Conference Committee Meeting Minutes
August 8, 2006

Present:  Lupita Cruz, Barbara Foster, Eva Gonzales, Lupe Jacobo, Randy Livingtston, Amanda Palma, Ana Rodriguez, Lillian Schwartz, Ruth Szabo

Timeline

Everyone was in agreement with the timeline.

We already have presenters:

1)  Az Dept. of Revenue, Unclaimed Property: Tom Waters
2) Arizona Insurance Board, Consumer Education Unit: Erin Clug
3)  The Legend Group: Robert D. Moore (Retirement)

Date and Location

Date has been set:  March 16, 2007

Location Update:  Lily spoke to Pamela from Tucson Bureau Convention Center who referred her to Elsa Torres.  Elsa Torres took detailed information about our conference needs (# of people attending, vendor booths, etc) she then enters this information into a database and submits this to all the local hotels and resorts with Lily’s name as the contact person.  They will respond directly to Lily.  The committee recommended to Lily that she check back with Elsa in one week and update the information to give the hotels a deadline of October 1^st to book the hotel. Lupita confirmed to Lily that the subcommittee is in charge of making the conference location selection and could make the final decision and bring it to the committee as a whole.

Conference Theme

Committee decided to keep “Taking Control of Your Future” for all future conferences.  The second part would change each year.  This year’s theme is:

Taking Control of Your Future…Be Informed, Gain Knowledge!

Set up Sub-committees

Sub-committees had been pre-set by email message.  Names were added on or removed as needed.  Please see updated list attached. 

Future Meetings

It was agreed by the committee to meet regularly on the 1^st Tuesday of each month prior to the regular scheduled SAC meeting.  Meeting time will be at 2:00 pm at the Alumni Building at the Lobby or inside meeting room if permitted.

Other Business

Budget:  Ana informed the committee that we have $1300.00 from last year’s conference to use as seed money.  It was agreed by everyone that we could use this money to provide 3 scholarships and use it for printing, etc.

For our next meeting, Ana will provide us with a proposed fixed cost, pending more accurate figures on the cost of the conference location.

Eva Gonzales will contact Faculty Senate to ask for a $ donation.  It was mentioned that they are willing to help out with as much as $4 to 5,000.00.  Randy Livingston has the templates of the donation letters and will send them to Eva.  Eva and Ana will be working on these donations together.

Mandy spoke about trying to get the brochures printed for free.  She will try to contact some people around the university for sponsorship.

It was discussed that we need to make this SAC conference more prominent so that they don’t compare us to Beta.  People around the university were confusing us with Beta last year. 

It was agreed that we would only accept 150 registrations.  SAC would provide 3 scholarships and we should not have more than 25 to 30 vendors. 

Lupita recommended we use CCIT to produce a conference registration program for SAC to use for this conference and for future use.  The estimated cost would be $1200.  She would like to approach Faculty Senate for this donation.  This program has been used by her department and was very successful.  Lupita will contact CCIT and will report back. 

It was agreed that we will hire a “technical” person to be present the night before and the day of the conference to make sure all of our audio and visual equipment is working. It may be possible to use a Computer Science student.

Randy suggested we create firm policies on refunds and cancellations.  Establish only a few late fees.  Less complicated less work for everyone.

Everyone agreed that we need to streamline the email requests and questions regarding the conference info and registration.  Who will receive email regarding conference will be determined at a later date.  It will be more than one person.

Ana discussed registration and what forms of payments should be accepted.  Randy recommended we talk to Rob since he worked with registration last year.

Next meeting agenda: 

CCIT update
budget $ proposal
work on workshops and speakers

Minutes submitted by: Lupe Jacobo

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