Successful Meetings - July 2008 - (Page 40)

Medical Meetings > Strong Medicine The event planning team for the first Chordoma Community Conference, from left to right: Amber D. Johnson, event manager with AD Edward Consulting; Keith Johnson, president of Celebration Cottage, printing, design, and fundraising support; Heather A. Lee Ph.D., SPHR, Chordoma Foundation Board member and CCC coordinator; Simone Sommer M.D., MPH, co-founder and president of Chordoma Foundation; Justin Straus, Chordoma Youth Network participant and chordoma survivor; Josh Sommer, co-founder of Chordoma Foundation and chordoma survivor; Mike McTaggart, MS Engineering Management, president of Novel Projects, Web design and development on board and with some NIH funding, worked with the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Bethesda, MD on the main meeting logistics, helping to arrange attendee travel, meeting room setups, and food and beverage requests. Vasquez also ran with several of the Sommers’ ideas, including a conference binder with slides, speaker information, and business card sleeves, and a cocktail reception that featured posters highlighting the current research work of various attendees. The Sommers also received a huge helping hand from the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, which has handled all three of the Chordoma Foundation’s events thus far. They “learned from our first event what our needs were and were able to revise things this year,” says Dr. Sommer, adding that the Marriott “also made every effort to accommodate the special needs of the patients that attended.” “There’s clearly a need for event planners to help nonprofit organizations do meetings.” —Dr. Simone Sommer specific advocacy organizations based in Washington, DC. “You can imagine all the requests I get and unfortunately there’s no way I can respond to everyone,” says Terry. There was something about Dr. Sommer, however, that made Terry think twice. “She was both persistent and compelling, and specifically interested in how to accelerate chordoma research,” Terry says. What she offered the Sommers was empathy (both of Terry’s kids have a rare disease—PXE, or pseudoxanthoma elasticum, which causes a degeneration of vision, skin texture, and the gastrointestinal system) and her personal planning experience. Having founded PXE International, Terry had assumed the planning mantle herself, arranging her own meetings and helping other raredisease groups plan their conferences A FIRST-HAND UNDERSTANDING Josh and his mother also took their case for a conference to Sharon Terry, president and CEO of the Genetic Alliance, a coalition of more than 600 disease- as well. That experience, in turn, served as a medical meeting template for what the Sommers hoped to accomplish. “I told Simone that she needed to get a group of scientists together who care about not all—but at least some— aspects of the disease, people who are not so invested in their own cause that they couldn’t grasp the larger agenda and what really matters,” Terry says. She also counseled a “less-is-more” philosophy. “The idea of thousand of attendees might sound great for another type of meeting,” she says, “but for a research group a small number of people—50-80—makes it a much more effective experience.” A good moderator would also prove critical to the meeting’s success. “You really need someone who’s not shy, not afraid to make mistakes, and who knows how to keep people on time and on point—I’ve seen that masterfully done,” says Terry. “Also, a good moderator will pause the meeting periodically to say, ‘Okay, here’s what I just heard you say—is that correct?’ And it’s critical that the moderator gets the 30,000-foot view of things because that view does focus and drive the tone and direction of the meeting.” JULY 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS 40 mimegasite.com http://mimegasite.com

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Successful Meetings - July 2008 Contents Editor's Note Industry Trends Suppliers Newsmakers On the Record Technology Newsmakers Calendar Planner Spotlight Management Matters Meetings Law Websites of the Month Mouth for Sale Pre-Event On Site Tools of the Trade Pre-Event Initial Success Strong Medicine Risky Business Places & Spaces Birmingham Kentucky Georgia & the Carolinas Hong Kong Melbourne Gurus

Successful Meetings - July 2008

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