9 Great Tips for Planning a Successful Meeting

# 9. Plan Ahead. Longer lead times maximize venue availability, increase attendance, and save costs. When selecting your meeting dates, avoid holidays.

# 8. Set a Clear Objective and Know Your Agenda. Let the objective of the meeting drive everything else. Plan your agenda early and build the meeting around it.

# 7. Develop a Timeline. Critical to identify the steps in the process to ensure success.

# 6. Communicate. Get your meeting on people’s calendars early. Consider sending a “Save the Date” email to ensure availability.

# 5. Location, Location, Location. Consider geographic locations with regard to the home destinations of attendees, and consider the immediate surroundings of the meeting venue. Also consider venue construction schedules.

# 4. Invite Enough. For meetings of external attendees, consider those who will be unable or uninterested in attending. Consider inviting in “waves” to fill your audience.

# 3. Lights, Camera... Your meeting objectives may not be met if attendees cannot see and/or hear your message. Make quality Audio/Visual a priority.

# 2. Minimize Changes. Changes can be expensive. Never change the arrival and departure parameters of a meeting if possible. For example, changing flights can add significant cost and increase the chances for misinformation and travel glitches.

# 1. Partner with Gray Consulting. When you put the right players in place, the entire team wins. Maximize everyone’s performance by positioning people to do what they do best. The cost savings are remarkable. Yes, it’s cheaper to work with a Meeting Planner than to work without one!

Four Ways to Keep Miles from Expiring

by Erica Silverstein, SmarterTravel.com Staff - September 21, 2007

Your miles are at risk of disappearing, and only you can keep them safe. Over the past few years, several major airlines have adjusted their mileage expiration policies, causing miles to disappear after just 18 to 24 months of inactivity. Many of these new rules apply retroactively, so you'll need to revive languishing accounts before the year's end.

If you don't have plans to fly in the next few months, don't panic. Here are four easy ways to extend the life of your miles without leaving home.

* Earn: Any type of mileage earning will keep your old miles (plus a few new ones) safe in your account. You can shop at a mileage mall, earn miles with your airline-affiliated credit card, sign up for phone or Internet service, eat out at a restaurant, and even get your clothes dry cleaned, as long as it's with a mileage-awarding partner company. Check your airline's web site for a full list of eligible partners.

* Burn: Draining your mileage account will also extend the life of any remaining miles. You can book an award ticket or use miles to buy goods or services through the airline. If you have no travel plans, look at sites such as redeemAAMiles or OnePass Online Auction for inspiration.

* Buy: If you can't think of a single thing you want and time is of the essence, you can always purchase miles. It's a pricey way to gain miles, but you will prevent your existing stash from disappearing. Check with your airline for mileage prices and minimum purchase amounts.

* Donate: Finally, you can extend the life of your miles while you make the world a better place. Most airlines allow frequent flyers to donate miles to specific charities, so others can travel to provide disaster relief, seek medical treatment, or join their families in times of need.

When I Travel for Business Meetings

I am always wondering how I can make my travel experience easier, and one of the keys is strategizing a way to move more quickly through airport security. The answer is in being prepared. How you ask? One way is to be aware of the top 5 items that can slow you down and the top 3 items that must be removed at the security check-point. See below for these tips.

Top 5 items that can slow you down:

1. Mobile Phones
2. PDA's
3. Keys
4. Large amounts of jewelry
5. Loose change

Top 3 items that must be removed when approaching the checkpoint:

1. Shoes
2. Jackets, Blazers, Outer Coats
3. Laptops

Frequent traveler questions include: “Should I lock my checked luggage?” The answer is “YES” by using TSA approved locks. See the following links for examples.

www.safeskieslocks.com
www.travelsentry.com

The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia…

If you’ve been in the meeting planning industry for very long, you probably have a few good “war stories” to tell. Here is one of ours…

We were managing a meeting of 225 top managers at a beautiful (yet remote) location. Arrival day had gone flawlessly and the managers from around the world reconnected during the Welcome Reception and were now snug in their beds with visions of General Session dancing in their heads…when a powerful thunderstorm ripped through the area. A sudden silence woke me and I strained to see the time. Panic swelled as I considered my sudden blindness – I knew my eyes were open, but not a speck of light could I see. As I stumbled out of bed to make my way to the phone on the desk, I noticed a crack of light shining beneath my guest room door from the hallway. Ah, ha! Just a breaker had gone out in my section of the hotel. Upon phoning the front desk to report the maintenance issue, the severity of the outage was explained…it was the whole hotel. Emergency power was lighting the corridors, front desk area, and kept the phone and fire systems functional. All very nice, but, I imagined a room full of delegates sitting in opening General Session illuminated by candles! Of course, the fire marshal may have been a bit disturbed by that plan. I woke each of my staff with a call to their room and explained the situation. The GCI staff arrived in the lobby by 4:45AM ready to brainstorm solutions. (Showering, dressing and makeup, were accomplished by propping the guest room door open to admit emergency light from the corridor.)

We met with the General Manager and other hotel staff to develop a plan. The GM learned from Georgia Power that the device damaged by the storm would not be replaced until late afternoon after it was flown in from out of state. By 5:15 AM, we woke our customer contact with a status report. Given the extra time it would take to get showered and dressed, we put a 6:00 AM wake-up call in for our entire group. By 5:30 AM our food & beverage lead met with Chef to determine the breakfast solution: cold foods not an issue. Portable barbecues would be set-up on the loading dock to prepare the hot foods. We were eating in the atrium with a glass roof, so enough daylight would eliminate the need for portable electrical lighting. When we learned that the newer Spa building received its power from a different line and still had power, we met with Engineering to outline a plan for getting adequate power from the Spa building into our G/S to power portable lighting, and enough production equipment to enable the show to go on. By 7:00 AM breakfast was ready to go; the bacon was crisp and the eggs fluffy and tasty. A 7:00 AM meeting with our customer confirmed our recommendation to adjust the timing of the agenda, begin 30 minutes later, as we had been able to rouse the owner of a local equipment rental company who would supply us with several generators – our contingency to the plan of getting power from the Spa building. We had frequent updates from Georgia Power, claiming they may have a repair sooner, and gratefully, the power was restored just before 8:00 AM. As though it was a routine morning, General Session kicked-off at 8:30 AM.

There are always lessons learned. I am thankful for my cheerful, responsible and pro-active colleagues at GCI, as well as the excellent reaction of the hotel staff. Quick thinking and a “can-do” attitude helped to manage the unexpected. During debrief, we determined that few meeting budgets would enable us to have stand-by generators ready every time, but that we would add the phone number of the nearest rental company to our planning resume.