February 2nd is a day that will be a yearly holiday for myself and my family. That's the day we made the decision to join the Build A Tent initiative and become a "Founding Investor". February 2nd will stand out in my mind because that's the day we made the "leap of faith". I had been watching the BAT initiative since October 2010 when I stumbled upon the first gathering of alpaca owners/breeders, fiber fanatics, fiber processors and a whole slew of people gathered in a room somewhere in Nashville, TN. I don't even remember how I found them, but I do remember that somehow I had found a link on the Internet, clicked on it and there I was attending the same meeting that all these other people had paid good money to attend in person. Only I was watching it from my office here at HCAR on a web cast while occasionally looking out my office window to enjoy my pacas playing in their pastures. How cool was that? The web cast had me spellbound and glued to my monitor with the surround sound turned up. I almost felt that I was there in person until I realized I was still in my pajamas, OK, underwear and having a cup of coffee. I was very intrigued with what I was witnessing. Here's a whole room full of people listening to some lady up front talking about building a tent. You've got to be kidding. Building a tent? Out of what? Alpaca? This I gotta see. As the meeting progressed I started to recognize certain people in the room. Robin Kuhl and Carrie Hull from Coarse Broads. Rod Dakan. These were folks that I recognized from being a research geek and seeing their websites. And I'm sure there were others, but I can't put my finger on them right now. Everyone in the room seemed very intent on this lady at the head of the class who was facilitating this exercise. A quick click to the AOBA website and I found the Build A Tent section, where I then discovered all these documents explaining what this was all about. I downloaded and printed out all the documents, including the agenda for this particular meeting. OK, now I can follow along and started to see the picture. During the lunch break, I stayed logged in so I wouldn't take the chance of missing out on the afternoon's agenda. I spent that time studying the material and trying to bring myself up to speed. Wow, what an enormous undertaking these folk are tackling. Organizing the alpaca industry. And this time it's about the fiber. Yes, yes, yes ! In the interest of time here I will continue this story in my future blog posts. I just really wanted to get this started in order to force myself to chronicle our journey in this exciting new initiative and give others an insight to our involvement. Thanks for taking the time to read.