The following guidelines will help you to determine whether there is a feasible convention site in your area. It will also serve as a checklist of your responsibilities as the conference host.
Meeting Facilities
Host should arrange for:
Adequate lodging - preferably at one centrally located motel/hotel. Attendance at annual SPOOM meetings can run from 180 to 300+. A good average is about 225. Numbers are usually determined by location with the meetings on the east coast attracting larger groups.
Restaurant facilities in the immediate area of the meeting site.
Convention (motel) Headquarters should have following facilities available:
1) A hospitality room large enough for fifty or more attendees.
2) A room for the Board of Director's meeting. The board meeting is held on the Thursday evening before the conference. It is a dinner meeting beginning at 6:00 pm. Food can be provided by the hotel restaurant or ordered out and delivered. SPOOM picks up the cost.
3) A banquet room large enough for 250+ attendees.
Busses for Saturday mill tour.
Registration area/room.
Display area for photo contest, bulletin/swap board, show and tell with items or photos of items that cannot be identified, brochures from attendees and a vendors area.
Convention Programming
The annual meeting consists of the following components:
-Thursday - board meeting, registration for early arrivals
-Friday - registration, educational sessions or workshops, evening meal with entertainment or special visit to local attraction of interest
-Saturday - tour of local mills, evening banquet (Banquet can be held on Friday night if necessary for scheduling reasons.)
-Sunday - question and answer session with the board, tours of local mills for attendees to see on their own (This refers to any other local mills that were not on the Saturday tour. It would involve providing information to attendees on how to get there and making arrangements for the local mills to be open. This is optional based on the location of other mills and the willingness of owners to open them.)
-Pre or post meeting technical workshop (optional but encouraged)
Host should plan for an appropriate number of volunteers to help with details such as:
Setting up the arrangements for the motel, busses, banquet and other meals.
Setting up the Saturday mill tour, including meals along the way and guides for each bus.
Collecting brochures and information about local mills and other points of interest in the area for inclusion in the registration packet. It is helpful if this information is made available far enough in advance so attendees can plan their travel accordingly.
Collection of registration fees and mailing of convention packets. Convention packet should include a roster of the participants with their addresses.
Setting up educational sessions and/or workshops, Friday night activities and Sunday morning wrap-up sessions. Educational sessions and/or workshops that are held concurrently should be repeated several times so people have an opportunity to attend as many as possible. Suggestions for seminar speakers include recent millwright apprentices whose training has been partially funded by SPOOM, those within the Society who are actively engaged in restoration, preservation, interpretation, marketing, etc., and others who may offer insight (such as in photography or brochure development, for example).
Staffing the registration table, hospitality room and any other special programming.
Finding a speaker for the banquet. The costs of an honorarium for the speaker should be built into the registration fees. The banquet will also include short reports from board officers and the announcement of the awarding of grants for the year.
Organizing the photo contest including:
1) Collecting entries.
Arranging for their display and safety during meeting. If there are several slides entered,
arrangements should be made to show them during the banquet.
Arranging for judging. Prizes provided by SPOOM include first, second and third place
prizes for color, black and white and slides.
4) Arranging for dismantling of display and return of entries. (Entrants should either provide postage with entry or pick them up at end of meeting.)
Provide timely information to the editor of Old Mill News to publicize the meeting for the general membership and any other appropriate publicity helpful in promoting attendance.
Insurance
It is important for the conference host and all participating mill and event sites to be properly insured against accidents and possible liability (including food related problems) during the SPOOM conference. If this is an issue for one or more of the locations the conference attendees will be visiting, it is recommended that they contact a local independent insurance representative to obtain "event insurance" to protect themselves during the conference. It is up to the conference host to decide whether the cost of this temporary insurance should be factored into the registration fee for the conference.
Pre-Meeting Workshops
Membership in the Society for the Preservation of Old Mills can be roughly divided into two groups. There are people with a general interest in old mills that enjoy visiting them for nostalgia, to photograph or for other personal reasons and there are folks who are associated with a mill either by ownership or through their profession that have a need or desire for more in-depth knowledge about the process of milling, the restoration and preservation of mills and the associated equipment, the interpretation of mills to the public or the necessities of raising the revenues associated with maintaining a mill.
Since its inception the annual meeting has been very successful in providing an enjoyable experience for people in the first group mentioned above. More recently an attempt has been made to also address the latter.
One of the ways the Society has attempted to provide more in depth information for the "nuts and bolts" mill enthusiasts is through pre-meeting workshops. People interested in a more in-depth learning experience can plan a longer visit for the conference and folks who want to see area mills and visit with old friends can attend the shorter Friday through Sunday morning portion.
These workshops can occur at any time immediately before or after the main part of the conference (Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning). A separate registration fee paid by the participants should cover the cost of workshops. It is possible that they could even be planned and coordinated by someone other than the host and dovetailed into the meeting. This is a relatively new part of the conference planning process and creativity is encouraged. Please feel free to contact the conference coordinator of other SPOOM board members for help with ideas, contacts and planning of these workshops.
Publicity Deadlines and Suggestions
February 25th - Date and location to Old Mill News.
May 27th - Complete announcement of convention plans to Old Mill News including:
1) Dates of meeting
2) Location, including headquarters hotel and other important locations.
3) Meeting agenda with details about mills on Saturday tour.
4) Registration instruction with fees and address for submission.
Notification to other publications - Local newspapers, Society for Industrial Archeology, American Association for State and Local History, ALHFAM, and any other appropriate organizations with members who may be interested in attending.
Convention Finances
The designated host is responsible for planning a convention that is self-supporting. SPOOM will provide $1000 in seed money for expenses incurred in the early planning of the meeting. It is incumbent on the host to set the registration fee so all expenses are covered. If, through unforeseen circumstances, expenses exceed the amount recovered through the registration fees the seed money ($1000) would be used to cover the difference. The remainder of the original seed money up to the $1000 is to be returned to SPOOM. It is the intention of the SPOOM board that no financial burden ever be experienced by a hosting organization. For that reason, careful planning is stressed so that the registration fee can be set at an amount that will cover all expenses. A financial statement including revenues and expenditures incurred will need to be prepared and made available to the SPOOM board within ninety days of the close of the conference.
It is suggested that a reasonable registration deadline be set based on deadlines imposed on the host by bus companies and caterers for planning purposes. A late registration fee should then be levied to encourage participants to register in a timely matter. The deadline and late fee should be part of the announcements in Old Mill News and any other publicity about the meeting.
Some of the expenses that should be planned for include:
1) Name tags for all participants with distinguishing tags for conference hosting personnel, board members and any other presenters. Name tags should also include where the attendee is from and the name of the mill they are associated with if applicable.
2) Refreshments during registration, session breaks and on the bus during the Saturday mill tour.
3) Postage - Conference planning, registration packets, etc.
4) Telephone expenses
5) Office supplies used for mailings (e.g. paper, envelopes, etc.)
6) Tour busses for the mill tour - these can cost between $400 and $600 per bus.
7) Meals provided during conference including: Friday - Supper, Saturday – breakfast (optional), lunch and banquet, Sunday - breakfast (optional), and possibly a meal for the board depending on when the board meeting is scheduled. (This would be paid for by
SPOOM and not out of registration fees.
This is only meant to be a partial list. There will be other expenses that come up which are hard to anticipate.
Host Benefits
It is recognized that hosting the annual meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Old Mills is a considerable responsibility. There are many intangible rewards that are derived from a successful meeting. However, SPOOM would also like to offer some possibilities for fund raising to benefit the hosting institution. Some of these include but are not necessarily limited to:
Requiring a $30 per table registration fee for vendors intending to profit from the display or promotion of their products or services. Approval for the participation of vendors will be at the discretion of the host but it is hoped that products and services will be appropriate to the interests of SPOOM members.
An auction of items provided by members, local businesses, etc. either with a live auctioneer or through a silent auction.
A raffle of items donated by members or local businesses with tickets sold during the conference and a drawing at the banquet. This would be subject to laws in the host's locality.
Up to but not exceeding an additional $10 may be added to the registration fee for each participant. The total money collected will be set aside as a donation for any non-profit groups or organizations that are involved in hosting the meeting. In the case of more than one organization being involved with hosting the meeting, it will be at the discretion of the hosting committee to determine how the money is divided. Any funds collected in this manner will be considered a tax-deductible donation and a receipt for the amount will be included in each registration package.
Again, these are just suggestions. Other avenues of generating revenue could be explored with the SPOOM meeting coordinator and board.
Suggestions From Recent Meetings
Following are some comments and suggestions received from recent meetings.
Put a swap board up at the meeting for milling tools, equipment and any other related "stuff". This can even be followed up with a "mill parts clearing house" database maintained by someone in SPOOM.
SPOOM member Gordon Callison offered to help with a drawing to be used for fund raising.
An attempt is being made to provide some pre-meeting workshops on more technical or in depth subjects related to mills. Subjects could include restoration of mills or related equipment, operating a mill commercially or as a tourist attraction, issues with insurance and liability, etc. Another recent suggestion was a workshop on timber framing. Elder Hostel was suggested as a source for classes also.
Have slides that are entered in the photo contest put on videotape and shown in at format to avoid degradation of the original images.
A vendor room needs to be communicated to the group and to potential vendors far enough in advance for success. It was also suggested that commercial vendors be charged a fee for participation in the conference and that we are selective about the vendors chosen.
A suggestion was made to provide more information about the area to people during the bus tour but to also allow plenty of time for participants to visit with each other. Traveling between mills on the bus is a time when many people get to know each other and have the opportunity to network. Another suggestion was to encourage people to change seats on the bus in between stops.
It was also suggested that maps of the tour route be provided for people who choose to drive their own vehicle during the tour provided that extra vehicles are desirable. (Dependent on the availability of parking at the various stops during the tour.)
The Sunday morning wrap up session should be scheduled early (8:00 or 9:00 am) so people will be more likely to come and still have plenty of time to devote to their return home. This will also make it easier to have more of the board members present for questions and issues.
Board members and organization staff should be seated among the regular members at the banquet (as opposed to at a head table) to promote more interaction with the membership.
Conclusions
There are many things to be considered when planning the meeting. It will require much time and effort on the part of the host but is also a very rewarding experience. The annual conference for the Society for the Preservation of Old Mills brings together a wonderful group of people with diverse and varied interests in mills and a great deal of knowledge to share. Along with the Old Mill News, the annual meeting is the primary tool for SPOOM to carry out its mission. The officers and directors of SPOOM and specifically the conference coordinator will do all they can to assist the host in making the meeting a successful one.