Why to go green at home and for your meetings?  Come hear ideas and suggestions on how to have greener meetings and a greener life. We will focus on key items that make a big impact as well as provide resources. Learn about the steps facilities have taken to make themselves greener.
Learn what you can and can’t ask a facility to provide for your conference in order to be environmentally friendly.   Hear ideas about what you can do in your personal life to make a difference and help preserve our environment. 

Rumors run rampant about what the federal government can and cannot do when it comes to food and beverage and contracts.  Dispel all of the rumors and learn the facts!

This session gives real answers on how to successfully do business with the Federal government in an ethical way.  Strategies and solutions regarding food and beverage, proposals, contacts and negotiations as well as attrition, cancellation, industry standards and ethics are covered.  Appropriated funds and non-appropriated funds are discussed.  Everything one needs to know to successfully work with a federal agency is covered.  The participant will know which gifts are acceptable and which are not.  This course includes material from the CGMP course that SGMP offers.  It is a must for anyone who plans meetings for the government or provides services to a government planner or a third party who plans meetings for the federal government. 

Ron Stephens, CHME, Director of Sales & Marketing, Twin City Quarter »BIO

SGMP is the perfect organization to assist government meeting planners with planning more cost-effective government meetings.  Could your meeting planning skills or tools need a little updating?  Learn how earning the CGMP certification can help you be more professional as a planner or supplier.

This session will instruct the government planner how to build an RFP or Request for Proposal, how to be creative with food and beverage, and how to do an effective site inspection.  The supplier or sales person will learn how to assist government planners with selecting food and beverage, what government planners look for during a site inspection, and how to provide the type of service that will make the government planner see the supplier as an asset and not just a sales person.

Think of how successful your chapter would be if all of the members shared the same vision for the chapter and worked as a well-oiled machine, worked as a team!

Any chain is only as strong as its weakest link and an organization is only as strong as its weakest chapter.  Lean how members working as a team in your chapter and chapters working together as a team can strengthen your chapter and SGMP as an organization.  Learn what makes a winning team makes a winning chapter.

You may have been asked to plan your first meeting.  What do you do and when?

Learn what tasks the meeting planner must perform to plan a successful meeting and the timeline for completing all of the tasks.  What should be done twelve months out; six months out; four months out; etc.   Learn exactly what tasks must be completed and when they should be completed.  This session is essential for the beginning meeting planner and a great review for the seasoned planner.  Sometimes things fall through the cracks when meetings are being planned because there is no timeline in writing. Suppliers and hotel sales persons will learn exactly what tasks the meeting planner must complete and how they may work with the planner to make the meeting a success.

We are constantly planning meetings or attending meetings.  What if we could make meetings more effective for the planner as well as the participants?

This session gives the definition of a meeting and the questions one should ask prior to planning a meeting.  Common meeting problems are shared and ways to solve the problems.  Tips on how to deal with difficult meeting participants are communicated.  Individual behavior styles are discussed. The participant will learn how to plan and lead effective meetings. After attending this session, the participant should be much more confident when asked to plan their next meeting.