either direct of via the Novae site, abruptly ceased. Repeated attempts by phone and email to contact Mr. Cologni have yielded no results.

As of Saturday morning, Legion VI formally backed out, and our Senate/director board decided to make it official. In a rash decision, the member who had created the Novae site on his own volition shut it down without consulting us (he had privately created the group to support the event and had control in this).

On behalf of Legion VI I appologize for any inconvience this is creating for anyone planning to continue to try to participate in Novae. However, the responsibility for the apparent collapse of American participation in this event rests with its organizers, who quite clearly promised far more than they could deliver.

[Matthew Amt]

Ah! Thanks, David, that explains much. Just had an email exchange forwarded to me that also indicates that the Bulgarian event organizers were ticked at the Italian contact (Andrea Cologni, I believe), who had "disappeared". They were talking about legal action! For all we know he could have suffered some unrelated personal disaster, but regardless of the reason, at this point in the game it pretty much kills things.

Don't worry, we certainly don't blame you guys for any of this! (Yeah, deleting the Yahoo list seems kinda counter-productive, but it was his list.) This is all exactly why I tend to run and hide when someone suggests an international event....

Valete,

Matthew

[trt]

This is sounding like an event and a half!

It's a lot more than event for me, since I live in Svishtov. I think town will get packed with people. That's nice!

[FlaviusCrispus]

It's a lot more than event for me, since I live in Svishtov. I think town will get packed with people. That's nice!

TRT, could you please let us know if this event actually occurs as scheduled?

I understand there were some severe problems at the last minute making travel arrangements for the 130-person Italian contingent (apparently, as with us, the primary organizer neglected to make any reservations until it was effectively too late).

I would be interested in hearing if any of the other European groups experienced similar troubles, and how the organization for the whole event proceeds, particularly since Mr. Cologni (who started this thread trumpeting the fact that U.S. legions had been invited!) has seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.

Needless to say, there are many people on this side of the pond who feel very ill-used and cheated by this sequence of events. Although we are not out a great deal of money (aside from extra packing materials, suitcases and whatnot that were purchased to ship our gear), all of us had to make special arrangements with our work, family care, child care and whatnot, and had otherwise invested a great deal of time preparing for this event and looking forward to it with great anticipation.

To Mr. Cologni: Aren't we at least owed some kind of explanation for what has transpired?

[varia cassia]

We have received no flight confirmation yet from Andrea. He said we were booked on United, now we are hearing that we are booked on Lufthansa. Neither of these airlines have any record of any of the US contingent being booked at all according to Dave Maxwell of Legio XX who has spent half his day investigating this.

If we don't get confirmation soon, we will not be able to go. I have dogs to get to my mom's and a 7 hour drive to DC and I have no idea what time our flight out is at this point - if at all. I've spoken with the Bulgarian travel agency who has not heard from Andrea in days. We haven't heard from him at all since Wednesday despite repeated emails and phone calls.

If anyone has any information or Andrea if you are looking at this list. PLease contact the US contingent because none of us know what is going on and when. At this point it is extremely urgent.

At the least if there is a snag we deserve some kind of explanation as to what is transpiring here.

[FlaviusCrispus]

We have received no flight confirmation yet from Andrea. He said we were booked on United, now we are hearing that we are booked on Lufthansa. Neither of these airlines have any record of any of the US contingent being booked at all according to Dave Maxwell of Legio XX who has spent half his day investigating this.

Julie--

Who told you that you were booked on Lufthansa, and when? The last itinerary I saw (last wednesday AM, I believe) had us all flying United.

But if you looked closely at Andrea's email last Wednesday, he did not say any tickets had been booked, he said the itinerary he provided (all United) was one he was "studying" for us. He also said there were still having problems securing the proper connections. Then, of course, everything went silent.

I seriously doubt any tickets were booked at all. My impression of what happened is that Mr. Cologni waited until the last possible moment to try to book flights for the U.S. contingent, discovered that no flights were available (or that they would be prohibitively expensive at this late stage of the game), then simply dropped the whole project and, for whatever reason, decided we didn't need to be told. The emails from the Bulgarian travel agent seem to suggest this, anyway.

Unless you hear otherwise in the next couple of hours, I would suggest we can all file this one under "hard lesson learned."

[varia cassia]

Well, I just received an email from Dave Maxwell a little while ago who mentioned Lufthansa, so I am trying to reach him and get more information. He said he spoke with Andrea today who indicated that was the carrier. I was also under the impression that were were supposedly flying United.

I do agree that he probably waited until the last minute and couldn't get flights. I've pretty much given up any hope of going at all. I would simply like an explanation of what has happened. I think we certainly deserve that.

[FlaviusCrispus]

He said he spoke with Andrea today who indicated that was the carrier. I was also under the impression that were were supposedly flying United.

Dave Maxwell spoke with Andrea? If so, that's the first word we've heard in days! I've tried repeatedly to telephone and email him, and gotten no response.

Can you PM me Dave Maxwell's contact information-- telephone number? I'm really curious about this.

[trt]

It's a lot more than event for me, since I live in Svishtov. I think town will get packed with people. That's nice!

TRT, could you please let us know if this event actually occurs as scheduled?

I understand there were some severe problems at the last minute making travel arrangements for the 130-person Italian contingent (apparently, as with us, the primary organizer neglected to make any reservations until it was effectively too late).

I would be interested in hearing if any of the other European groups experienced similar troubles, and how the organization for the whole event proceeds, particularly since Mr. Cologni (who started this thread trumpeting the fact that U.S. legions had been invited!) has seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.

Needless to say, there are many people on this side of the pond who feel very ill-used and cheated by this sequence of events. Although we are not out a great deal of money (aside from extra packing materials, suitcases and whatnot that were purchased to ship our gear), all of us had to make special arrangements with our work, family care, child care and whatnot, and had otherwise invested a great deal of time preparing for this event and looking forward to it with great anticipation.

To Mr. Cologni: Aren't we at least owed some kind of explanation for what has transpired?

Well, FlaviusCrispus, I don't really know who could I ask, and who would really answer me, since municipality and organisators as a whole wouldn't like someone knows they failed or something. It's gonna be so bad if the schedule didn't work as it has to. I am looking forward to this festival, however, town has never held such a big festival so there might have been some problems appeared. I'll see what can i do and will inform you about anything new. I wish you and all the legions here!

[Opifex]

Guys,

This is what I got. Very bad news.
Anyway is ther e ANYBODY who will be there?

I asked for the contracted transportation fees (we have to rent a bus etc...)

Dear Mr. Garas,
I understood recently that Mr. Cologni took а commitment about payment of your expenditures related with a trip to Bulgaria. We are responsible for your stay in Svishtov, building the castrum and stages of the Festival as well as for the transfers from airports Sofia and Bucharest to Svishtov. If we know your flight details and your arrival we will organize your transfer as we will provide the transfers of Italian and German groups. Unfortunately we exhausted all budget and we could not pay even 1000 Euro.
As you know Mr. Andrea Cologni is the major organizer of the Festival appointed by Legio I Italica! And my opinion is that Cologni failed to organize the event! Unfortunately Mr.Cologni was disappeared and I was not able to speak with him last several days. Obviously he lied a large group of people! I think I must hold him responsible for his actions. So I'm going to inform the police in Bulgaria and prosecutor's office after the Festival for the fraud of the Italian citizen. Sorry for your inconvenience but I have never known his promises and conversations with participants and sponsors of the Festival which probably were hurt in the same way.

St.Prodanov

[rusty myers]

Not sounding good. I had doubts when we got notice less than 2 months from the event... so we did not commit as a Legion. In my experience you need a minimum of six months to plan an event in your own State here in the US...

That said, I hope by some miracle it all comes together! I suspect there will be some wounds here that will take a while to heal.

[Opifex]

I wish you and all the legions here!

I see this event is dead by now.
We CAN NOT GO. We got no money for transport . So we have only a contract but nothing else.

Opifex