The Darwin Convention Centre was awarded winner of the Meeting Venue – 500 delegates or more category at the 2017 National Meetings & Events Australia (MEA) Industry Awards. The awards ceremony took place on May 8 at the Adelaide Convention Centre, where the industry’s leading businesses and individuals were competing for recognition across 28 categories.

The Meeting Venue – 500 delegates or more category was judged on across a range of business criteria and the year in review, including their impact on

the meetings and events industry as a whole. The judging panel comprises a cross section of industry experts, selected for their knowledge and experience. The national winner is determined by the final highest score in that category.

The Darwin Convention Centre competed with other convention centres around Australia to take out the award, including ICC Sydney, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, Adelaide Convention Centre, and Brisbane Exhibition and Convention Centre.

Janet Hamilton, Darwin Convention Centre general manager, said, “Our passion is always to showcase the Darwin Convention Centre as a world-class venue with outstanding dining experiences and exceptional service. The team at the Darwin Convention Centre are like a family; we all work very closely together to ensure all our clients have an amazing experience. Everyone at the centre has contributed to winning this award.”

The award was accepted by Darwin Convention Centre Event Planner Madeliene Van Eerden, who was awarded the 2017 Northern Territory MEA Ungerboeck Young Professional Scholarship.

Meeting & Events Australia is a national, independent not for profit organisation dedicated to servicing the needs of the meetings & events industry and promoting professionalism and excellence in all aspects of meetings and event management. It also promotes the value and effectiveness of meetings and events as an important high-yield sector of business travel and tourism.

The iCommit member referral campaign launched mid-February. There are just 7 weeks left to reach our goal – June 30!

With your support, we have now added 44 new members due to your recommendations (the last update shared was March 15, the referral count was 13 new members).

For each new member you refer, your name will be entered in a raffle to win great prizes! The current leaderboard is shown below:

• Mount Allen, CVE – 15  – new group members
• Jason Beckett – 1 – new allied
• Alexis Berggren – 8 – new group member
• Sara Blayne – 1 – new professional 
• Kathryn Carlson, CVP – 1- new young professional
• Shannon Caudill – 1 – new professional
• Kenny Gaudinez, CVP – 1 – new student
• Troy Hoberg – 1 – new allied
• Dwight Johnson – 1 – new young professional
• Bryan Jones – 1 – new professional
• Billy Langenstein – 1 – new young professional
• Robert Olson – 1 – new professional
• Andy Pate – 1 – new professional
• Patrick Rice – 1 – new professional
• Chris Sanders – 1 – new professional
• Timothy Savona – 1 – new young professional
• John Siehl, CVE – 1 – new professional
• Kevin Spence, CVE – 1 – new student
• Jay Thomas, CVE-  1 – new student 
• Beth Wade, CVE – 1 – new young professional
• Jessica Wickey – 1 new student
• Russ Simons – 1 professional 
• Jennifer Norris – 1 professional

 

Do you have interns, students or young professionals working for you now? Is there a long-time employee who hasn’t gotten involved yet? Encourage them to become a part of our network.

If you know of a venue in your community that is not a part of IAVM, encourage them to consider Group Membership. As of today, 157 venues are participating as group members.

Do you have a vendor that is not an Allied Member? Urge them to join now and experience all that membership has to offer!

To ensure you are eligible to win one of the prizes, ask your new member to do the following:

• List your name in the Application Section titled, “Who Recommended IAVM To You/How Did You Hear About IAVM?”
• Enter “iCommit” in the Promotional Code field in the online membership application
• For new Professional or Allied members only, the $150 one-time initiation fee will be waived

 

Prizes

• The grand prize will be a complimentary registration to VenueConnect 2019 (value up to $1,000).
• Win one of five, $500 Apple Gift cards
•  The IAVM Region that adds the most new members will have one CVP application fee waived (value $125)

 

We will continue to share monthly updates as we strive to meet our goal of adding 550 new members. It’s a lofty goal but we can do it! The campaign ends June 30, 2018.

 

Dasha Kelly gets the performing arts world. She totally understands what it takes for those venues to become “satellites for transformation” to become fresh, energetic, and, perhaps most important, relevant.

“For the past 20 years, I have existed in the performing arts world as an artist, producer, venue owner, convener, advocate, facilitator, and community liaison,” said Kelly, founder of her own non-profit that creates training experience for young teaching artists. “In all of these roles, I found the richest experiences at the intersections of intention and exploration. As an independent performer and founder of an arts non-profit, I understand the distances an organization can travel between mission and impact. As a creative change agent, l leverage the creative process to broker conversations, refresh perspective, and celebrate triumphs along the way.

Expect to be a part of those triumphs at Kelly presents at the Performing Arts track at VenueConnect in Toronto on July 24 from 9:15 – 10:15 am Eastern time.

Kelly is known for using her words and arts as tools for building inspiration and community. Her work has taken her throughout the United States, Canada, Botswana, Beirut, and Mauritius, a diverse mixture of peoples and culture if there ever was one. Words are her strength, as evidences by twice being named a finalist as Poet Laureate for the state of Wisconsin. That said, Kelly knows that words can only go so far and that action at some point is required. Just what action and takeaways does she have in mind for those attending her session?

“My goal will be to widen organizational and individual approaches to ‘possible,'” she said. “Specifically, I will offer core concepts for reframing scopes of influence to build partnerships, programs, and public impact.”

As Kelly prepares for VenueConnect, she has enjoyed some deeper learning experiences about the public assembly venue industry that will come in handy in Toronto.

“I’m reminded of the countless ‘unseen universes’ that pulse all around us,” Kelly said. “I was struck most by certifications for venue management and executives. It’s impressive to see executive leadership leading with accountability to continued education. I also find myself curious about how the various venue types may find ways to network and share knowledge.”

Kelly also understands the empowerment of women throughout all scopes of life and has been honored as such in being selected with Michelle Obama, Justice Sonia Sotomayer, Kathleen Turner, Chief Theresa Kachandamoto, and 15 other women from around the world to have award-winning composers create each of the women a song with lyrics from their of our life. The music debuted at the Washington Gallery of Art and San Jose Hammer Theater.

This has to fall in the category of “They don’t make ’em like they used to.”

Phil Coyne, 99-years-young and an usher for Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games since 1936, decided it was time to hang up the ushering cleats, citing a recent fall and some balance issues. As if Mr. Coyne needed to cite a reason after his decades of longevity.

Coyne’s 82-year run as an usher for the Bucs began in 1936 at the old Forbes Field and continued through the team’s move to Three Rivers Stadium and finally PNC Park. Coyne was honored with a ceremony before a game against St. Louis on April 27 and has already indicated that he plans to be among friends and family at a game next year to celebrate his 100th birthday.

The team released a statement attributed to team president Frank Coonelly that read: “Legends never really retire. Having worked his first Pirates game at the age of 18 in 1936, Phil remains number one on our organizational seniority list and will always have a place on our team. If Phil has indeed worked his last Pirates game, he has served our fans with incredible grace and distinction and he certainly has earned the right to watch Pirates games with his feet up from the comfort of his easy chair. We very much look forward to April 27, when Phil and nearly 200 of his family and friends will be our guests as we celebrate Phil’s 100th birthday during a special pre-game ceremony.”

Well done, Mr. Coyne. Well done.

Claude Molinari, general manager of SMG/Cobo Center, announced the Cobo Center operations team have taken janitorial services in-house. The new department was created just prior to the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) and is headed by Cedric Turnbore, Cobo Center director of operations.

In the March 2018 edition of Meetings and Conventions Magazine a study by STR, the Hendersonville, Tenn.-based research firm, was cited ranking venue characteristics that event planners considered “very important” when selecting a meeting site. The study states that security is planners’ top priority (85 percent) and venue cleanliness and attractiveness second (80 percent).

“We take our mission to make each event in Cobo Center the most important event of the year very seriously,” Turnbore said. “We are vigilant in understanding our customer needs, and developing our operations accordingly.”

SMG directors from across the country, who are well acquainted with convention center housekeeping operations, came to Cobo Center to assist during NAIAS. Working closely with the Cobo crew in the new housekeeping department, the SMG directors advised and mentored daily.

“Our biggest show of the year proved to be the best launch period for new department,” Molinari said. “The SMG executives were integral to the process of reviewing daily progress, solving problems immediately, and improving processes.”

Traditionally, with cleaning company vendors in convention centers, the process of reporting problems to housekeeping and getting them corrected meant having the problems documented by two different companies, often with two different sets of protocols and procedures. One of the greatest efficiencies created is having Cobo Center security work cooperatively with housekeeping to identify problems for immediate response and correction. Cobo Security supervisors take pictures of cleaning problems, texts them to dispatch, who distributes them to housekeeping supervisors on duty.

Another efficiency achieved is the synergy between Cobo Center housekeeping and production services departments. There are now three supervisors from each department overseeing the work of both departments. Three original production services supervisors were given promotions and additional compensation to form the alliance, and all six supervisors are trained to assure high-level communication between departments and that event set-ups are timely and well presented.

“With housekeeping reports now on the agenda of all of our internal meetings, response time has been dramatically reduced and most of the work is proactive,” Turnbore said. “Daily supervised maintenance takes the place of trouble calls and work orders.”

Part of the mission of the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority (DRCFA), the governing body of Cobo Center, is to maximize positive economic impact, creating region-wide jobs and expanding business opportunities for the benefit of business stakeholders and the local community.

“Creating as many full time, viable careers for local Detroit residents in our operations team is important to us. We’ve hired 38 full-time people for our housekeeping department,” Molinari said. “Cobo Center is an economic engine for the Metro Detroit region. Every department sets goals to accomplish just that.”