July 23 Congress Planning Meeting Notes

July 23, 2011 Meeting Notes

DONE GM, B H Kim emphasized need for volunteers to help with follow-up regarding all details for the day of the Congress. This includes call backs to vendors, audio, speakers coordination, etc. At the July 30 meeting we will update the task list with names.

56 have signed up to RSVP for the Congress in just the first few days since the registration info was sent out. This is a good sign we will reach our 500 attendees.

City Department tables at Congress – Marlene Savage. Consensus is that all City Depts will be invited to participate with a table at the Congress.
Congress Funding Update – NCs are continuing to agendize and fund Congress expenses. An update on income and expenses to date and anticipated will be discussed at the July 30 meeting.
We have received offers to fund some expenses from non profits. Consensus is that organizations can sponsor and will be recognized in the program and acknowledgement and signage at the Congress. Mary Garcia is coordinating sponsors.
Finalize Food Menus, Costs – Jay Handel presented LA Spice proposal for handling all food at the Congress. They are already a City vendor and will include everything in their quote for 500. Consensus agreement that LA Spice will be the food vendor. Jay will finalize details and fine tune costs in time for July 30 meeting.
Workshop Sessions – Committee Report - Tony Wilkinson is continuing to write up the descriptions. We took a great deal of time going through each of the topics and reaffirming who’s organizing them and status reports. See Session Planner sheet.
Marketing the Congress – Nina Royal presented a draft press release for marketing the Congress. Also the distribution. We talked about asking nonprofits to re-distribute our notices. DONE e-blasts, etc. (see Marketing Plan below)
Cindy will continue to visit NC Alliances and NCs as she can. Anyone is welcome to join her or do the same around the City.
We talked briefly about getting more diversity involved in the Congress. Are we representing diverse community views in all sessions.

Next Meeting – July 30 at Glassell Park.

2011 Congress Marketing Plan -- as of 7/19/11

Save the Date – Change to simple flyer -- continue to use with updates.
This item to be used by Congress Volunteers, DONE staff, BONC, NC’s to promote the Congress to other NC board / committee members as well as stakeholders.

Weekly E-Blast – By Wednesday of each week Nina Royal will have the next paragraph ready to send to DONE for e-blast weekly. This same announcement will be mass distributed to various news media sources, Council offices, alliances, NCs to encourage their resending out to their lists.

Contact non profits who have benefitted from NCs financially. Ask them to help promote the Congress.

Contact the Center for non profit management. (Melvin at DONE will get contact info) to get word out for the Congress.

Volunteers working to plan the Congress. Divide up the City so we are making sure to visit each NC. Cindy is visiting several but we need more volunteers helping with these personal visits. Please let us know who you are or will be visiting?