Conference Site Visit

I joined the Conference Arrangements Committee last week for our first site visit to the Millenium Hotel in downtown St. Louis where the 2008 Missouri Library Conference will be held in October. We learned interesting things that you can't really learn except by going, like:

• the most direct way to arrive from the Metrolink train station involves jaywalking, but the hotel employees do it that way so I imagine many conference attendees will, too--it is a lovely route taking you right past our new beautiful ballpark.
• lunch was leisurely and expensive (fine for that day but not so good in the middle of a busy conference), so we investigated possibilities with the hotel staff -- they can do a cash-and-carry lunch cart on the conference level to speed things along (and, hopefully, have some lower cost alternatives).
• the registration area isn't visible from the elevators and escalators -- we're going to need good signage!

Guess who was the only person to bring a camera to this meeting? I put the pictures up on my flickr account. They're lousy as photography, but will help us remember where things are and how they look when we're planning over the next few months.

We also received the Annual Conference Manual -- Working Draft, a document that's been put together by Conference Arrangements Committees over the past several years, delineating duties and responsibilities of the subcommittee chairs and discussing other important items like speaker arrangements and the budget.

And, here's a little background information I learned. This year's Conference Coordinator will be tapped to head the site selection committee for the next time the conference is held in St. Louis.

June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 December 2007 January 2008