MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING Notes
August 19, 2019
Attendees: Kevin, Ipek, Ron, Ned, Justine, Dana, Patrick, Josh, Colleen, Sara, Mary, Ashley, Mandy
Agenda:
2019 Conference (Dana)
Abstract acceptance status notifications
Abstract review and conference program
Student paper competition
MAPOR annual conference fees
Anything else?
Abstract notification sent this weekend. 3 rejected, 105 accepted. 13 posters. There may be one methodological brief session. TBD. The conference committee will make final determinations soon.
Dana expects that the length will give each speaker 12 minutes per session – we will have speakers for sessions with less papers. Dana feels like the sections we have now are sensible and group well together. We may end up moving a few around, we will discuss during the in-person meeting next month.
The student paper competition notices have been sent. These are due next month and Dana is in contact with those students to be sure they are ready for the paper deadlines.
Fees – Conference fees last year were $125 general, $100 for early bird. Students $75 or $50 for early bird. Short course $50. $40 network lunch, $15 lunch for students. Ipek feels that unless something drastic occurs we should keep costs flat. Ned – AAPOR has tried to keep conference flees flat as well. Kevin feels that in general our costs will be flat and therefore we do not need to increase fees. The only additional costs for this year will be for the MAPOR banners and tablecloth that needed to be purchased for the new logo. We will have costs for an in-person meeting this year as well, although the costs for this year will be lower than many in-person meetings as a majority of EC members are already in Chicago.
Dana has tried to balance sessions but we have the ability to use 5 rooms concurrently this year. There is only one room that we will block for a session because we need time to turn over the room after the short-course. This was based on a request from members to have a classroom style layout for the room for the short-course.
Email from MAPOR Fellows regarding an “in memoriam” session at the annual conference (All)
(See attached)
Two fellows have passed away this year. Both were very active and significant MAPOR members. Fellows have asked to have a time to recognize John Loft and George Bishop during our conference.
Council suggested a few ideas that might work, given that it is already too late to add another session to the conference. Coffee break? Poster as memorial to members who have passed?
We don’t want to have one person overshadowed by others who are memorialized. The issue council is facing is trying to be consistent with memorializing members.
Council agrees that for this year, having a space available during the coffee break will allow members to talk about past members. It is also important that any type of memorial should be voluntary – that all members should not be required to attend – for example if we had it during the keynote or other all-member event.
Going forward, we will have an ‘in memoriam’ session that is blocked every year for members to be able to speak about past colleagues. We know there are many past MAPOR members who pass away every year, this gives all members the opportunity to speak about any person in the field who passed away. MAPOR is an organization of members, it is not composed of just past MAPOR presidents or fellows.
Ipek will reach out to fellows and let them know of these decisions. We will need to dedicate a little more time to finalizing the logistics of this. More discussion at in-person meeting for guidelines.
Treasurer’s Report (Kevin)
Budget updates
Getting back the MAPOR banner from AAPOR
CVENT “Onsite Premium” software
Transitioning the management of collecting funds from our third party vendors to CVENT (one-stop shop)
Checking: $24,370
Savings: $45,021
Checking has gone up because we are bringing in money from Sponsorship.
Kevin sent another reminder email to Yvonne about the banner. Received an out-of-office email saying she will return this Wednesday.
Kevin went to a demonstration of CVENT’s “Onsite Premium” software at McCormick place last week. The software offers an integrated way for the Secretary Treasurer to handle the registration, sign-in, and badging of conference attendees. Software also includes the ability to have a conference application and would allow us to ultimately remove a paper conference program. The software is very sharp and reduces burden for the Sec/Treas. Although it comes at a price. The cost would be an additional $2,300 per year. Our current cost for CVENT is about $1,300 annually (Our contract is for $1,000 for 200 persons and we pay a per-person amount for beyond 200 registrants.). It is possible that we could use this software for one year and then not re-use for the next to see how it goes. We can postpone this decision until after the in-person meeting. Kevin will provide a pros and cons at the next meeting and we will make a decision at that time.
Transitioning of payment services to CVENT. CVENT could handle the processing of our payments so that we could eliminate the need to use iPayment and authorize.net. However, Kevin has run preliminary calculations and it seems that continuing with what we have is the least expensive method. Kevin will utilize the figures sent to him from CVENT and determine what is most cost effective. The decision to go forward with this change should be driven by one question – would the new method (using CVENT’s Payment Services vs iPayment and authorize.net in conjunction with CVENT) be less expensive for us overall?
Communications (Justine)
Plans on upcoming social media postings/communication w/ members
Next newsletter content and due dates
Justine and Ipek will meet soon to discuss what we want to put out in upcoming communications to members. Justine is putting together scheduled communications that convey information on the conference. If Council has any other information they would like to convey, please speak with Justine.
Ipek suggests putting together something to publicize benefits to sponsors.
Sponsorship (Allison)
Allison requested that EC members think about any other leads for sponsorship and send those to her. She is working on the current sponsors and following up with them. Ron is going to put out some information to other listservs to see if we can recruit any other sponsors.
Executive Council Face-to-Face Meeting (Ipek)
Date & Time: September 16, 2019 (Monday), 9:00am to 3:00pm
Location: NORC’s downtown office (55 East Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60603)
Travel Plans and RSVPs
Ipek will send out an email with logistics and an agenda soon. Follow-up with Ipek if you have any suggestions for agenda items.
Webinar Plans (Ipek/Patrick)
Patrick following up with NORC folks to have a data visualization webinar in October. It looks like this is going to happen.
Patrick has another lead, Rebecca Powell, about a webinar in R. Patrick will talk with her about conducting this in the spring of 2020. This was fall to the next webinar coordinator.
Ned asks what Patrick feels is the optimal number of webinars per year. Patrick believes that 2 webinars a year seems like a reasonable amount.
Patrick is rotating off the council in the fall and we will need to think about who might be the next in line to be the webinar coordinator. (In the past, MAPOR council has offered this to persons who were in ‘at large’ council member positions.)
Election and Executive Council Input on Nominations (Ipek)
Call for nominations will go out soon to members
Potential Council and Fellow Candidates List from past years and the nominations so far from this year. Please include your nominations (if any): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_qeEYjY2nqwVzMFohy7LCPU598xdnNhFL6DTbMrniXg/edit#gid=1
The current list is available on the Google drive if any members want to nominate others for positions. Ipek will send the communication to Kevin about a call for nominations from members. This will go out this week or next.