Conference Local Arrangements

Minutes/Report: DATE: November 15, 2007 - Conference Local Arrangements Minutes 11 LOCATION: Conference Call ATTENDEES: Members present: Dara Abraham, James Buchanan, Leigh Cameron, Andrea Caputo, Stefanie Channell, Mike Clouse, Diana Day, Brent Dove, Suzanne Fahrer, Anna Fligge, Michael Gibboney, Charlotte Hardy, Kim Jeffers, Angela Johnson, Betsy Johnson, Val Kepner, Patricia King, Chuck Knepfle, Julie Kost, Tiffanie Lee, Kris Lowe, Sandra Manning, Tasha McDaniel, Kathi Mills, Matthew Moore, Steve Queisser, Jason Reinoehl, Frances Robbins, Michiale Schneider, Carmen Sears- Edwards, Jiv Subramaniam, LeeAnn Timmerman, Jackie Tracy and Cheryl Willard. Members absent: Sue Allmon, Amy Barnhart, Julia Benz, Michael Byrne, Mary Cannon, Deonna Decker, Diane Fleming, Jennifer Gates, Martha Geiger, Angelene Harris, Liz Hunley, Michael Jones, Dan Mann, Chester Priest, Janice Riutta, Joann Ross, Craig Sneider and Ann Watson. GUEST(S): MINUTES STATUS: Introductions/Updates: • Michiale reminded committee members to register for MASFAA membership then submit volunteer form for the Local Arrangements Committee. Committee Reports: • President’s reception: Cheryl began looking at locations for the reception. In addition, she has also been able to add Angela Johnson and Leeann Timmerman to her committee. • Registration: 13 committee members. Conference call set up with Jody (last year’s registration coordinator). Pam Fowler suggested that we have a financial aid secretary at the table at all times. She wasn’t sure if we should designate someone from our committee. IT should be someone who has access to the MASFAA Quicken software. More than likely it will need to be Val or James. o Discussion about walk in attendees. It seems that most people register far in advance, but might not pay before they show up at the conference. These issues will need to be dealt with by Val or James so that this is recorded and a receipt is given. o Michelle & Jason will meet with Pam Fowler to discuss logistics. If anyone has any questions for her, let Michelle or Jason know. • Decorations/Charity: Kris reported on their progress. They have been thinking about doing a cookbook for the conference, but they haven’t looked too much into it yet. Decorations are hopefully going to come from the Duke Energy center in combination with things we purchase to help keep costs down. o Anna said she’d help them on the cookbook. • Vendor Relations: Leigh and Kathi have received a few quotes for a drayage company. Both quotes are higher than the $40 a booth the committee got for St. Louis at $77.20 or $62.50 a booth. They’re still waiting on another vendor to come back with a quote. Kathi called the Duke to discuss Security. Anyone with Duke-employee access will be able to gain entrance to the vendor area. We could hire a security guard for $18 an hour or have the lock re-cored at $50 a door. They would give us however many keys we want and only charge us additional fees if we lose our keys. The fee would be $100 if we lose the keys. o Michelle stated that the Duke Energy Center has suggested that we re-core the lock so we can be the only people who enter the room. They admit they have had a lot of theft recently, so this might be a good idea. We will take a look at the budget and determine if this is feasible. • Logistics and Publicity: State association presidents have been emailed to see if they could advertise the MASFAA conference at their state conferences and also collect the MASFAA 07 lanyards from 07 attendees. MASFAA website has been updated with the MASFAA 2008 logo and the link to the Cincinnati visitor website. Tasha would like to have it updated with additional information in mid- December because currently it says “More Information to Come”. She suggested that we could add some quotes from local Cincinnati celebrities. They could be focused on “Why come to Cincinnati?” Also might be able to add quotes from MASFAA members as to why they should come to MASFAA 08. One last thought was that she sends out additional teasers on a monthly basis. o Since FSA & OASFAA conferences are in the same time frame, it has made the Ohio attendance at MASFAA conferences fairly slim. • Food & Beverage: Suzanne reported that she has the menu from Ovations and the Hilton. They will be sitting down the first of the year to discuss menu planning. The menu is planning to change at the first of the year. Further Discussion: • Tasha will work on adding the St. Louis “Locomotion” song to the MASFAA website. She will set it up so it will only play when someone clicks the play button; meaning it will not start playing as soon as someone enters the website. MASFAA Master Excel File: • This was sent out to the committee this week. It will be forwarded out to the committee members as changes occur. • Jason went over the worksheet, specifically the Master Budget worksheet. o Food & Beverage has the major amount of the budget. At the MASFAA 07 conference, the trend was that about 85% of attendees actually attended a dinner service and 50% attended a breakfast service. This yield is something we could use for the 08 conference in Cincinnati. Suzanne stated that this is her major concern. The group discussed the yield and thought “low-balling” the amount of meals that we have prepared for each meal might be best. I  In the contract we signed with Duke, we have not locked in an amount of meals to serve, only the number of rooms we’d use. • Michiale/Jason will get a copy of the contract to Matt for the archives.  Suzanne, Jackie and Matt will come up with some text we can put on the website to encourage people to be accurate on their meal selections during registration. Registrants will be able to change their selections as long as the registration site is open. If attendees would be more cognizant of their meal selections, it would help us narrow down the amount of meals we order that are later wasted. Michelle wants this text by the December conference call.  Cheryl noted that buffet meals will be much cheaper for the committee, and it will offer a variety of selections for attendees. • If something is not on the budget that you think should be, let Jason know. The money can still be moved around; the only thing that is set in stone is the bottom line. • Conference bags have been ordered. They’ll be red with a train logo. • Vests will not be ordered until June or July so we have an accurate number of committee members to order for. 08 Promotion: • Michiale will attend the OASFAA Exec meeting tomorrow (11/16) to encourage the Ohio support since the conference is in Cincinnati. • We could contact Dan Mann & Julia Benz to see if we can include sessions on Graduate/Professional schools. At another conference, a “track” was established just for the Graduate/Professionals schools that encouraged their attendance. • How can we reach the individuals who are not on OASFAA/MASFAA list serves? Other offices? o Work with Dan & Julia to get invitations out to University Presidents or other offices on campus so they can be more aware of the Financial Aid profession. o With everything going on with the Attorney General and FA Updates, this might be an attractive idea to University administration. o Include the value/benefit of attending the MASFAA conference instead of attending another conference. Why should someone come to a regional conference instead of their state or FSA conference? This is also something we should share with Dan & Julia. o One logical thing might be to include the OASFAA program committee members on the MASFAA Program Committee. • Jiv had an idea to send out a survey to MASFAA members to see what they’d like to see on the agenda for the MASFAA 08 conference. Jiv will contact Dan & Julia to see if they’d be willing to do this. o Another thing to think about…did the free MASFAA registration increase the response on the survey? If it’s in our budget, maybe we can offer one free registration to a raffle winner for completing our survey. • It might be a good idea to take a look at the various state programs to see if we can offer different sessions than they have. Also take a look at the FSA Conference and offer similar sessions since those are so popular but are usually more expensive for schools to travel to. • The Freedom Center & the Duke Energy Center have been contacted to see if we can have additional tours. Michiale and Jason have set up Monday, January 28th, 9AM at the Duke, 11AM at the Freedom Center. If you are interested in going, please let Michiale & Jason know so they know how many to expect. Tuesday’s Event: • A contract has been signed to reserve the space at the Freedom Center. Meal prices are very similar as the meals at the Duke Center. o We need to continue discussing entertainment ideas for Tuesday night, in addition to the center being open for us until 10PM. One thought is that we have entertainment back at the hotel that evening, or even given attendees free time to have the night on their own. We want to keep in mind that we want to make sure people are satisfied with their registration fees. o It was mentioned that we could add to our survey a question about what participants prefer to do during the evenings. (planned event or night on their own) Sunday Night: • Possible ideas: o Cash bar, room with TVs & board games o Free night Wrap Up: • Minutes will be sent out by Matt for those members who were not able to attend the conference call. • Please copy Michiale and Jason on emails to Dan & Julia so they can follow up with them later. Attached Committee Reports: • The following pages are the committee reports for: o Decorating o Logistics and Publicity o President’s Reception o Registration o Vendor Relations SUB-COMMITTEE______Decorating______________________ INDIVIDUAL REPORTING ____Kris Lowe__________________ DATE_11/14/07__________ 1. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES: Have contacted the Duke Energy Center to work with catering on using their decorations for centerpieces. I am hoping that we can save money by going this route. Have also contacted Barnes & Noble about having them set up a table at the conference for the sale of books. 2. ACTIVITIES PLANNED, NOT YET COMPLETED: Will be meeting with the other co-chair about possibly putting together a cookbook. 3. RECOMMENDED DISCUSSION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: 4. RECOMMENDED ACTION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: SUB-COMMITTEE Logistics and Publicity_________________________________________ INDIVIDUAL REPORTING __Tasha McDaniel_______________________________________ DATE_11/14/07________ 1. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES: Sent email to state association presidents to ask conference attendees to send their lanyards to Val. Updated MASFAA website with 2008 logo and link to Cincinnati visitor bureau. Also added, “More Information to Come”. Sub-committee met on 11/13 to discuss the following items: update the website by mid-December, send monthly emails to each state association listserve with a teaser about the conference beginning in January, add quotes from local dignitaries and others to website about Cincinnati, and add quotes from MASFAA members about why attend the conference. 2. ACTIVITIES PLANNED, NOT YET COMPLETED: Committee will meet the week of Dec 10. Meeting date and time is TBA. Update website with additional conference information by mid- December. 3. RECOMMENDED DISCUSSION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: Adding quotes from local dignitaries and other people from Cincinnati about the city to add to website. Sending monthly teasers to each state association about conference. 4. RECOMMENDED ACTION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: SUB-COMMITTEE____ President’s Reception INDIVIDUAL REPORTING __ Cheryl Willard__ DATE_ 11/09/07_________ 1. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES: a. Began preliminary research on site and local attractions. b. Sent email to Elizabeth Somers, President’s Reception Chair, MASFAA Conference 2007; requested information / insights regarding 2007 event. 2. ACTIVITIES PLANNED, NOT YET COMPLETED: a. Contact Diane Fleming, MASFAA President, and assist her on selecting a site and discussing general details of the event. b. Planning the President’s Reception. 3. RECOMMENDED DISCUSSION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: N/A 4. RECOMMENDED ACTION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: N/A SUB- COMMITTEE________Registration_______________________________________ ___ INDIVIDUAL REPORTING ______Val Kepner & James Buchanan__________________ DATE___11/12/07________ 1. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES: Currently have 13 committee members + James and Val 2. ACTIVITIES PLANNED, NOT YET COMPLETED: We are trying to set up a conference call with Jody Schwartz- Butrick from MOHELA, who coordinated registration at this year’s conference. James contacted Pam Fowler in regards to comments/issues with MASFAA 2007 Conference Registration – evaluations have not yet been received. 3. RECOMMENDED DISCUSSION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: Pam suggested that we have the financial secretary at the registration table at all times for walk-in registrations. Do we just designate someone? Or is there someone in particular that is supposed to do this? Are there really walk-ins? 4. RECOMMENDED ACTION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: 5. The following list is of people who have joined the Registration Committee. NAME INSTITUTION EMAIL Diana Day American Education Services dday@aesSuccess.org Patricia King WV State University kingpa@wvstateu.edu Angelene Harris Michigan State University harri494@msu.edu Lake Tackett Huntington Junior College ltackett2@huntingtonjuniorcollege.edu Anna Fligge Central Missouri State University fligge@cmsu.edu Buchanan, James West Virginia State University buchanjr@wvstateu.edu Kepner, Val Oberlin College val.kepner@oberlin.edu Allmon, Sue USA Funds Services sallmon@usafunds.org Cannon, Mary Defiance College mcannon@defiance.edu Caputo, Andrea Hiram College Caputoal@hiram.edu Manning, Sandra National Education smanning@nationaleducation.com Hayes, Jennifer Ohio University--Zanesville minyo@ohio.edu Sears-Edwards, Carmen Citibank carmen.sears@citigroup.com Mcpherson, Amanda Zane State College amcpherson@zanestate.edu Mills, Kathy USA Funds Services Kathy.Mills@usafunds.org SUB-COMMITTEE__Vendor Relations________________________________________________ INDIVIDUAL REPORTING ___Leigh Cameron_/ Kathy Mills_______________________________ DATE___11/14/07________ 1. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES: Received a bid for drayage from Academy Rentals. This bid seems high at $77.20 per booth compared to St. Louis which was closer to $40.00 per booth space. This particular Company is charging us extra for overtime for Sat. set up and Tuesday afternoon tear down. Even taking out the overtime, the price is still high. We are waiting to receive bids from two other companies. Verified with the Duke Energy Center about security for the vendor area. If we have the vendors in the ballrooms, the doors do lock and all staff has access to the rooms. 2. ACTIVITIES PLANNED, NOT YET COMPLETED: Gathering bids from two other Drayage companies for price comparison. 3. RECOMMENDED DISCUSSION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: None at this time. 4. RECOMMENDED ACTION ITEMS FOR THE COMMITTEE: None at this time. NEXT MEETING: MEETING ADJOURNED: SUBMITTED BY: Matt Moore, Miami University POSTED BY: Michiale M Schneider