I've been thinking of ways to get RAFers to meet up. Obviously, this works, for the moment, only in the States, and probably best in California. What would probably work is if someone offered up their house and set a specific date a year off, and we had people writing in and saying that they're coming. What do others think? It's just that I see all these websites offering raw vegan meetups all over the world, and think we should do the same.

I have a really wonderful villa in Northern Italy, very near the French border,  which would be available during certain months of summer for RAF gatherings(with me not necessarily present). London homes are usually too small for sizeable meetings.

I'm beginning to sense a common thread here

Northern Italy sounds awesome, but might pose a problem for some Americans (like me) who have to make due with a tanking currency. I would imagine exchange rates would be crappy. That being said, Europeans would probably have more purchasing power here as their national monies seem to be stronger. I read some articles a while back saying that New Yorker businesses no longer exchange their euros and pounds for dollars because the favorable exchange rates (to Europeans) has led to a boom in tourism, and they just trade their foreign currencies back to the tourists.

So ... maybe New York (state) as a focal point? This might make the trips longer for Australians, but most everyone else could get there easily. Just a consideration ...

I wholeheartedly disagree, because that's what the central banks who are messing up currencies want. What we need is real money backed by goods or metals, not central bank issued paper that is basically the same as a counterfeiting operation.

I don't like the system either.