Introduction

There are four important facts about program planning at the chapter level:

Fact #1:	Program planning is an inescapable part of every officer's life.
Fact #2:	Many chapter officers have no previous programming experience.
Fact #3:	Forewarned is forearmed! Anticipating possible problems will eliminate most of them.
Fact #4:	While it cannot truthfully be said that program planning is painless, there have been no terminal cases reported.

With those four facts in mind, this manual for chapter program planning has been developed. The manual is not intended to answer all your questions. Rather, it is meant to direct your thinking, offer suggestions and alternatives, and put you on track. Indeed, it should raise many questions for you to consider and resolve.

The manual is divided into five sections. Part I offers program planning guidelines in an outline form; this will probably suffice for those officers with programming experience. Part II adds some detail to the outline. Part III covers items that you need to consider when planning a Regional Conference. Part IV is a "stand-alone" manual entitled "A Guide for Professional Development Planning" that has been prepared by the SLA Professional Development Department. The last section, Part V, is an appendix and includes a program planning timetable, a meeting checklist, and a sample evaluation form, along with a number of useful articles provided by the Marriott Corporation.

So read on and start planning that first program. And remember that while it cannot be guaranteed that you will emerge from your programming years unscathed, history proves that you will live to talk about it - and perhaps work on the next edition of this manual!

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