Tuesday, April 18, 2006

National Convention - the next step

Last week, 3 ladies from the national Institute attended our Board Meeting to discuss the preparations for the 2007 National Convention in Baltimore. It was an interesting experience. I think the role of the host chapter is evolving as we speak. When the decision was made to rotate between Vegas and Chicago, the Institute took a ton of the heavy planning work off the chapter's shoulders for fairness & continuity reasons. Now that we are back to rotating between all chapters and in the June timeframe, they are trying to figure out what exactly the host chapter should be doing. I think they also learned some lessons from this past national convention & Vegas' shortcomings as a host chapter.

The next steps seem to be:

A. Brainstorm a list of technical, historical and other tours for attendees.
B. Branstorm a list of guest/spouse/family activities
C. Decide on an entertainment event that the chapter will plan & execute without the Institute
D. Begin to get manpower for the week of the event
E. Keep in touch with the Institute regarding publication dates
F. Brainstorm &/or contact speakers of local interest for Call for Topics - deadline is June 30, 2006

The lists of tours & guest/spouse/family activities will be given to a professional destination firm for execution. The entertainment event is all on us, but we need the publication deadlines in order to use the Institute to help us promote it. The Call for Topics is an effort to give the convention a local feel. The Institute Convention Director said there have been some very successful presentors in the past that had local color.

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