The Hippolotofus met in San Diego May 5-7, 2000, for our first ever convention. It was an incredibly fun time--we got to meet each other, and see the SD Zoo hippos (Jabba, Funani & baby Mashavu), and just have a blast! We are already planning the next one--to be called 2001-A Hippo Odyssey. It will be October 12-14, 2001 in Orlando FL. We are also trying to put together a trip to Africa sometime in the next year or two, to see the mother lode.
On the next few pages is a pictorial history of the first ever Hippollenium. Use the backward hippo to move to the previous page, and the forward hippo to move to the next page. I have squeezed the pictures so the pages will load quicker, but they will still take a bit to load, depending on the size of your Internet pipe.
A little background.....
We started planning this about 6-8 months ago. Everybody contributed ideas, and
it slowly began to come together. Cathy
Raphael did a LOT of the groundwork, finding the hotel and making the
Zoo arrangements. She also contributed the suite of her hotel room as a meeting
room for us.
At the time, we had about 100 members in the Hippolotofus (we now have over
350). Around 30 members made it to the
convention. Including family & friends, we had over 45 people in our
convention group.