Virginia Journeys 2011

VIRGINIA JOURNEYS 2011

ATC’s 38th Biennial Conference

July 1 – July 8, 2011

Emory & Henry College

Final Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Overall Statistics, Chronological History and Lessons Learned

Statistics

Chronological History of Virginia Journeys 2011 (VJ 2011)

Lessons Learned and Recommendations

Steering Committee

Auction (Silent)

Audio Visual

Camping

Campus Arrangements

Entertainment

Excursions

Exhibits

Finance

Food

Hikes

Housing

Information/Hospitality

Medical Other Emergency

Publications

Publicity

Registration

Duties Performed by ATC

Duties Performed by Clubs

Additional Registration Comments

Sales and Souvenirs

Signs

Introduction

Persons using this report should review the table of contents to obtain an overview of how the report is organized. Please note that the entries in the table of contents are links to the indicated pages, affording the user quick access to his or her area of interest when viewing the document in Microsoft WORD or as a PDF. From any page you may press [ctrl] + [G] and enter 2 as the page number and click GoTo to be transported back to the Table of Contents.

Within WORD you may also use the Document Map Feature to navigate within the document.

The “Overall Statistics, Chronological History and Lessons Learned” section of the report provides a few basic overall statistics and an overview of the conference planning and the conference itself. This overview is provided in basically a chronological order to give the reader an insight into the timing of various phases of the planning and preparation. This overview touches on many of the committee areas, but it should be noted that all committees are covered in detail under their respective sections elsewhere in the report.

The rest of the report is organized by the committee structure as suggested in the Guidelines. Each suggested committee is listed, even though Virginia Journeys 2011 decided not to follow the suggested structure in some cases for various reasons.

ATC’s participation in many areas such as finance, registration and publications;the continued use of Cvent; and the availability of VJ2011 reports on demand precludes the need to incorporate a large number of reports and copies of publications in this report. Much information has already been given to the 2013 Steering Committee prior to the publication of this report.

The Chair and Co-Chair of Virginia Journeys 2011 remain available to answer any questions, or provide any information available to assist the planners for the 2013 conference.

The reports for each committee start on a new page to make it easier to print or copy just the report for that committee for further dissemination.

The individual reports for the various committees are presented as prepared by the committee chairs themselves with formatting and minor editing when warranted. If considered necessary, additional comments are then provided by the conference chair and co-chair.

Virginia Journeys 2011 Final Report Table of Contents Page 1 of 105

Overall Statistics, Chronological History and Lessons Learned

Virginia Journeys 2011

ATC’s 38th Biennial Conference

Final Conference Report

Statistics:

Location: Emory & Henry College, Emory VA

Firsts: Rotation of conference under new Regional Partnership Committee structure. Active participation of ATC HQ’s in assuming major conference responsibilities. Compliance with the new September 2007 Biennial Conference Manual. Use of a video to announce the location and dates. Initial use of Cvent registration program contracted for by ATC. Use of social media to publicize the conference and attract attendees/volunteers. Use of a separate Registration Supplement.

Financial: ATC reimbursed $36,225 for staff time and travel under “Single Fee” concept. Host RPC (clubs) awarded $20,000. Remaining profit of $19,943.30 split 50/50 with host RPC and ATC.

Attendees: 938 plus 35 cancellations for a total registration of 973, one of the largest turnouts in recent conferences. There were 15 children 12 and under. Largest age group was 60-69; about one third of total attendees.

Number of volunteers: 372 including workshop presenters but not hike leaders.

Hikes: 160 hikes over 65 different routes. 190 miles of the A.T. were covered. There were 1,778 participants on the various hikes, requiring 179 hike / co-leader pairs.

Excursions: 31 were offered but 4 cancelled for lack of participation. There were 383 participants and 40 leaders.

Workshops: 81 were offered but 6 had to be cancelled for lack of presenters. 2,257 people registered to attend the 76 workshops held; 2,298 people actually attended.

Work Trips: 2 with 29 people participating.. Youth from Groundwork USA participated in a separate work trip.

Exhibitors: 37 organizations or individuals requested an exhibit table. 16 were ATC or A.T. clubs. 7 were “for-profit” exhibitors. There were 2 outside exhibits.

Meals purchased: 2,284 breakfasts,604 lunches, 1046 trail lunches, and 2,465 dinners.159 attended the ice cream social.

Housing: 2,567 room nights were spent on the Emory & Henry campus.

Camping: 137 attendees camped on 111 camp sites for a total of 701 camper nights on campus.

Entertainment: Four venues of paid performers, with one each Saturday (featured entertainment), Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. There were five travelogues on Monday to Thursday evenings. Friday evening was the Opening Session. ATC’s Membership Business Meeting was on Sunday evening.

Chronological History of Virginia Journeys 2011 (VJ 2011)

Planning for the conference began in the early autumn of 2007 when Bob Almand, Chair of ATC’s Board of Directors informed Ned Kuhns (TATC) as Chair of the Virginia Regional Partnership Committee (RPC) that the Biennial Conferences were going to be rotated among the four RPC’s. Therefore, the Virginia RPC and its seven A.T. maintaining clubs would host the 38th Biennial to be held in 2011. We were to follow the new draft Biennial Conference Manual dated 26 September 2007 although it had not been approved by the Board of Directors. ATC was expected to assume a much more active role in VJ 2011 by taking on registration, the website, sponsors, fundraising, volunteers, featured entertainment and program design.

The RPC discussed the tasking at its 13 October 2007 meeting and members agreed to research a list of possible colleges and resorts. It was decided to use the same format used for the 1999 conference in Radford, VA at which each of the clubs accepted the responsibilities for specific functions. RPC members and club presidents were directed to discuss the conference with their clubs and to determine which responsibilities each would be willing to accept. A request was also made to identify volunteers for the conference chair and Steering Committee members. It became clear very early that the Outdoor Club at Virginia Tech would be unable to assist or participate in VJ 2011 planning so we were left with six small clubs to do all the work.

At the RPC’s 29 March 2008 meeting, it was decided to visit Lynchburg College, Radford University, and Virginia Tech. A site selection committee was formed comprised of Ned Kuhns (TATC), David Helms (NBATC), Bill Hurlebaus (MRATC), Mac Taylor (ODATC), Laura Belleville (VARO). The RPC and club presidents were again asked to determine which responsibilities their clubs would accept and to solicit committee members. Each club was asked to nominate a conference chairperson.

At the RPC’s 11 October 2008 meeting, it was reported that none of the three colleges visited were found suitable for various reasons. Royce Gibson became the designated ATC point of contact and the committee expanded its search to Washington & Lee College/VMI and Emory & Henry College. The club responsibilities were initially agreed to subject to changes based on the site selected. Since there were no volunteers as the conference chair, as the RPC chair, Ned reluctantly accepted the position. David Helms and Bill Hurlebaus agreed to represent their clubs on the Steering Committee with a final organization to be determined at the April 2009 RPC meeting.

After visiting all the possible site locations, Emory & Henry College (E&HC) was selected. Although we did not want to have the conference over the 4th of July weekend, the dates of 1 – 8 July 2011 were the only ones available and had to be agreed to. E&HC appointed Ms. Angie Werth to be their liaison and point of contact with the Steering Committee. A contract to reserve the college was signed in late January 2009 by ATC. This enabled the development of a conference logo, the printing of a publicity handout and the development of a video for use at Vermont 2009, ATC’s 37th Biennial Conference.

While the site selection was on-going, the Steering Committee and club assignments were finalized. They were:

Conference Chair: Ned Kuhns (TATC)

Co-Chair & Finance:David helms (NBATC)

Registration & Website:Royce Gibson (ATC)

Sponsors & Fund Raising:Royce Gibson (ATC)

Featured Entertainment:Laura Belleville (ATC)

Volunteer Management:Jeanne Mahoney (ATC)

Registration Packets:Sue Kropp (ODATC)

Exhibits:Sue Kropp (ODATC)

Information/Hospitality:Sue Kropp (ODATC)

Signs:Mark Wenger (TATC)

Publicity:Rosanne Scott (TATC)

Workshops:Ned Kuhns (TATC)

Hikes:Pat Egan (NBATC)

Excursions:John Miller (RATC)

Tee Shirts & Badge HoldersChris Bracknell (PATH)

Local Entertainment:Chris Bracknell (PATH)

Trail Work Trips:Bill Boudman (PATH)

Site Liaison & FacilitiesBill Hurlebaus (MRATC)

Housing, Camping & Meals:Bill Hurlebaus (MRATC)

Program & Publications:Ned Kuhns (TATC)

David Helms (NBATC)

Advisor:Mac Taylor (ODATC)

Several of these assignments changed over time, such as Sue Kropp finding other club members to take on the Exhibits and Information assignments. ATC contracted out the Featured Entertainment responsibility. Laura Belleville provided some initial assistance on Workshops.

We encouraged all Steering Committee members to attend the Vermont 2009 conference to observe how the various functions were handled. Several attended and obtained many good ideas which we later put into practice. Ned and David prepared a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between ATC and the RPC which we discussed with Steve Paradis and Royce Gibson of ATC to begin resolving some contentious issues, particularly ATC’s new involvement, participation in meetings, and financial arrangements (profits split) since all transactions had to be run through ATC’s accounts. Signing the MOU was delayed while ATC calculated a fair and reasonable expense amount for ATC staff time and travel connected with their new responsibilities.

Since the six active Virginia clubs and ATC are widely separated throughout the state, to save money it was decided the Steering Committee would communicate through e-mails, monthly phone conference calls and four semi-annual in-person meetings. Ned and David used SKYPE nearly every day and the monthly conference calls were also made using SKYPE. The service to call other computers was free of charge. We purchased SKYPE credits to allow us to also call individual phones for those chairs not having access to a computer.

The first Steering Committee meeting was held at E&HC on 8 August 2009 in order for all members to meet each other and to see the campus facilities. We reviewed each assignment area to generate ideas and identify any major problems anticipated. An initial event timeline was proposed and agreed to. To reduce travel costs, we agreed to schedule the in-person meetings with the semi-annual RPC meetings since many of the group had to attend both.

We returned to E&HC on 17 October 2009 for a second meeting to receive updates from the committees and to resolve a number of facility issues related to workshops, housing, camping, registration, and entertainment options in order to develop an Agreement with the college as to facility and services costs. We felt this was a much better plan than to pay individually for assistance items that might be needed.

In October, we submitted a 2010 budget to ATC in the amount of $4,000 for initial expenses including a commitment to Cvent for development of a registration program. Ned visited the Cvent offices in Tyson’s Corner, VA to meet the developers. We determined that the assignment of dorm rooms would have to be done off-line. David wrote an Access program to do this based on Cvent data. Since ATC will issue the contract with Cvent, Royce insisted on being the sole contact point with Cvent.See Lessons Learned.

Monthly conference calls using Skype were held from November 2009 thru March 2010. We settled on the VJ 2011 logo to which ATC’s graphics designer helped put the final touches. It was decided to hold the ATC membership Business Meeting on Sunday evening of the conference. That gave us an entire

extra day in which to hold workshops. A checking account was opened with the BB&T bank. We had two authorized signatories with David reconciling the account to ATC. We received a $10,000 donation from United Parcel Service (UPS) in 2009 and another $10,000 was received in June 2010 to be used for the conference.

One of the first major initiatives was ATC’s development of a website with two addresses (Virginia2011.org and .com) which linked to the VJ 2011 page which had been created on ATC’s website. Extensive use was made of the website to post information as it was developed on all functional areas. Articles announcing VJ 2011 were also written and submitted for each issue of AT JOURNEYS magazine from May-June 2010 thru July-August 2011.

It was decided to have the registration and exhibits area in one half of the King Center Gym with the other half being used for the Friday and Monday meetings since a very large auditorium was not available. This plan changed in April 2011 when we decided to use the entire gym for registration and exhibits with the meetings being held in a 300 person auditorium based on expected attendance based on previous conferences.

The next in-person meeting was held on 9 April 2010 in conjunction with the spring RPC meeting. Each of the functional areas wasdiscussed in detail, potential problems were identified and resolved where possible. Early registration will be from 1 March – 30 April 2011. On-line registrations cut-off dates were evaluated. We decided that, wherever possible, excursion participants would pay their own way at the site to avoid collecting fees in advance. Fees for three vendors had to be collected in advance. Colors and logo positions for both the conference and volunteerT-shirts were selected. It was decided to use ATC’s Volunteer Center database program developed by Jeanne Mahoney to recruit and manage the volunteers that will be needed by the conference.

Three of us visited E&HC on 12 May 2010 to verify the housing arrangements, determine the beds in each dorm/house, discuss menu preferences, and to resolve all items to be included in the Facilities and Services Fee. It was decided to house all the Steering Committee members in the closest air-conditioned dorm to the registration area. The conference would pay for their rooms on Thursday evening, the night before the conference. They could then move to whatever other lodging they preferred for the remainder of the week.

An Agreement with E&HC was negotiated with an $11,912 fee for the inclusive use of all facilities and services (less housing, camping and meals). Those three elements were priced separately. The Agreement was officially signed by ATC on 24 June 2010 and by E&HC on 2 July 2010.

Monthly conference calls using Skype were held from May thru August 2010. Committee chairs were asked to send their desired report formats to Royce so he could compare them with the standard Cvent reports. He expected to sign the contract with Cvent in August 2010 for a year’s period. Information was continually updated by all the committee chairs and issues were resolved as they arose.

In July after discussions with ATC concerning the conference profits split, Ned and David prepared a Biennial Conference Strategy White Paper regarding what type of expenses should be charged to the conference by either ATC or the host club(s), the methodology used to distribute the proceeds of the conference to the various parties, the registration fee to be charged, and the rotation plan for future conferences on an RPC basis. This Paper was sent to Bob Almand, Dave Startzell and Steve Paradis.

An MOU between ATC and the RPC was finalized and signed by ATC’s Chief Operating Office and the Conference Chair on 10 September 2010 after the incorporation of financial arrangements and the conference proceeds distribution.

The next in-person meeting was held on 1 October 2010 in Lexington, VA in conjunction with the autumn RPC meeting. All of the functional areas were updated; decisions were made on the camping, T-shirts, hikes, local entertainment, and registration packets. The new VJ 2011 Facebook page was introduced. There was still a lot of work to be done on obtaining sponsors and recruiting and recognizing volunteers.