Memo

To:                   Carolina TESOL Board

From:               Pat Majors, Charleston Conference Chair

Date:                October 22, 2009

Re:                   Conference Report

We had a dedicated team working on the conference.  Yvonne Mitchell was both Program Chair and Program Book Chair.  She and Angela Cozart of the College of Charleston served as Co-Chairs, with Dr. Cozart coordinating everything that involved the college and chairing the Mainstream Teacher Strand.  Carter Curtice was Registration Chair, assisted by Shannon Cruz, who handled registrations for the Strand.  Countless others donated time to work registration and to help with sessions, including Teaching Fellows from the College of Charleston.  A successful conference requires many willing volunteers, and we are indebted to the many people who made the conference possible.

Carter’s database shows 550 registrants.  Approximately 15 people did not show and forfeited their registrations.  There were on-site registrations for which people paid $200. There were 84 participants at the Mainstream Teacher Strand, with a significant number traveling from North Carolina and areas of South Carolina that were not local.

The reason that there are two databases and that Wild Apricot was not accurate was that WA did not work properly in the beginning.  Lancie Affonso, a tech consultant, worked with Carter to

bring this into line.  This was the first time we used WA for online registration.

The decision to do registration “in-house” vs. hiring Western Carolina was to save money.  We felt that because of the time of year that the conference was held, we would be happy to have 350 participants, so we were pleasantly surprised by the 500+ number.  The pre-conference workshops were well attended.

By partnering with the College of Charleston, our printing was done by them at the College’s rate.  We did not have to pay for Physician’s Auditorium for Deborah Short’s Friday plenary.

We borrowed most of the AV equipment from the college, paying Lancie Affonso and an

Assistant to check out and return the equipment  and to troubleshoot tech problems on-site.

We also used the College’s catering for the Strand luncheon and used their facilities for the workshops.  Strand workshop presenters included Judy Cheatham, Connie Banks, Celina Anthony, Kathy Powell, Nancy Metzler, Christopher Hagy, and Jennifer Santora-Hagy.

We also used rooms at the College for some of the sessions on Saturday.  As the registration numbers rose, Yvonne Mitchell, the Program Chair and I made the decision to add more sessions, fearing that sessions at the hotels would be overcrowded.  This also gave more people the opportunity to present.  This was a hard call.  People were not willing to walk to the College, so those sessions were not as well attended as we would have liked.  However, we did not want people unable to attend sessions because they were full, either.

I was not reminded to give this report at the June meeting, and I was working with TESOL on the Academy at the time.  I apologize for the lateness of this report.  Larry has already provided financial statistics with respect to the conference.

Respectfully submitted,

Pat Majors, Chair