Greater Orlando Chapter

MPI WEC July 29013
Chapter Leaders forum:

Breakfast with the new CEO, Phil Van Deventer, Cynthia D'Aoust, COO, and Senior Director Membership and Chapters, Brad Shanklin. 

The executives welcomed the Presidents of over 70+ chapters worldwide.  The message was loud and clear, after a year of talking, discussing and visiting our MPI local chapters, they have learned more of what we want out of our memberships.  Albiet, the chapters are as diverse as our own Orlando city.  Spread out, unique and each area has its own unique diverse set of members.  Like our own. 

Perception is 99% of acceptance.  What is your perception of your chapter?  I’ve found in my year as President Elect, that we, in our own back yard believe that we are “too supplier heavy” to do business with our chapter. – more on that later.

Our President and CEO stated very humbly how we as an organization has welcomed him with such gracious hospitality.  Traveling through the U.S., Europe and Mexico, he was able to understand the passion from each member chapter.

Cynthia D'Aoust and Brad Shanklin committed to the chapter leaders  their support to continue to have open dialogue, monthly conference calls and updated leader options on our www.mpiweb.org pages.    They continued with the opportunities to cross-utilize  the partnerships with other industry associations and  emphasized we are the leading brand for community partnerships (ie. GBTA, HSMAI, CLIA collaborations).

Then the chapter leaders came together for a general session that taught us how our personality skills play a role in our leadership, our business and our own personal relationships!  I do have to say 80% of the room was in the “romantic” category!  This explains why we love what we do!  But we need those experts, warriors and the masterminds to make our meetings exemplary!  This also applies for your board of directors!  Having a diverse board, with strengths and passion means a board of strategic and efficient thinkers.

• Reimagine, re think, and redesign – the chapter has to continue to evolve
• Membership Directory – 4 Florida chapters collaborated with the current contracted company on ways to improve the design, contact the members (or not how to), add value content, and update in an electronic way that would be good for all stakeholders (members, sponsors, and advertisers).
• “I want this……. In my neighborhood” Designed out of a idea to improve a demolished area of New Orleans after Katrina. – Your president and President elect vow to apply this idea to our neighborhood of GOAMPI members. Candy Chang – Keynote speaker.
• Magazine – designed by you for you… it’s back!! “The Meeting Professional” no more One+. Yea! As I read through this member friendly/centric publication, I felt more at home and connected, seeing friendly faces that have their story, their successes and their ideas on the pages of MY magazine. Awesome quick reads, friendly faces, and feature stories.
  • “A good company is an advertisement 24/7 for itself” quoted from Nolan Bushnell who was the CEO of the Atari Company in the 1970s who hired Steve Jobs. So I asked myself, “ How good are we as GOAMPI for our members” ??
• We received our tools to tell our story – the story of our image change – NO LONGER shall we be perceived in any other way than a ½ BILLION dollar local chapter that breaks down to the following:

1. Membership options – web usage of www.mpiweb.org all the benefits and how to search/connect for business
2. 2. Local education – 10 networking events 6 Educational luncheons 5 Coffee talks 4 special events and 2 annual conferences.
3. Connections – local opportunities to make new business or refer business to each other! 

With our re-launch of our image – I wanted to share with you how important your local chapter works on your behalf.  Below is the quantifying value of what and who we are as Greater Orlando chapter!

Out of our 371 members – 154 are Planners:

126 of them plan meetings in the South East

53 of them plan meetings at Convention centers

65 of them use convention hotels

74 plan annual conventions

80 of them have attendees of over 1000 but less than 3000

We have other stats that support small meetings, incentives, and other destinations used.