From the Conferences Committee
Request for Special Project

If you have read the Conferences report or were at the Saturday
meeting you have read about the plans to start a pilot program for
providing better support for SoutheastCon and host sections.  The top
two needs we have addressed are training and registration support.  We
have funding in the SoutheastCon 2002 committee's budget to support
the registration part, but want to work on some aspects ( a permanent
e-commerce site for on-line registration year-to-year) that should not
be paid totally by one year's conference.  The other part is training.
We propose the development and introduction of a training class,
perhaps to be held every (or every other) year well before
SoutheastCon, probably in the Jan/Feb time frame.  We would invite
prospective bidding committees as well as all upcoming SoutheastCon
committees and go over all aspects of the conference planning,
execution and reporting, including finances.  Parts of this training
are being developed as part of a special project I am proposing to
Meetings and Serivces Committee (MSC) at the BoD/OU Series next
month. So, what the Conferences Committee is asking is a Special
Project be created for this effort.  Funding primarily for travel of
the future committees to a central (probably Atlanta) location.  Total
funding request $5000. I see this as a one-time expense.  If this
works, it will be funded in future by the conference and host
(potential host) sections.

Charles Lord, Chair