Report of the Ad-hoc Committee on Conducting a Convention Absent a Local Convention Committee
John Zajc, Norman Macht, and F. X. Flinn
Executive Summary
A SABR convention could be successfully held in the absence of a local convention committee. The additional cost would range from $6K – $11K paid to outside vendors plus SABR staff time valued in the low thousands of dollars.
The NCC/LCC structure was created at a time when SABRs staffing could not adequately manage the convention process, but this situation no longer holds true. The committee unanimously recommends that the existing convention policy, which calls for both National and Local convention committees, be revoked and full responsibility for the convention be returned to the executive director. The ED can then involve all interested members on a volunteer basis without restriction and while retaining full responsibility for the results.
Because of the importance of this latter recommendation, our report is divided into three sections, with several appendices. In section I, we discuss a number of findings made in the course of the investigation that lead us to our dramatic recommendation. Sections II describes how and at what cost a convention can be held without local involvement, and section III reviews the background to this effort.
Section I: Restoring Staff Primacy in the Convention Process
In examining how we conduct a convention in order to understand what we might have to pay for without an LCC, we come to these conclusions:
- The SABR administrative office has to take a lead role in planning and executing the convention; if this supposition is accepted as true and the right people are in place, there may not be a need for a lot of additional professional support.
- The current structure of how we plan and execute conventions is overly cumbersome.
Finding 1
The SABR administrative office has to take a lead role in planning and executing the convention; if this supposition is accepted as true and the right people are in place, there may not be a need for a lot of additional professional support.
If the executive director or another staff member is trained and experienced in meeting planning and/or knows who she can turn to for advice and counsel, executing a successful convention is merely work. Given our current hotel needs, we have the ability to negotiate a good hotel contract without professional help, and we now have staff and volunteers and contacts in the industry that can help move us from good to optimal. The decision about working with a convention planner to negotiate the hotel contract should be up to the Executive Director.
When we have a strong local convention committee everything becomes easier. But when we do not have a strong local committee more work gets done by the SABR office. If we plan for the office to do more anyway, then we don’t have to put such pressure on the local committee. In fact, a local committee may be more likely to form, with more members, precisely because the ultimate responsibility no longer accrues to them.
As for volunteers during the convention, SABRs experience is that getting people to do “easy” things like stuffing goody bags and pulling a shift or two at the registration desk is not that hard to do, and the excitement of the event will bring people out to do those things. But even if they do not, most convention and visitors bureaus have a group of volunteers who can help at the registration desk.
The fact is that the Cincinnati convention was planned and organized by a handful of people, with the office taking a leading role. The geography of the key participants was far from local and face to face meetings were inconsequential to the successful planning.
Finding 2
The current structure of how we plan and execute conventions is overly cumbersome.
The original purpose of the National Convention Committee was to take the majority of convention planning out of the office, freeing up the time of the staff to do other things. Our experience is that this works only marginally well, since ultimately it is the office where members turn for information and where budgets must be followed and bills be paid. In short, people expect the office to know everything and often be the decision-maker. When the NCC is staffed with volunteers who understand and know what they are doing and have the time and motivation to do it right, things run well. But if the NCC is staffed with volunteers who do not have a clear understanding of what they are doing (or are not interested and/or motivated), the work ends up being done by the office anyway.
The fact is that if responsibility for the conventions is returned to the Executive Director, the office will be free to arrange convention work as the talents, skills and interests of member volunteers present themselves. The weekly SABR Info mailings and the Bulletins can ask for volunteers to assess hotels, for example, or put out a call for interested parties to help with the convention publication, goody bags, vetting research presentationsand the like. Volunteers who continue to do global tasks will in effect become an ad-hoc NCC with the ED as the chair, and those at the local level similarly become an ad-hoc LCC. But by putting the authority and decision making in the hands of the ED, we make sure the information flow matches the responsibility.
Section II: Pro-Forma Plan for Conducting a Convention Absent a Local Convention Committee
Methodology
Our methodology for determining how to figure the costs for running a convention without a local committee is as follows: assign items in the convention policy that are currently the responsibility of volunteers to outside vendors, whether a convention planner, management company or other agency. We then contacted representative firms and obtained quotes for these services.
John Zajccontacted Jill Stone of Helms Briscoe, who had made contact earlier in 2004 with Dick Beverage. Helms Briscoe is full service meeting and event management company. Zajc also met with Jim Taliak at Conferon, one of the world’s largest meeting planning companies. Conferon happens to be headquartered in suburban Cleveland (Twinsburg, Ohio). Flinn compared the results obtained with a freelance convention planner who found the numbers reasonable and all bases covered.
A Word About the Business Models of Planning Companies and Individual Meeting Planners
Meeting planners and meeting planning companies make their money through a commission negotiated with the contracted hotel(s). Typically, it is a 10% commission on every room night sold.
The difference between a Conferon, Helms Briscoe, and an individual meeting planner is somewhat minor. Conferon has more staff and its business model is more equipped to provide the ancillary services SABR would need to do a convention in a city without the help of a local convention committee, such as Philadelphia. Helms Briscoe basically uses a partner, ResourceOne, to do some of the ancillary items. Jill Stone stated that if we kept some things, like transportation to a minimum, she could help out with that rather than using ResourceOne and their mark-up. An independent meeting planner has the most flexibility on how he or she is compensated; we did not investigate how much an independent meeting plannermight cost.
What Would The Professional Do
The professional would, if we asked, do site-selection, or accompany SABR representatives on site selection trips. This is already paid for in all the business models, so removing that from SABRs responsibility would save SABR a couple hundred dollars.(The amount saved is dependent upon what kind of support the local CVB gave us--occasionally we can get free or discounted airfare to do site selection; pretty much always we get free accommodations).
The professional might also do the hotel negotiation. Conferon advertises that it has an agreement with most hotel chains that the price negotiated by Conferon is the same as the lowest non-commissionable price the hotel would offer. In other words, the hotel can’t “pay” for the commission by raising the room rate to cover the cost of the commission. Is having a professional negotiate the contract worth it? At the level of complexity we need and the conservative room blocks we contract for, Zajc is neither convinced nor not convinced that a professional negotiates a better contract than the NCC has negotiated in the past. However, he unequivocally says that the experience in working with the Westin in Cincinnati was the best hotel experience he has had in all the years he has had involvement. Whether that has anything to do with having a pro in the background may or may not be a coincidence. Also, both Jim Taliak at Conferon and Tina Greene of Security Travel warn of the specialized species of contract that is the hotel contract and advise that a person looking over a hotel contract should have experience in that specialized field, and not just “normal” contract law.
The professional would arrange for transportation to and form the ballpark (if necessary).
The professional would take care of the logistics of the schedule, including a/v procurement and placement.
The professional would take care of all banquet/catering needs with the hotel.
The professional would be an on-site troubleshooter.
The professional would staff the registration desk at times, and hire folks at times. The CVBs often also have volunteers that could staff a registration desk.
What The Professional Would NOT Do
The professional would not create our printed program.
The professional would not create our souvenir publication.
The professional would not create nor contact panelists/speakers.
The professional would not vet research presentations.
How would we do these things?
Program
The printed program would need either a volunteer to compile, an intern to compile, or staff time to compile. Layout and design of the program, under the current relationship with McFarland, is done by hem after receiving the pages in the order we want them to appear.
Souvenir Program (Convention book)
Some additional cost may be incurredfor the souvenir publication. Since this program is now part of the standard SABR publications for the year, the key role is that of someone to champion the vehicle, give it a theme, and proselytize for content. This could be done by a volunteer, by staff, or by a freelancer.
Speakers
Speakers will be contacted by the office. This makes the most sense from an efficiency standpoint.
Research presentation vetting
This process has been effectively administered by non-local volunteersfor the past several years and can be easily institutionalized.
Timeline of A Convention Without a Traditional Local Convention Committee
More than 18 months out:Confirm the area has appropriate sized and priced hotels for a SABRCon presently available for the sets of dates we seek; this may or may not be contracted out.
18 or more months out:Officially choose area as host to SABR Convention
Ask locals who would like to help out; start making supporting cast assignments
Start brainstorming with interested locals about who would be good speakers/panelists
Start Setting Budget
Begin soliciting articles for convention publication; choose an editor
14 months out: Advertise for a Meeting Planning Intern
9 to 12 months out:Start asking for research presentations
8-10 months out: Choose Convention Dates after MLB schedule is set
Pick Hotel
Meeting Planning Intern Comes On Board
Start Contacting Possible Speakers/Panelists
Issue Sponsorship Packets
7 – 9 months out:Begin slotting events
3 – 4 months out:Publish Registration/Information Mailer and send to members
Blind reviews of presentations begin
Layout & design of convention publication; get to printer
6 weeks out:Complete Printed Program and get to printer
Audio-visual needs determined; bid upon; and approved
Inside 6 weeks:All the other stuff that needs to get done.
What does it Cost?
By our estimates, hiring a Conferon or a Helms-Briscoe to help run our convention would cost no less than $6,000, and possibly as much as $11,000. There would be a few thousand dollars of staff time, although being more involved in the planning may pay off with better marketing and attendance and better sponsorship sales and relationships.
If we are using a professional for an East Coast city and can very conservatively and reasonably expect an attendance of 600, then the out-of-pocket cost is $10 - $18.33 per convention attendee.
HelmsBriscoe Resource One / Conferon / NotesSite Inspection / on commission / on commission
Contract Negotiation / on commission / on commission
On-Site Staff (includes per diem) / $2,825 / $350 / Figures 5 days on site (Wed-Sun)
Pre-Event Labor / $1,875 / Assumes 25 hours for BEO review, program logistics, etc.
Post-Event Labor / $750 / Assumes 10 hours
Package Costs / $10,056
Travel to Event / $500 / $500
Total / $5,950 / $10,906
Conclusions/Recommendations
These costs are well within what SABR can afford at its established $75 registration fee, and, in the case of a northeast corridor convention that attracted 750 registrants, the additional attendance made possible by locating near membership concentrations completely offsets the costs (150 x 75 = 11,250). A convention can be conducted in the absence of a local convention committee.
Section III: Background on Formation of this Committee
SABRs existing process has in this century succeeded in turning out four strongly attended, highly profitable conventions. At the same time, the difficulty of site selection has become more acute. A number of destinations, particularly those in the Northeast, have been essentially off the radar because of a lack of volunteer interest at the local level. The NCC offered the board a series of fait-accompli site selections in recent years, often not having two legitimate alternatives, and none included a northeast corridor city.
Board member Flinn offered an amendment to the convention policy document that would have required the NCC to develop a forward-looking convention siting plan that would get the SABR convention into the northeast on a two or three year cycle. The principle stumbling block toward achieving this was not so much the location as the issue of local involvement. Our ad-hoc committee was formed to examine this question:
From the July 2004 meeting minutes:
Based on the Board’s discussion of a proposal by Flinn and subsequent email exchanges with the NCC and other interested parties, Beverage offered a motion to create an ad hoc committee – consisting of the Executive Director, the Treasurer, and a third member nominated by the president and approved by the Board
–to develop a pro-forma plan, including costs, for conducting a convention absent a local convention committee. This committee will present its report to the Board at its Winter 2005 meeting.
The motion was seconded by Traven, and approved by the Board, 8-0-0-0.
Appendix 1: Current Policy for Local Convention Committee
- The Convention Committee (CC) shall appoint a Local Convention Committee Chair who will submit its recommendation for the following appointments to the CC for approval.
a)Transportation Coordinator - arrange bus transportation as needed for optional and scheduled events; arrange most favorable airport shuttle service; prepare directions to convention hotel for out-of-towners for the Bulletin; arrange transportation for special guests.
b)Publication/Program Editor - prepare a program of events and registrants for the convention, and arrange for last-minute "copy quick" type printing of program; solicit material and edit convention publication; seek bids for printing program and submit proposed printing budget to Chair; get local pre-convention and convention publicity. (Convention committee liaison and SABR Publications Director are available for layout, printing and content ideas.)
c)Speakers - work with CC in planning panel-type events; line up participants for panel, including former and present players (the latter working with the ball club liaison); arrange for banquet or other main event speaker.
- The Local Committee will arrange for:
a)Research presentations - solicit and vet applicants and their subjects; schedule presentations; arrange for required AV equipment and copying of handouts; arrange for moderators and judges; coordinate judging; oversee presentation sessions.
b)Sponsorships - work with Executive Director in soliciting sponsorships of specific events, such as banquet, picnic, contest prizes, publication printing, and transportation; solicit items for "goodie bags".
c)Registration desk - arrange and schedule volunteers to staff registration desks and ticket exchange and to receive surveys and answer questions; stuff "goodie bags", set up registration desks.
d)Local Club - work with speakers' chair in lining up panelists; arrange for game tickets; seek cooperation in early notification of schedule or request for certain dates for club to be at home; explore other event cooperation by team.