Conference Details
Field TripsWe have designed numerous field trips that directly address your team specialization and will provide information and knowledge from a different perspective. Your field trip will be stated on your personal agenda that will be mailed next week. Most field trips do require some walking – whether it be walking through a barn or a high tech manufacturer. We suggest that you wear comfortable, business casual clothing and have comfortable shoes.
Group Contests
Everyone has been assigned to a Team – but some teams will need to be broken into groups. During the conference each group will have the opportunity to accumulate points. For instance, we will be having mini trivia contests during meals where you will answer questions as a group. There will be prizes of unspeakable value awarded to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams.
Dress Code
Staff are expected to dress in business casual apparel (collared shirts, no blue jeans) for most events.
There will be two banquets this year. The Client Award Banquet is on Tuesday evening and the Staff Award Banquet on Wednesday evening. Both are coat and tie events, but if you have to choose which banquet gets the fancy coat and tie remember that the Client Awards will have many guests attending.
Hiking and Zumba
We have two morning activities that you may be interested in:
Advisory Board Member Loretta Kaminsky will be teaching a morning Zumba Class in the hotel gym at 6:15.
Advisor Scott Miller will be leading morning hikes to Ithaca’s gorgeous gorges. He has put together three hikes and will have maps, directions and information packets available. Contact Scott at ScottMiller@mail.sunyjcc.edu for more information and times.
Each hike or Zumba class will earn your team points and if you can get your whole team to participate we will double the points earned!
Do we have any Free Time?
We have scheduled events (the field trips and the Finger Lakes Beverage Reception) that will take up a lot of time during the day, so free-time has been limited. We do believe that the field trips, which are scheduled to end at 5:00 pm, might end earlier. So your hour free-time might be extended a bit. Also, the Finger Lakes Beverage Reception is optional. This event will consist of 9 local breweries, distilleries, and wineries sampling their products.
Assigned seating during meals
There will be assigned seating during the breakfast and lunch meals because we are all participating in contests with our designated teams and groups. You will receive instructions regarding your group in your personal agenda. Each table will also have at least one Guest Chair. The guest chairs are for Advisory Board Members and/or sponsors. This will give all the opportunity to talk about our programs and the needs of small businesses.
We were quite mindful when approaching sponsors this year. We wanted to make sure that our sponsors brought relevant tools and information to help all of us learn a little more. Please take time to meet with them and thank them for supporting our conference. We have invited the Innovation, Gold and Silver sponsors to join us for breakfast and lunch. We did this so everyone can take the chance to hold a brief conversation with them about their products and services. This will also provide you the way to another connection, to share your views on the needs and challenges of small businesses, and to thank them for their support to all of our conference efforts.