Braves Homecoming Gathering

I was relieved when I arrived at the complex a little early (8:30) for the 9 AM meeting. Almost all of the people were dressed in business casual with just a few that didn't get the message and showed up in uniform:

It was still a bit foggy as you can see above, and the people in uniform can be seen here and there.

We were led into the HP Fieldhouse - one of the venues for events - and just located a table and sat for the meeting to begin. I counted about 90 tables in the room with 12 people seated at each. That's over 1000 people and they are all workers for the Wide World of Sports complex during the Spring Training period:

The shot below is of our table and the person next to me in the uniform is Robert Moxley, whom I went through training with and have become good friends:

He is the individual that brought in the grapefruit and oranges for us from his trees at his home in Winter Haven, not too far from here.

The morning session was a corporate Rah Rah session filled with statistics and facts about the company and was interesting, but not worthy of the time they allocated for the presentations. We broke for lunch at 11:30 and went outside to go through buffet lines - about 10 of them - to get food to bring back into the meeting room:

It was a nice spread with salads, sausage, pulled pork BBQ, Philly steaks, desserts and your choice of drinks ranging from water, ice tea, and juice.

The afternoon was breakout sessions in different parts of the Fieldhouse for the various groups - Custodial, Food and Beverage, Guest Operations, etc. - and the meeting ended at 3 PM. All in all, it was a nice day and a welcomed change of pace. There was only 1 representative of the Braves at the meeting - Fredi Gonzales, Manager - who thanked all of us in advance for what we do to make their spring training successful. All in all, it was a nice day and welcomed change of pace.

While at the session yesterday, Robert let it slip that his wife went to the "casino" with her sister while he was at the meeting. That's all Josie needed to hear and we will probably go to the Seminole Casino in Tampa today - just to check it out, of course. We'll certainly have a complete report on that tomorrow...