Ok Gang,
Got contract from Lumiere Hotel and Casino in St Louis, MO. As mentioned earlier, it is located on the water front, that is the Mighty Mississippi River in donwtown St. Louis.
http://lumiereplace.com/home.aspxThe dates we have reserved are: March 18, 19 and 20, 2012. That is a Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
The purpose of this meetng is to formally organize the National Association of Bail Bond Investigators as a non profit 501(c)(?) industry advocacy trade group.
At the meeting we will:
1) Approve the Mission Statement, Code of Ethics and Bylaws
2) Elect the board of directors
3) Establish the membership dues
4) Set the annual meeting date or at least the time frame
5) Establish various committees
6) Set our first goals
7) ?????????
There are probably a few items I left off or haven't thought of that will need to be addressed. If anyone has other items that they think we will need to handle, please let me know.
Now, most actions will be delt with through one of the committees, so I am not going into all the fine details right now.
For those that have volunteered to help, please respond again so I can send you what ever information you will need to do your part. Let me know what you are interested in helping out on and I will put you with the others that want to work on that particular area of the organizing effort.
Ok, so here is the hotel particulars. The group room rate is $99 per night plus tax of 15% city tax.
We have a minimum food and beverage order of $1300 in order to get all our meeting space for free. If we have a Sunday reception, Monday lunch, Monday dinner and Tuesday lunch all together, we will meet that F/B minimum no problem.
We are required to have a liability insuarnce policy ( just in case Scott and Bill break something ). The audio and visual equipment is an extra cost.
When I added up all the costs based on a paid attendance of 50 people, the registration fee is going to have to be $150 each. It is more than the June Vegas meeting because at that meeting I did not add in the service charges and taxes, so I ate the difference.
The Boss was not too happy but, it was my mistake.
Anyway, we can maybe off set some of the cost if we can get sponsors or exhibitors. However that may be hard to do if we can't provide a large enough attendance to entice the sponsors or exhibitors to come.
The other issue is if we have exhibitors, we will have to make time for the attendees to talk with them.
Each attendee has to make their own hotel reservation. They must give the group code, G11307 and mention the NABBI to get the special rate.
To reserve a room, the telephone number is:
877-450-7711
The last day to get the discounted room rate is Saturday, March 3, 2012.
We are guaranteed 5 rooms for Saturday, March 17, 20 for Sun and 20 for Monday. That is the minimum we are guaranteed. Of course they will provide as many as we need as long as they have room for more.
Phill has offered to set up a website for the N.A.B.B.I. to use as the official site and for registration. That way we will not have any conflict or hard feelings from other bail related forums.
All the registration will be done through that site once it is up.
Got to go back to my day job for a bit right now. I will be back with more a later.