The Education Sessions Offered by the Chapter Attempted to Address the Ten Competency Areas

1. The education sessions offered by the chapter attempted to address the ten competency areas set forth from National. To offer a unique venue and a very innovative presentation, the chapter was a guest of Sysco, a local hospitality industry service provider. At this on-site visit, Sysco detailed new products, new services, and pricing and inventory practices to those members in attendance. The material covered in this meeting encouraged the chapter’s members to bring their culinary staff, clubhouse staff, and banquet staff so that they could gain first-hand knowledge of the products and services offered by one of the chapter’s largest vendors(Food and Beverage Management). Later in the summer, our managers held a roundtable discussion to cover budgetary and long term capital planning practices, policies, and formulas. Through brainstorming, Q&A’s, and direct examples the members shared their successes and challenges in an effort to create a better, more efficient, more effective methodology to formulate a quality budget and long range forecast(Accounting and Financial Management). During a CMI session, Scott Samuels of Horizons Hospitality presented a six hour seminar covering harassment policies, hiring and firing processes and practices, evaluation procedures, and employee records keeping requirements(Human & Professional Resources). Vincent Phipps addressed the chapter with his leadership tips that included communication skills, leadership dynamics, listening skills, and adapting to respond as a leader(Leadership). Lee Silber, author of The Wild Idea Club, presented membership marketing ideas that get the entire staff focused on finding solutions to increase member satisfaction through creative collaboration and wild ideas(Membership and Marketing). Bryan Gillis brought the chapter into the social network age by discussing how interpersonal skills have changed and evolved to accommodate the increasing presence of the social networking sites in the club industry, not just with staff but with membership and the club’s boards as well(Interpersonal Skills).
2. In planning the 2011 education calendar, the ten competency areas were reviewed by the education chairman to ensure that as many of these areas as possible is attempted to be addressed at least once throughout the year. The chapter’s Board also works to ensure that the educational offerings are taught by qualified representatives in that particular field. Relevancy, demand for a particular topic (via a survey), timeliness of topic, and budgetary considerations are also involved in the scheduling process. Industry trends such as social networking sites, member marketing, enhanced training initiatives, and technology-based membership efficiencies were among the current topics that were deemed important to address through our education sessions.
3. To market the educational calendar and encourage attendance, a yearly calendar is sent electronically to the membership and posted on the chapter’s website as well. Reminder emails, evites, and personal phone calls from fellow chapter members are also utilized to ensure each event is well attended by managers and their staff.
4. To ensure the education topics are pertinent to a multitude of job levels, the chapter engaged speakers that addressed issues relating to a variety of department levels, not just from the perspective of the General Manager. The chapter also utilized speakers from affiliated organizations to ensure the various departments of the club would have interest in the educational offerings. Finally, many issues during the presentations were addressed from both sides of the equation, meaning from the employee to the manager and vice versa.

1. Technology plays an integral part in the chapter’s educational offerings. The process begins with emails, evites, and advertising on the website to encourage attendance. At the meeting itself, powerpoints and Mac based slide shows were used. The minutes of each minute are posted to the chapter website to enable managers to review the events of each session. We also post our vendor sponsors on our website to provide additional marketing outlets for them and thus further our relationship with those specific purveyors. The chapter is currently developing the techniques to be able to incorporate iVideo/Mac video into its presentations as well. The chapter also takes advantage of video conferencing (i.e. Skype) so that managers who are unable to attend the meeting in person are still able to participate in the education session and contribute to the discussion of the topics at hand. This option proves to be both economical (free) and efficient for those managers with who are able to take advantage of this conferencing tool.
2. To encourage member attendance and involvement in the educational portion of the chapter meetings, two times during the year we conducted roundtable meetings that were directed by the individual chapter members. Rather than being passive and merely “attending” the meeting, we encouraged our members to be a part of the education session by conducting mini informational and Q&A sessions that covered a specific member’s area of expertise or field of study. The overall result of these initiatives was to make the members feel more involved, and more invested in the chapter and its activities. A sense of involvement creates a deeper commitment to the chapter and its viability in the future.

To help keep things fresh, we also went outside of the clubhouse and took a “field trip” for one of our education sessions. The meeting was held at Sysco, a main vendor of many of our chapter members. At their facility, the membership was given first hand demonstrations of product development, introductions of new products, and detailed discussions regarding product lines and services that their company can offer clubs of every size. Not only did this field trip offer new insights and expertise to a main expense area for our member clubs, it also fostered a better relationship with this important vendor which will prove worthwhile to the chapter and its members alike.

1. Prior to creating the current year’s education calendar, an electronic survey is sent to the membership to complete. This survey requested input regarding preferred days of the week for scheduling meetings, topics of interest, locations of meetings, cost limits for meetings, and frequency of scheduled events. Following a CMI, surveys are distributed requesting information regarding the quality of the speaker, the topic, and the facilities; the timing and duration of the event; and the relevancy of the information provided. All feedback obtained is shared with the Managing Director, education chairman, and the chapter President so that they can use the information garnered to help shape a relevant, efficient education calendar for the upcoming year.