Conference Committee. November Meetings 2015

Post date: Nov 24, 2015 7:28:27 PM

Conference Committee - November 24, 2015

Attending: Margaret Browne, Rick Krouskop, Alice Waco, Nancy Hutchins

Budget. After some final tweaks for commuter costs and lowering single room cost to $380, the committee approved sending the budget on for review of the Finance Committee. Registration cost for double, early bird, will be $320, and the budget total should be +/- $35,000 after tweaks.

Youth, Margaret will have further conversation with Regis regarding their requirements for youth attendees. Regis has been informed that attendees will include some formerly incarcerated participants. Some members of the committee do have concerns about mixing youth and possibly people on sex offender registers in the same conference. A large part of the concern is the trouble it could cause the formerly incarcerated. (Note: David Hutchins has questions about possible liability issues for AVP and members of the leadership of AVP.)

Transformer. Deadlines were reviewed. A logo is being reviewed. Margaret will use pictures of the Denver area and speaker. Sharon Moon will send information that the Scholarship Committee wants to highlight. People will be referred to AVPUSAConference.org.

Website. Rick and Margaret plan to meet by phone to work on the website Dec. 9.

Publicity. A showing of "In an Ideal World" brought an audience of 90 people in the Denver area. It may spark some additional interest in AVP in Denver.

It was agreed that a flyer could be send out to the AVPUSA mailing list in December about the conference.

Program. A local meeting is planned for Dec. 19, which will be a good time for turning the focus to program planning. Nancy suggested that someone be found to specifically coordinate breakout and committee meeting sessions.

Next Meeting. Dec. 15, 2015, noon, EST. We will check with Margaret the week before to see if there are issues she wants to discuss. Nancy will let everyone know in case the meeting is to be deferred to January.

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE: SPECIAL MEETING ON THE BUDGET

Nov. 16, 2015

Attending: Margaret Browne, Rick Krouskop, Alice Waco, Sharon Moon, Nancy Hutchins. Notes by Nancy Hutchins

Margaret has been very busy and reported a very successful regional meeting. About 25 of those attending the regional meeting said they would plan to come to the May Conference.

Some of the issues that impact budget and registration fee were discussed now because Margaret needs to get registration fees pinned down prior to sending copy to the Transformer.

Expenses are expected to be low: There will be little to no cost for speakers and entertainment this year. Coffee/tea service should be less expensive than last year, with energy bars and fruit.

Parking. Consensus was that people should pay for their own parking. It can be added to registration form and those who don't opt for that would still be able to park at a slightly higher ($5 per day) fee. At this point, Margaret is thinking parking would be automatically added to commuter fees.

Number of attendees projected. Consensus was to base budget on attendance of 90 overnighters and 20 - 30 commuters at local committee's discretion. Based on last year's registration, less than 15% of rooms were singles, so suggest basing the budget on 75 double rooms and 15 singles. These adjustments will probably result in a registration fee somewhere between $320 and $330 (early bird, double), but the numbers will need to be run.

Publicity. Margaret is thinking of asking local chapters to send in photos or art or displays to have a presence at the Conference.

We now have two additional members for the Scholarship Committee: Stephanie George, Denver; Jessica Farley, Maryland.

NEXT MEETING: TUESDAY, NOV. 24, NOON EST. (as previously scheduled)

Topics:

-special requirements for registration of youth

-special scholarships for youth

- budget review as needed

-website

-program