We want to take a moment before the craziness of this weekend to acknowledge some of the people who have made this conference possible (besides the speakers, the sponsors and the hotel staff!)

And those people are our team leader volunteers.

We'll be thanking them at BlogHer too, but there's no way we could take the time to explain just how kick-ass these folks are. So that's what this post is for.

Toby Bloomberg: Media Sponsor Wrangler

The logos, the links, the making sure the logos and links are where they're supposed to be. Toby has taken care of it all...and she's helping with the Birds of a Feather organization too! She's got versatility :)

jenB: Schwag Mama

We gotta have a little BlogHer schwag online when the conference kicks off, and jenB has been doing the leg work on that solution (still to be unveiled.)

Kirk Brooks: Audio Man

We have a wonderful Audio Wrangler, toy, coming in this year to manage the effort to record the entire conference. But she's out in NY...there is just something about having some feet on the street. Kirk was just going to be one of the audio volunteers, but he has stepped up to run down gear and do site surveys. Above and beyond.

Shannon Chastaine: Saving me from mail merge

Everyone has a weakness...mine is figuring out mail merge documents. Shannon Chastaine is supposed to be on vacation, but she took the time to help me create the documents for our conference name badges. Do not underestimate the gratitude I feel to not have to slog through that!!!

JC Dill: IT Guru

Wrangling internet access for 700 people ain't easy. Having the attention and dedication to details that JC has ain't typical. Oh, how I wish we had had JC around last year!

Jes Ferris: Speaker Wrangler

This year we have 95 speakers. 95. That's a LOT, and Jes Ferris has wrangled all the questions and details and day to day stuff involved with making sure our speakers are kept informed and cared for.

Jules Maas: Designer Extraordinaire

Getting our BlogHer signage done this year was such a piece of cake, so painless, it's like it never even happened at all...until you see them in all their glory! Thanks to Jules, who can't even come to the conference but was just happy to pitch in.

Maria Niles: Conference Right Hand Woman

Maria was our amazing social director last year, organizing the pre-conference dinner and training session. This year her role only expanded, as she helped organize just about everything with the venue, plus found us an amazing resource for tote bag stuffing...effectively saving us from last year's solution: about half a dozen people working half a dozen hours to do half the number of bags we needed this year! Maria is calm, cool and collected...and a multi-tasker of the highest order.

Trisha Okubo: Sponsor Wrangler

You see that long list of logos in our right hand side bar? Every one of them represents a sponsor who helped make BlogHer possible, and everyone of them represents a customer that Trisha Okubo has kept informed and cared for.

Mir Verburg: Volunteer Coordinator

What can you say about mir: She headed up our live-blogging team last year, and still she agreed to come back for more this year! Saint or glutton for punishment, you be the judge! I vote for the former.

And one more time let me list the childcare committee:
Grace Davis led the charge, ably assisted by Jenny Lauck, Jen Scharpen, Jeneane Sessum and Mary Tsao.

There are more volunteers showing up the days of the conference, to hand out badges, tote bags, direct folks from point A to point B, but we thought a special shout-out should go to the people who will have already logged numerous volunteer hours on the conference before BlogHer has crossed the threshold of the Hyatt on Friday morning.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.