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Have you ever debated whether that homeschool convention you saw advertised is really worth it? The answer is, it depends on the conference! Brennan and Mary Jo Dean, the founders of Great Homeschool Conventions, are here to talk to you about how you can get the most out of a homeschool conference and give you an idea of what to expect when you visit one (hint: these events have value for both new AND experienced homeschool parents!)

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:

Hello again. I'm Marlin Detwiler, and you've joined us for this episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian Education. Today we have with us Brennan. His name is on the screen. But Mary Jo, his better half is on his right. Welcome.

Brennan Dean:

Thank you. Good to be here!

Marlin Detweiler:

It's so good to have you here. Most of you will know the Deans as the people behind the Great Homeschool Conventions. But first, I'd like to hear a little bit about yourselves. Tell us about yourselves. How long have you been married, where you live. Things that would help us understand your background.

Brennan Dean:

All right. You want to go first?

Mary Jo Dean:

My name is Mary Jo. I am married to Brennan, of course, for 33 years. And we have three children, two boys and a girl. We have a son who lives in Florida. And we have a son who lives in New York City, and our daughter lives here in town with us. I homeschooled for a total of 18 years.

Marlin Detweiler:

Sainthood!

Mary Jo Dean:

Well, I'm just really tired! We've been doing the conventions now for 12 years. 13 years? So that's me in a nutshell. I'm a homeschool mom, wife, and convention promoter.

Brennan Dean:

Convention promoter, producer. So, of course, I'm Brennan married to Mary Jo for 33 years, and grew up in Michigan. Real conservative, a preacher's kid. I guess the easiest way to describe it is maybe Old Line Nazarene. It was actually called the Church of the Bible Covenant. There's kind of a group of churches, Bible Covenant, Bible Methodist, Wesleyan Methodist. I went away to Bible college and then dropped out.

Marlin Detweiler:

So the story that you got kicked out is not true.

Brennan Dean:

I did not get kicked out even though I was a preacher's kid. But went to Bible college in Florida and traveled in a quartet for one year. That was a lot of fun enjoyed those guys in those days then left there, dropped out, and spent some time in the Christian music business. I was in the business for a number of years as a manager and promoter all over the U.S. and with the Gators and Steven Curtis Chapman and different ones.

And then having gotten out of that, one year my wife and I went to a homeschool convention and I was recently in the music business. And as we came home from just kind of walking around the shopping mall, we didn't attend the whole convention. I just remarked to her, and I said, “You know, I think we could do one of these in Cincinnati. And no offense, I think there are some things I would like to do that would be a little different based on my experience. So I think we could do our own branding.”

Marlin Detweiler:

You thought you could build a better mousetrap?

Brennan Dean:

A different one anyway. I mean, one that would be more appealing maybe to me and then hopefully to some other people. There were some changes with no disrespect to what the other folks were doing. There were some changes that I thought we could make. So we thought we'd do one in Cincinnati and we really didn't think it would be much more than just a Cincinnati tristate scenario.

But as we promoted it that first year, people showed up from half a dozen different states or seven different states. Yeah. So the Cincinnati convention quickly got legs, and then we had some folks that encouraged us to go to different areas of the country, and that's what we've done. So we have a convention in Cincinnati, and we have a convention in Greenville, South Carolina. We have one in Texas, Saint Charles, Missouri, Austin, Texas. And Ontario, California. So those five and each of the conventions is regional. Each of the conventions does draw folks from quite a ways away. I work full time, I'm self-employed, but I work full-time apart from this. And Mary Jo and her team do all the heavy lifting.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, we've been really impressed. I remember the first convention. We at Veritas had never been an organization that did much with conventions. The convention in Pennsylvania was in our backyard. We could sleep in our own beds, and commute there every day. And so that one was easy. And then we were involved in the school convention put on by the Association of Classical and Christian Schools because I was involved on the board there.

But we never did much with conventions and I remember seeing information on the first year and it is one of my regrets to not have been part of that because it's been great.

Brennan Dean:

It was fun.

Marlin Detweiler:

I'm serious because I remember how much you focused on featuring classical education at that. The speakers and the messaging- and that naturally would have been good for us and we weren't there. And that was a regret. But we've enjoyed being part of them for many years now.

Brennan Dean:

We felt– to the better mousetrap scenario, perhaps we felt that there was a missed opportunity to really emphasize classical education. And so that was something that as we were building the convention, that was an area of focus. It really, as you know, had been neglected by many, many conventions. I also felt like most of the conventions back in that day were – it was interesting, 90% of the speakers were guys, but 100% of homeschooling was being done by moms.

And so we tried to just balance that speaker lineup a little bit more to a little bit more of a 50/50 lineup, among other things. There are a lot of other things that we did as well, and we shied away oddly enough, conventions back at that time, some of them very specifically discouraged children's attendance, kids attendance. And I thought, well, this is weird. It's a homeschool convention. How would you not welcome the kids? So that was an area of focus. And then and then some of those conventions tended to be keynote heavy in some areas. And we decided that we really wanted to create a smorgasbord of hundreds of workshops so you could pick out classical, Charlotte Mason, parenting, a math focus, a special needs focus, whatever.

Marlin Detweiler:

As I read the speaker list at a given convention, there appears to be no limit to the choices within the subject matter of what would be interesting to a homeschool mother in a homeschool family. And it's truly remarkable the choices that you have been able to provide.

Brennan Dean:

Well, look, we got a lot of people like you that have a real heart for homeschooling families. These are the best families in the world. They are living on one income usually because they're so passionate about what they're doing. So we've been able to rally the troops with a lot of great speakers and curriculum providers, and we have had different sponsors that have helped us over the years because we try to keep that.

It's crazy expensive to go rent a convention center to promote an event, and then ensure the event and then provide audio-visual for the event. I mean, it runs up there. So we've been blessed to have some phenomenal sponsors last year and this year, if I may, Medishare has really run to the battle, if you will.

Medishare is our title sponsor, and the Tuttle Twins are sponsoring as well. So they really help us keep the costs down. Without them, we would have to really, really raise registration prices, which would probably impact attendance. And we've been blessed. The conventions have been exceedingly well attended over the years.

And, you know, it's cathartic. I used to do this when I was promoting shows, when I was doing a contemporary Christian show or whatever. It was great to look at the crowd there. You almost get an adrenaline rush knowing you facilitated it, right? And it's similar for us both having dropped out of college and having homeschooled and knowing how much conventions and encouragement meant to us.

I know for me, anyway, it's a real rush to look at all of the attendees and look at all those awesome families and know that together you, us, all of our other speakers, all of our other exhibitors, we've played a small role in equipping and encouraging these incredible people, and I truly believe there's an eternal payoff.

We won't know the full impact of our combined efforts. Mary Jo and I stay behind the scenes. We don't get up and teach like you do and like your wife does, but we're happy to be behind the scenes and take experts like you and push you guys to the forefront and give you a platform to talk to people.

Marlin Detweiler:

I appreciate those words and I want to say that I get that same kind of rush, but I get feedback from a family or a student or get to hand out diplomas at our graduation, we had 96 students graduate from our online school this year.

Brennan Dean:

Phenomenal.

Marlin Detweiler:

And I think it was about 80 of them that made their way to Lancaster Pennsylvania to walk from all over the world. So I understand what you're talking about, feeling like, man, this is fun to be able to be part of God's plan and doing this. But you do not play a small role in it. You might play a role that is not as visible to most of the people that are there, but it's not missed.

And I want to make sure that you know how much we appreciate what you do. Well, I know she's the primary driver.

Nobody's fooling me on that either. But I know that it's a team effort. And I suspect your background gave you the confidence to do something that a lot of people would find very hard to do, and that is to sign up for a five-figure, maybe a six-figure rental of a very large facility and hope that they would come.

Brennan Dean:

Yeah, well, the first two years we started at the time, you know, I'm a Wesleyan Armenian preacher's kid and I married a Baptist girl. So that was a fun collision.

Marlin Detweiler:

Are you a Presbyterian now?

Brennan Dean:

You know what? I talked to the late Norm Geisler. I did an apologetics event with Dr. Geisler. And as we were backstage, I said, “Doc, I'm struggling. I'm too Armenian to be Calvinist, but I'm too Calvinist to be Armenian.” And he chuckled at me and he said, You're Calminian, you’re right where you belong. And I said, “You know what? I like that.”

Marlin Detweiler:

I heard that.

Brennan Dean:

Then Mary Jo and I were, were attending and members of Landmark Baptist Temple in Cincinnati. So the first two years landmark had a phenomenal campus, 160 acres. So we didn't go straight to a convention center. In year three, we went to a convention center.

And to your point, by the time you rent the center and provide audio, visual, etc., you're right at six figures, typically in a big center like Cincinnati. And then the other goofy thing that people may or may not find interesting, I'll just mention it, these convention centers are typically city-owned facilities. And so they will also ask you to guarantee a certain number of hotel room nights.

And if you do not fill them, you get to write a check for the unused hotel rooms.

But that really makes it incumbent on us to make sure that the event is worth getting in the car. So we really, between the speakers and I mean, you've literally got two or 300 workshops per convention. You have a huge exhibit hall. And then we always try to do something special, at least on Thursday night and Friday night.

We typically have a clean comedian on Friday night, which is a lot of fun. We have for many years we've had Slugs and Bugs on Friday night, which you may or may not be familiar with. That's great scripture song stuff. And then on Thursday night, we'll have a special speaker that over the years that's been people like Ben Carson or Mike Huckabee or different ones, as you know.

So again, I just want it to really be equipping and encouraging and fun. If you got in the car and drove four or 5 hours to get here, we feel like we needed to make it worth your time so that you go home charged up.

Marlin Detweiler:

And my sense is that you've done that very well. It wasn't long ago where most homeschool conventions were far more localized, far more curriculum-driven, maybe with a keynote. And our approach to them was very different then. What we would do when we went to Harrisburg. For CHAP, the old school convention. There we are. Typical size was ten booths. We brought all our books and it was point of sale for almost everything. If we ran out of something, especially if it was on a Friday, we brought it in on a Saturday in case the family would be there to get their backorder, that sort of thing. Today it's very different. Today it's far more having conversations, getting to know, at least for us, not all vendors are this way, but getting to know the people, getting their information and following up with them later. So it's about in sales parlance, generating leads. Is this something that's continuing to grow? Or how do you see your vendors that way?

Brennan Dean:

So we've stayed very, very aggressive trying to bring in new homeschoolers. We've never and you almost have to do this because even if you have a successful year convention, the homeschool market continues to churn as people graduate kids, or sometimes when they get older, they'll go ahead and put them in a more traditional school setting rather than homeschooling.

So we have always really tried to put the pedal to the metal on having new homeschoolers each year, and we advertise very, very aggressively. And I think that lends itself to a little bit of a lead source because the people that our exhibitors are seeing there certainly a lot of point of sale stuff that happens. Don't get me wrong there. I mean, it's phenomenal.

But on the flip side, there's a lot of those attendees that are just learning about curriculum companies and about speakers. It's crazy. We had a there's a fellow that we've invited to speak next year. His name's John Lovell. He has a phenomenal organization called the Warrior Poets Society, and I'm going somewhere with this.

John was a former military Army Ranger. Then he and his wife also served as missionaries in Central America. And today they live in Georgia and they homestead here and they homeschool. And he's very active with a variety of things in the community. And he does home defense training and different things. John has a YouTube channel with, I think, 1.4 million subscribers.

So he's not living under a rock. It's not like he's just off in a corner of Georgia homeschooling. Someone invited him to our Greenville, South Carolina Convention last year and he and his wife have been homeschooling for years and they did not know that there was such a thing as a homeschooling convention.

Marlin Detweiler:

Oh, my goodness!

Brennan Dean:

He’s very, very plugged in. I mean, he has 1.4 million social media followers on YouTube. I'm thinking, how in the world can we be as aggressive as we are advertising and he not know? And so that just leads me to the fact that, yeah, as we do these conventions every year, yeah, there is a ton of, of new homeschoolers that we're going through to homeschooling that are desperate for information. And then there are also people that have been homeschooling for two or three or five years that just because when you set about to homeschool, you don't go online and Google Homeschool Convention, right?

You don't even know it exists. You might look for a homeschool curriculum or homeschooling resources. So it's been incumbent on us to get the word out, which we've done, but we see we see a disproportionate amount of new homeschoolers. I think every year.

Marlin Detweiler:

I'm curious, as an experienced homeschooler, compare the benefit of the conventions that you do and as you understand conventions in general to the veteran versus the about to be a rookie or considering homeschooling, talk to me about how the conventions meet the needs of each.

Mary Jo Dean:

I have a lot of attendees that will come their first time and my suggestion to this – I usually don't tell my vendors this, so hopefully they're not going to listen to the podcast.

I remember the first time that I ever went to a homeschool convention, how overwhelming it is, how I felt like I had to listen to everything. I had to buy everything. I had friends who homeschooled. I needed to get what they told me to get. My suggestion to new homeschoolers is just walk in, just ask questions. And the great thing about a convention is the people who are there exhibiting the product.

Chances are they help write the curriculum. So they're going to know they're going to be able to answer your questions. They're going to be they're a part of the whole process of the curriculum. I have found in the last couple of years that our new attendees, that's what they do. Like I had one woman said, “Oh, my goodness, I wrote all these notes and I lost my book and it's so important.”

So we ended up finding her notebook and it was probably about an inch thick where she had stopped and talked to speakers, and exhibitors and so forth. And I always say, you know, just pray about it. Don't feel like you have to buy something. And so I don't know if they do or not. But, you know, and I always say, just take notes.

Just take notes, go home, pray about it. You and your husband can figure this out. For a veteran homeschool or we had someone in Texas and she goes, “I didn't want to come. I know what I'm doing.” And she almost seemed upset that she was registering to come to a homeschool convention. And I just said, if you don't want to join us, then you don't have to, you know, I'm not going to pressure you into it.

And her friends were like you got to try it. So she just ended up registering. And I saw her the very next day. It was in the afternoon and I walked up to put my arm around her and I said, I'm so glad that you're here. And she goes, I cannot believe how amazing this is. And I said, “Yeah, sometimes our friends are right.”

So I think it's something for new homeschoolers, veteran homeschoolers, and everybody in between. There's always something new. You know, there's always fantastic speakers that you haven't heard, new curriculum coming out. And I just think it's, you know, I just think that it's just a great thing.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. Well, for the veteran, it strikes me as being something that is kind of a fraternal renewal of energy.

Mary Jo Dean:

Right.

Marlin Detweiler:

That we all need. And what we do, we, you know, what we do becomes repetitive. It becomes mundane, it becomes difficult. Sometimes we just need a little encouragement. And what a place for the veteran to be encouraged. For the freshman, the rookie. They may be going to homeschool convention and it is overwhelming and they need to pace themselves and it's hard to do and you've got 50,000 feet of vendors or whatever the sizes of Cincinnati.

One of the biggest ones. It's a large place and there's a lot going on there. And so doing some research ahead of time. It dawns on me, though, have you ever considered someone more independent than, say, I would be having a seminar or two on a Thursday night for the first time, to set them up for success in the convention, giving them strategic thoughts about how to approach it?

Mary Jo Dean:

We do a Homeschool 101 talk.

Marlin Detweiler:

You do. Okay.

Mary Jo Dean:

And we have that. Usually, we'll have that on Thursday and Friday because a lot of people can't make it on Thursday. But basically, what that is, it's someone who is not selling like classical or Charlotte Mason run it. These are women who have been homeschooling, you know, for 30 years. Gretchen Rowe usually will lead it.

Gretchen is with Demme Learning and then Alice Reinhart is with Rhino Technology. So they head up our Homeschool 101 but they talk about curriculum and what curriculum is going to fit with your family, your children, your child. So we do have that. We do also, I believe they do speak on how to get the most out of the convention.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, I didn't I'm sorry I didn't attend the Homeschool 101 tonight. I'm glad to hear you're doing it. That's great.

Mary Jo Dean:

But these two women are just the most. I love them both so much. They have so much wisdom. They've been doing this for so long and they're so kind and they're so laid back and they're just so they just love speaking with these new homeschooling moms and the veteran moms, too. If you've never been to, you know, you have some moms who come in and say, I just can't figure out what curriculum, you know.

And so they will go and I will always tell, okay, go talk with Gretchen, Go talk with Alice. They'll be able to help you, and they're here to help. And those two women have a heart for homeschoolers.

Marlin Detweiler:

So I'm glad to hear you've thought of that. Brennan, you were going to add something to that?

Brennan Dean:

Homeschool 101 has been a big it's always a big area of emphasis. Across the board, though, we have always if somebody is thinking about attending or not, we have always emphasized with our speakers and our speakers have always stepped into the breach accordingly. We don't want these sessions to be like curriculum commercials. When somebody comes to the convention and we have two or 300 workshops, these are truly workshops.

Now, the speaker will mention who they're with and they may mention the name of their company. But it's not a 30 minute curriculum commercial. It's okay, here's 30 seconds about who I am, and then it's 30 minutes, usually followed by some Q&A. I will say we said homeschool, homeschool, homeschool. In addition to the homeschool one on one track, we do specifically have a parenting track because parenting and homeschooling is so intrinsically interwoven.

Of course. Yeah, and that's ridiculously popular. I was at one of our conventions and I saw a husband and wife walking out of the workshop room, and I just I introduced myself. I said, “Hey, my wife and I do the convention. Is this your first time with this?” And they're like, “Oh, yes, thanks for saying hi.”

And I said, “How is it so far?” It was, I think, the first day back and the wife said to me, “I want you to know, we registered for the convention. We flew here from Memphis. We paid for three nights hotel room and that one parenting tract session that we just sat through was worth everything, that one session.”

Yeah, well, you know what? Thank the Lord that he has been faithful in helping us bring together some great speakers and man our speakers. They really do a phenomenal job equipping and encouraging. And then we throw we throw a special speaker in on a Thursday night or we throw a comedian in on a Friday night.

We want to give a little fun element, right? What, you've been in workshops all day on Friday. Then you can go to a comedy session on Friday night and just sit there and laugh with a clean comedian, a legitimately funny, funny comedian.

Marlin Detweiler:

So that's wonderful. Well, that really paints the picture of what you've done, how you've done it, and why you've done it. Being an entrepreneur. I always have a question that I know you know, it's going to be where will you go? What can you tell us? Say what you need to say now.

Brennan Dean:

No, I'm trying to I'm trying to go from 33 years of marriage to 50 and doing that, I probably cannot add anything else to the plate at the moment. But we have we've certainly talked from time to time about doing some different events. We've had some organizations that have invited us, hey, would you come to our area of the country?

And we would like to partner on an event with you and with me working full time. It just hasn't it hasn't been the right time. I'm not saying never, but at this point in time, we have five really, really awesome, well-attended regional conventions that are almost a machine. And we know what we're doing. We know the communities, we know how to promote them.

Marlin Detweiler:

To do them in their sleep.

Brennan Dean:

Right. And it is a Herculean effort to start a new convention. You can't just put a shingle up and people show up. It's a lot of work. And look, the folks at Chap do a great job. The folks at HEAV do a great job, the folks in Florida do a great job. There are a lot of other pockets of great conventions.

And so we feel like with our footprint of five and with what those other wonderful organizations are doing, I do think there are a couple of geographic pockets of the United States that are probably underserved. But it would be a Herculean task to do.

Marlin Detweiler:

Take might take your next 17 years.

Brennan Dean:

You know, I would rather be happy and have 5 conventions than be catching a little bit of grief and have that.

Marlin Detweiler:

To a man that's successfully navigated 33 years is speaking, good. I'm going to change the subject for one last question. We just have a minute or two. But I'm curious what you observe about the homeschooling world post-COVID. What's different today than was the case that then was the case five years ago and a great success.

Brennan Dean:

There are a lot of new homeschoolers, that's for sure. People that never thought they would homeschool, never thought they could homeschool. I think sometimes people are intimidated. Thinking, “Oh my gosh, I couldn't do that.”

Marlin Detweiler:

There's still this I think there's still a sense that doesn't fully appreciate how different homeschooling is today with a lot of well-developed curriculum and a lot of options which was not the case in the eighties.

Brennan Dean:

There are a lot of rails that you can run on that were not there in the eighties and I think some people our daughter just finished her masters and she's a teacher with no disrespect to teachers. I think there are some parents that have thought, gosh, I, I don't know that I could do this, but man, there is nothing equal to the love and buy-in of a mama bear and dad's homeschool as well.

But that's keeping it real. 99% of the homeschooling is done by moms. And look, I would encourage you, too with the resources that are available, if you will. And by the way, it's an important task. It's not as though it is, you know, 12 hours a day, eight days a week. You can get so much done in a short period of time.

My wife and I are neither one college grads. We have three kids that are. Now, that's not the be-all and end-all. If they had been gifted differently or wired differently, doing vocational school or military. I'm not saying they must be college grads, but I think sometimes people feel like I, I can't homeschool, I can't teach my kids I didn't go to I don't have a teaching degree and that's so unnecessary.

And kudos to my wife. Here's this gal that taught all three kids to read. All three of them are university grads. One has her master's, one went to an Ivy League law school taught by a homeschool mom that didn't graduate college. Right. So, again, there's nothing equal to that love and that buy-in of a mama bear who's who's who is in it to win it with her kids.

Let me add one other thing there, Marlin. I recollect back to this because our middle child probably would have been the sort of young man that the school would have tried to medicate and called him hyper. But when we were in a homeschool environment, my wife, in her wisdom, recognized that and I think she used to refer to it as when they were maybe getting ready to do a school lesson.

And he was just squirmy. And she would say, Do we have a case of the wiggly bottom this morning?

And if so, she could go out in the backyard, throw a football with him for an hour or let him shoot baskets in the driveway. And then when he had burned off that energy, he was ready to do school. You can't you can't do that in a classroom with 30 other kids.

Marlin Detweiler:

No one knows the student like the parent.

Brennan Dean:

Absolutely. And honestly, you know, like the mom, I mean, yes, the dad. But the mother's intuition is second to none in my view.

Marlin Detweiler:

So great way to end Brennan and Mary Joe owners are promoters of GHC. Great homeschool conventions. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Brennan Dean:

Marlin, thank you.

Marlin Detweiler:

You've been with us today on Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Thank you for joining us.