Metro Toronto Convention Centre® and Tourism Toronto 87 www.seetorontonow.com /meetingplanners
Ocean Place www.oceanplace.com Comments continued from page 8 Years ago, before Iwent out onmy
own, the company Iworked for gave away the usual pens, portfolios, etc. I suggestedwe do charitable donations. They started doing that. Fast-forward to summer 2011. I’mspeaking at one of their conferences, and inmy letter of agreement, Iwas told I’d be having a donationmade in lieu of a speaker gift. I calledmy contact and asked howlong they’d been doing this. She’s been there five years and they always have. I told her I started it; it’s nice to see something like this continue. It’s somethingwe set up for all our
clients—speaker gifts are a donation to the association-chosen charity, andwe raise funds at the conference. So far it
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hasn’t amounted to a zillion dollars, but every little bit helps.Last year, for a golf conference,we raised $1,000. For a local boys and girls golf tournament in Windsor, thiswas 30 percent of the budget!And it got some PRfor the con- ference.We all can do a little bit. SandyBiback,CMP,CMM Founder Imagination+Meeting Planners
July: Cover to Cover
RARELYDOICOMEACROSSA magazine that I read cover to cover, and your July 2011 issuewas excellent! I enjoyed the Starbucks article (“Coffee Klatch”) and “‘ChooseDiscomfortOver
pcma convene September 2011
Resentment,’” in Plenary. I have contact- ed SongDivision, featured in Innovative Meetings, to giveme a quote for our 2012Annual SalesMeeting.Our organ- izers are bothmusicians, and love to incorporate song into thesemeetings. I aman artistwhen I amnotworking
atRBCInsurance, and theLeading Learning article “StretchingYourCre- ativeCapacity” really hit home forme. And the People&Processes article “ContentMarketing: Friend or Foe?” is a classic strategywe use,where our top sales reps have this as a value proposi- tion that they usewith their insurance brokers. Sandy Simmelink Distribution Coordinator RBC Insurance