Lessons Learned: Successes

- Program and logistical planning started early and involved a committed team of competent people with a variety of skills.

- Early and frequent conference announcements effectively recruited participants.

- A simple scholarship policy was easy to implement (registration fee waiver only).

- Hiring out specific tasks (beyond the conference committee) to experienced people worked well for: local food procurement and menu planning; conference registration management; on-site audio-visual set up and trouble-shooting.

- Renting laptops and bringing LCD projectors from planning committee departments while using the hotel provider only for screens, microphones, tables and necessary cabling saved significant audio-visual rental fees.

- Careful review of the hotel contract, pre-conference room plans, and post-conference billing by several members of the planning committee helped avoid errors.

- Scheduling the conference during a Red Sox / Yankees championship playoff series provided excellent evening entertainment and abundant fodder for keynote speakers.

Suggestions: for Improvement

- The hotel room reservation service was not always easy to use – the national 800 number did recognize our conference group, and even calling the local number there was some confusion. Clarifying these arrangements ahead of time with the hotel might help.

- On-site bus tour registration was somewhat hectic. Pre-registering people for the tours so they did not have to pick up registration materials on site would speed the process.

- A lot of requests for satellite meetings and activities were made after hotel meeting rooms had been reserved. Anticipating these additional needs would avoid room conflicts or meeting space shortages.

- Bus tour guides were not equally prepared to lead the tour and manage the farm visit. Better selection of guides and additional pre-tour preparation would help.

- Workshop moderators were assigned to contact and coach the presenters in their sessions as well as introduce them and facilitate the discussion. Despite written instructions, not all moderators were equally prepared or involved. Perhaps having fewer, better-compensated moderators (managing an entire track of 5 workshops) would help. Then there would be fewer people for the coordinator to try and manage.

- There were a variety of reimbursement policies, depending on people’s role at the conference (workshop presenters, committee members, farmer poster presenters, etc.) Having a unified policy as much as possible would simplify post-conference expense reimbursement.

- Audio-visual equipment for presentations should be available on-site and presenters required to bring their talks on CD rather than their laptop computers or other devices.That will avoid problems with incompatibility; otherwise preparations need to made to accommodate both Macs and LCDs as well as all types of data storage devices.

- Name tags need to use large size print to be easier to read.

- The hotel contract should specify 6 inches between seats, especially in smaller meeting rooms, to minimize empty seats between people.

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