Regional Conference - a multi-day event organized and sponsored by at least two chapters of the Special Libraries Association. Other units of SLA and/or other associations may also be involved.
A regional conference provides an opportunity for units of the Association to bring some of the excitement and involvement of an Annual Conference to members in a specific geographic area. Regional conferences should be planned to benefit members who may be unable to attend the Annual Conference. However, regional conferences should in no way compete with or detract from any scheduled Annual Conference. At the 1995 Fall Board Meeting, October 26-27, the SLA Board of Directors adopted policy number 95(34) - SLA Regional Meetings Policy. A copy of this policy may be found at the end of this chapter, pages 26 and 27.
The following information is offered to augment the information presented in Part I and Part II of this "Chapter Program Planners Manual." This information, like that found in Part I and II, is not intended to answer all your questions. Rather, it is meant to direct your thinking, to offer suggestions and alternatives, to put you on track. It will raise many questions for you to consider and resolve. Organizing a regional conference is much like organizing a chapter meeting, but on a larger scale.
Planning
There are many basic details to consider in the early stages of planning a regional meeting. Planners should consider how many chapters will actually be involved in the planning versus supporting the meeting by being sponsors. In addition, consideration should be given to governance of the planning group. Policies need to be established up front on what decisions need to be validated by the chapter boards, such as budget, and what details should be left up to the planners.Within the planning committees, will there be a steering committee to make major decisions, or will every volunteer attending planning meetings have the right to vote on every issue? How many committees will there be? Are all committees equal or are some more important than others in terms of voting, possible free attendance of committee chairs, etc.? Will the chapter board have a liaison position on the steering committee?
How much leeway does each committee have to make commitments without approval of the steering committee or entire planning group? For example, can the program committee invite a keynote speaker without first obtaining approval of the steering committee for the speaker and/or topic? Is a keynote speaker different from a program speaker in this respect? Can the hotel/facilities committee pick the hotel or should they present alternatives from which to choose? It is best to reach consensus on these issues up front, because some things about a regional conference may not be done in exactly the same way a chapter meeting would be done and expectations may vary.
Organizational Structure
Regional conferences require extraordinary planning and structure. There are no rigid guidelines. Structure will vary from group to group. The regional conference planners are free to organize themselves any way they find useful. Here are the structures used by some previous regional conferences:| Great Lakes Regional I - 1989 Co-Chairs Communications Committee Finance Committee Hospitality Committee Program Committee Site Liaison Committee plus representatives from each |
Great Lakes Regional III - 1995 Chair of the 10 co-sponsoring chapters Secretary Treasurer Budget/Finance Committee Chapter Liaison Committee Continuing Education Committee Exhibits Committee Evaluations Committee Hospitality Committee Program Committee Public Relations Committee Registration Committee Site/Food Committee Sponsorship Committee Student Liaison Committee Theme/Logo/Promotional Materials Committee Tours Committee |
Conference Secretary
It is very helpful for the conference planners/steering committee to have a secretary other than a committee chair or the chairman. The secretary's primary duty is to take detailed minutes at each planning meeting and distribute them later as appropriate (to the planners after the meeting, at the next meeting, to the chapter board(s), etc.). These will be crucial for referring back to decisions already made. Other duties that might be useful:Distribute copies of any handouts to planners who missed a particular meeting,
Distribute agendas in advance,
Distribute any other materials in advance as requested.
Communication
One of the keys to a successful regional conference is communication. As soon as the organizing chapters begin planning for a regional conference, they should begin communicating their intentions to a group of people that includes, but is not limited to: the President and President-Elect of the Association, the Chief Executive Officer, the Eventes Director, the Presidents and Presidents-Elect of the organizing chapters, the heads of other Association units as appropriate, and other groups/individuals. Effective and continuous communication with these groups will help ensure the success of the regional conference.It is also vital to communicate early and frequently with appropriate groups outside SLA to avoid date conflict and publicize the conference. Suggested places to contact include calendar sections of library publications, state library associations, chapters of other library and information associations is the regions (e.g. MLA, AALL, ASIS, etc.).
Send press releases explicitly to the SLA Public Relations Department - don't assume that anything will be printed just because SLA headquarters knows about the meeting. You should also send information to SLA chapter bulletins in the region, and SLA division bulletins, especially for chapters and divisions sponsoring the conference. Multiple rounds of information are needed, first to announce the conference itself, its theme and its dates, so people can begin planning to attend. Later messages can give more detail.
Can you interest your local newspaper or library publications in covering the conference? (Be sure to check with speakers if this is a problem.)
Finally, don't forget electronic communications. You may want to post announcements to appropriate listservs or on the chapter Web sites for the conference.
Dates
The dates for the regional conference should not conflict with either the Annual Conference or Leadership Summit. Check with SLA headquarters to make sure you avoid other scheduled SLA events such as SLA regional continuing education courses and scheduled chapter visits by either the President or President-Elect (especially if the organizing chapters want either officer to attend), or any other SLA regional conferences. Some divisions may have a division meeting during the year and the organizing chapters may want to check if such a meeting has been scheduled within the region holding the conference.In addition to avoiding SLA date conflicts, be sure to check dates on regional conferences of other library and information associations, state library associations, and other meetings like the rotating schedule of online meetings.
Having avoided all known professional meeting conflicts, there are several other considerations to actually picking a date.
- Availability and price of hotel rooms and meeting rooms. You may get a better deal on price if you are not in a hotel's high season for conferences. This consideration needs to be balanced against suitability of the dates with respect to other factors. Particularly, if you are in a smaller city you will want to make sure you have a contract with a hotel in hand before announcing dates.
- Holiday schedules - Aside from checking religious holidays, you should also try to determine if you will fall into typical spring break time or other potential conflicts for attendees.
- Availability of key speakers. If you have particular key speakers in mind, you may want to check on their available dates before finalizing the date selection. This may not be an issue since most regional conferences are planned at least a year in advance, but the more prominent the speaker the more likely other engagements will cause conflicts even that far in the future.
Timeline
It is very helpful to do a complete timeline at the beginning of the planning process, as soon as the dates are chosen. Details can be filled in later, but you should include such things as intervening SLA conferences (opportunities for planning sessions between chapters if appropriate, and for publicity), time frames for mailings, printing, etc. working backward from the conference dates. How many weeks before the conference should final registration date be set? How many weeks before that should mailings go out? Are there holidays to consider in mailing times?Be sure to include aftermath issues:
- wrap up session/party for conference planners to celebrate and communicate about issues/conclusions for final report,
- thank you notes sent,
- final report written (for sponsoring chapters & divisions, SLA HQ),
- final news report written for bulletins,
- final financial report and closing of account,
- sponsoring chapters to decide/pass on see money to succeeding conference (if one is identified by the end of this one).
Location: City
Many of the factors mentioned above for the dates of the conference also apply to the location. An additional consideration is whether there is a core group of members available to assist with local arrangements. Also, if multiple cities in the state or region are under consideration, which might attendees be most interested in visiting and which has better transportation? Which has more suitable facilities? There may be tradeoffs between meeting costs and size of city, i.e. bigger cities that fit the criteria of interest and transportation convenience may be more costly.Location: Facility
Negotiating the contract with the hotel (or other facility) will be one of the more difficult aspects of putting the regional conference together. The organizers need to consider meeting space, meal functions, exhibit space (if appropriate), blocking out hotel rooms for conference attendees, and more. The Association's conference and meeting staff can provide some assistance. Remember, according to the Association's "Extra Association Relations Policy" which contains this statement: "An agreement, contract, or obligation entered into by an Association Unit which involves liability in excess of $5,000.00 must be reviewed and signed by the Chief Financial Officer; any which exceeds the Unit's available or budgeted funds requires advance approval by the Association's Board of Directors."There are a number of factors to consider in dealing with the hotel arrangements. These are relatively mundane issues, but if not accounted for they could wind up costing the conference organizers hundreds of dollars. SLA headquarters can be very helpful in providing advice about hotel agreements, and reviewing hotel contracts, which the CFO must sign.
Basic Facilities issues include:
SpaceIn addition to insuring you have sufficient space for the meetings, be sure to consider the following:
Exhibits
Meals
Signage
Technology Issues
Scheduling
Insurance and Legal Issues
Shipping
- if you will have exhibits, exactly where will they be located?
- if the exhibitors will need to erect booths, and such, as they do at the Annual Conference, who provides the labor and how much will that cost?
- be sure to account for all the costs involved with food service such as the room itself, the gratuity, if you are having a bar do you have to pay for the bartender, if you have to buy tickets to "pay" for your drinks do you have to pay for the ticket seller as well as the bartender?
- if you want signs denoting which events are in which rooms, who provides those?
- if the speakers need A/V equipment or some other type of technology available, who provides this?
- have a good idea of the duration of your conference, beginning and ending times of each session, how much time you will need to "set-up" exhibits, have registration open, dismantle exhibits, etc. Hotels will ask you to contract for exact times.
- insurance: a fact of modern day life. Who is libel for what and when?
- local and Federal laws: be familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act (Public Law 101-336) and current copyright laws, especially Title 17 of the US Code covering the public performance of copyrighted music.
These are a few relatively mundane issues, but if not accounted for they could wind-up costing the conference organizers hundreds of dollars.
Space
You will need separate spaces for registration, meals and receptions (if any), exhibits, keynote speeches, and meeting rooms.You have to consider a large space capable of holding all attendees if you plan to have keynote speeches or food and beverage functions.
You have to decide how many concurrent program tracks you will have before you can book meeting rooms. Are you having two or three or four concurrent sessions? is a division or SLA committee running a concurrent program that will need separate rooms? Will anybody need breakout rooms for discussions?
Can you book a number of adjacent rooms with adjustable walls so that you can adjust the space once you know how high the actual registration is? Remember that the final program with room locations will need to be printed before you have the final attendance. If you are able to have adjustable rooms remember to schedule them so that they can be expanded or contracted without changing the announced location, if possible. In other words, if you have booked six rooms for three concurrent sessions, plan the meeting in every other room, not three next door to each other. You can then leave some sessions in a small room and use multiple rooms for others as seems best. There is a budget impact for booking extra rooms that will not be needed if turnout is small, but there is also a negative impact if turnout is good and the rooms are too small. It is best to have rooms look fairly full.
Be aware that many hotels that you request meeting space with, will want a certain number of paid hotel rooms. Since many attendees at a regional meeting may be local, you have to be honest with the hotel and make sure they will still give you adequate meeting space even if you don't book hotel rooms for all the projected attendees. You may have to guarantee a minimum number of rooms per night and be prepared to pay a fee for the meeting rooms if that minimum number is not met. (This fee should be included in the budget just in case.)
When discussing room setup for each session, you will need to know the room set-up. Also, be aware of any physical limitations, e.g. speakers who can't climb stairs to a platform. Be sure to go over the setup arrangements with the hotel very carefully. Be explicit for each room, because "like previous session" to a hotel means the immediately previous session in that room, not necessarily like the previous session for a repeated speaker and topic.
Exhibits-Facility Information
There are many things to consider when shopping for exhibits space. Here are some questions to keep in mind when considering a facility for exhibits space. Where will exhibits be located? Will exhibits be tabletop or booths? IF there are setup costs, who provides the labor and pays for the setup? Does the hotel have sufficient technical capacity to allow enough electricity and phone lines for exhibitors who need these things, and who will pay for them? How many tabletops or booths will the suggested space accommodate? Make sure the space is big enough to fit the number of vendors you hope to have. Should exhibits be one day or more? If more, who pays for security?Meals
Do you want to include continental breakfasts or lunches with the conference?Be sure to budget for all costs such as:
- the room itself,
- cost of meal including tax (check your tax-exempt status),
- the gratuity,
- bartender fees and gratuity if there is a bar,
- whether the bar would be cash or sponsored or included in the price,
- if you have to buy tickets to "pay" for drinks to you have to pay for the ticket seller as well as the bartender?
- how many extra meals will they have available in case you allow on-site registrations?
Technical Issues
Just about every speaker uses audio/visual equipment in her/his presentation. There are questions that should be asked in order to clarify exactly what kind of equipment is needed and who will provide it. For example, will the speakers bring their own laptops for presentations and what kind (MAC or WIN)? How many LCD panels, microphones, etc. will be needed and how much of this does the hotel provide in its basic meeting room package? If there are extra charges, how is this paid? If divisions or other units are sponsoring meetings, do they handle these costs or does the conference?Insurance and Legal Issues
Insurance is a fact of modern day life. It is important to determine who is liable (not libel) for what and when. Be familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act (Public Law 101-336) and current copyright laws, especially Title 17 of the US Code covering the public performance of copyrighted music. Most hotels will request a certificate of insurance.Shipping
Does the facility have a shipping room to which materials can be sent in advance or does everything have to be brought on the first day? How early is this facility open? How secure is it?Theme
The organizers may wish to have a central theme for the regional conference. This is a good idea to build some continuity into the programs and give all the conference planners a unifying focus. It also helps if the organizers want to develop a logo or other graphics. Again communication with the Association is important. The regional theme can extend a previous Annual Conference theme, or build into an upcoming Annual Conference, however, the regional theme should never detract from the theme of the Annual Conference.Speakers/Programs
The development of individual programs may take place in a number of ways and each regional conference should use the method that works best in that situation. Some issues to consider: do you want one program scheduled at a time which appeals to all conference attendees; do you want multiple concurrent sessions to give participants a choice; do you want to have a general session(s) with a keynote speaker, like the Annual Conference; if you have exhibits, do you want to schedule "free time" to encourage attendees to visit the exhibits? Not only are previous conferences a good resource for format, theme, and such, you can also use Annual Conference final programs to help identify possible speakers. It is important that your program planners be well organized and knowledgeable about the regional conference -- its focus/theme, how it is different from an Annual Conference, etc. This will prevent the possibility of having the same person approached multiple times by multiple people.Well known keynote speakers can be a big draw to a conference. Keep in mind, however, that with the long lead times of a regional conference, the more prominent a speaker is, the more possibility there may be that they will end up with another commitment more pressing to them than the regional conference. Keep a couple of backup people in mind just in case. As mentioned under planning, decide in advance if keynote speaker choice is to be left up to the program committee or if this is a big impact decision that should be deliberated by the overall steering committee before invitations are issued.
Vendors/Exhibits
Because one of the main purposes of a regional conference is to serve SLA members who are not able to attend the Annual Conference or winter meetings, a regional conference is an important opportunity for those member to see demos and talk to vendors. It is thus also a golden marketing opportunity for vendors who want to reach those SLA members. Because of these mutual beneficial relationships, most regional conferences have included exhibits for at least a portion of one day.These exhibits represent a legitimate business opportunity for these vendors, as well as an important source of funding for many regional conferences, so the approach to the vendors about exhibits should be treated as a business proposition, and not as if asking for a favor. You may also want to ask some of the vendors for sponsorship of receptions, speakers, etc. which is a different issue. Decide in advance how to coordinate efforts between seeking exhibitors and/or sponsorships. Communication and coordination is extremely important here.
After determining the amount of exhibit space available, be sure to contact SLA's Business Development Director and the sponsoring chapters to give the first exhibit opportunities to those firms that typically support SLA. You don't want to offend a major sponsor of the Annual conference by not offering them a space if they want it. If you don't have room to ask all these people and additional local vendors you want, see if you can get a larger room for the exhibits. The number of exhibits should be somewhat in proportion to the expected size of the overall conference, because vendors want to see a lots of people at their table.
Decide in advance if you will allow exhibit-only registrations (maybe $10 or $15) or only allow registered attendees to see the exhibits. Exhibit-only registration serves two purposes: it increases traffic for vendors when registered attendees are in sessions, and it allows local librarians to see the exhibits even if they can't attend the full conference. Also, will you give vendors free passes to give to their clients in advance, or do you need the income of paid entries?
Plan on how to acknowledge sponsors and exhibitors:
- verbally in conference sessions?
- in printed publicity brochures?
- in final program?
- in final report of conference?
- determine how/when to acknowledge in-kind sponsorship, eg. a company that prints the brochures for free, online vendors that distribute regional conference promotional flyers/brochures at their training sessions.
Be sure to make it clear in advance whether exhibitor fees are just for the privilege of a space at the conference or whether the conference will be paying for electricity, phones, etc. out of that fee. Preferably, make the fee just to be there and tell them they must arrange the other things with the hotel and pay for them. Make sure the hotel will do this.
Contact Director, Exhibits at SLA for a sample form that you can modify to suit, but some written agreement is necessary.
Tours
Depending upon the actual location of the regional conference, the organizers may wish to have tours of local special libraries or other sites of possible interest. Tours can enhance the conference and add something to everyone's experience. However, they can also be logistical nightmares, especially if you are putting them together yourself. If non-library tours are in order try working with local tour companies to get a group rate on some of their tours.Printed Materials
Proper publicity is vital to the success of a conference. Here are some concerns to keep in mind when considering printed promotional materials for your meeting.How many promotional pieces an printed materials do you need? Many conferences have used variations on the following:
- One page flyer with basic theme, logo and dates, 1-2 years in advance so people can plan for it.
- One page flyer/brief brochure with some of the program topics and maybe keynote speakers, usually used to promote regional conference at previous SLA Annual Conferences, winter meetings or chapter meetings that are too early for the full brochure to be available.
- Full promotional brochure with registration form, usually mailed to all members in chapter in the region (there is no set definition of which chapter should be included because each regional conference defines what region it is in).
- Final program brochure, with detailed information on room locations, etc. given to attendees at the conference.
Finances
There are a number of financial items that conference organizers should concern themselves with. Much of it has to do with whether you will charge conference attendees one overall price that includes some (or all) meals and other activities, or whether to charge a more modest rate and give the attendees the option of "ticketed" events they can pay for separately. Remember to factor in some of the expenses that have already been mentioned, if they apply -- a guaranteed number of hotel rooms, paying for bartenders, taxes and gratuities, equipment and signs, and the like. Some other considerations are: if vendors will exhibit, how much should that space cost them? If individual chapters, divisions, or other Association units sponsor programs, who is responsible for program-related expenses -- in other words, do you want centralized or decentralized expenses? How much will you charge attendees -- do exhibitors also have to register for the conference if they are paying to exhibit? Do members of the sponsoring chapters, division, etc. get a reduced rate? What about members who have worked on planning for the regional conference? Also, don't forget to budget for things like postage and advertising for the conference.Refunds
Include a statement of your refund policy on your registration information. For example, no refunds after a certain date. If you have committed to meals you have to pay for them even if the person doesn't show up. On the other hand, if you have a tour or a CE course that is cancelled for lack of sufficient registration to make it pay for itself, the conference should refund registrations for those. These policies should be figured out in advance, along with the cutoff dates by which cancellation decisions will be made.Registration
Be very careful about planning the registration form and the tracking database so you capture all the date you will need. For example, the more individual ticketed items you have the more complex the form will be and the more actual tickets you will have to generate. Also, if you want to report things like attendance by chapter and division you should ask those questions on the form, instead of trying to figure it out afterward.If you decide to allow for people to register by fax or electronically, figure out how to actually get their money. Are you able to accept credit cards? If not, you may not want to allow these methods of registration. Be aware that some U. S. government employees may try to pay with some kind of government voucher. SLA headquarters can help with these if you get questions.
Are you going to accept onsite conference registration? If you have a lot of meals included, this can be a real problem. Also, you will have no idea until the conference itself exactly how many people you are expecting. Some regional conferences have not accepted onsite registration for these reasons.
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