Back when we held the banquet in Wilmington one year we had a roundtable discussion of club members instead of a paid speaker . As I recall it was quite well received .
I believe the lineup included Jonn, Ken Grotowski, Phil Fiscella , myself and possibly Pete Plauck . There could have been someone else , I can't remember .
Would something like that be feasible these days or is a "name draw" absolutely necessary to sell tickets ? Save the speaker's fees for conservation work ?
Surely a mixed group with different experiences ie small water, bigger water, fly fishing, kayak/canoe, noted for different techniques or different rivers could be found . Have them all speak on how they would approach different situations and open it up to questions from the audience .
You could either give the group the questions in advance to prepare or spring it on them cold . I think the latter would be more interesting . Shoot you could even raffle off the chance to ask one of the questions to the audience. More dough for conservation work and then no one knows in advance what would be asked. You could also raffle off the chance to have a question for the group answered in upcoming issues of the newsletter .