Program Spotlight: Annual Conference Planning Committees

Originally published in the Fall 2017 issue of NC Currents magazine.

Annual Conference Planning Committees

Even before one NC AWWA-WEA fall conference ends, planning is underway for the next annual event. During the Annual Conference, feedback is collected from participants and reviewed by the organizing committee in a debriefing meeting at the conclusion of the conference. Much of the feedback comes from the committee members themselves and is used to make changes and improvements to the next fall conference.  

Paul Jackson, the chair of the Conference Coordinating Council, explains that the next step involved with organizing the Annual Conference is to secure a location. In the past, the event has traditionally moved among cities in the north, southwest, and central part of the state, but due to logistical challenges, it has been held in Raleigh for the past two years and will be held at the Raleigh Convention Center once again in fall of 2017.  

During his 20 years of involvement with the NC AWWA-WEA, including a stint as Exhibit Committee chair, Jackson has seen the number of exhibitors at the conference double. “We’ve outgrown some of the spaces we used to go to,” he notes.  

Activity to plan the conference really starts to ramp up after the NC AWWAWEA Spring Symposium. The Local Arrangements Committee conducts the bulk of the work organizing the fall event, including ensuring that signs are produced, the plant tour is organized, and the many onsite volunteers are ready for duty during the event. “Because you have a lot of new volunteers or volunteers with new responsibilities, you spend a lot of time training volunteers,” explains Jackson, adding that the NC AWWA-WEA conducts much of the legwork necessary to put on the conference, such as negotiating the contracts for the facility, as well as the services provided at the site.  

Jackson is also in charge of coordinating the work of the Sponsorship, Awards, Program, and Operations Challenge committees. Along with the three or four dozen members of these committees, hundreds of volunteers are involved during the conference in activities that range from monitoring sessions to handing out materials to working various booths and tables. “There are a lot of people who want to help but can’t set aside time throughout the year,” says Jackson. “Those are the people we call on for the event. Since they are going to be at the conference anyway, they are happy to set aside some time to volunteer an hour here and there.”  

There has been a lot of work over the years to streamline the event and keep the format of the Annual Conference current and relevant. “Technology allows us to do some new things,” notes Jackson. Last year, a mobile app made it easy to access up-to-the-minute conference information anywhere, anytime, at the touch of a button. At the same time, the committees involved in planning the conference are always looking for ways to make the event more fun and engaging.  

Jackson adds that this year’s Annual Conference will have a theme, meant to facilitate flow through the Exhibit Hall and encourage more people to visit this part of the conference. “One of the challenges with the Raleigh Convention Center is that the Exhibit Hall is downstairs while all the sessions are upstairs,” he explains. “We are trying to get people to visit the exhibitors by making the Exhibit Hall more exciting.”  

This year, the space will be laid out like a baseball diamond, with refreshments at first and third base and lunch served at second base. The plan is to have pitching booths and mascots from local teams.  

More events will be held in the exhibit hall, including some award presentations and announcements from a stage at home plate. Once again, exhibitors will be conducting periodic prize drawings, and, of course, the Operations Challenge and Pipe Tapping contests – always entertaining events – are sure to attract crowds.  

There will be a few changes to the Operations Challenge this year. One of the changes to the Collections event is that the repair to a damaged 8-inch PVC pipe will be replaced with an Inserta-T instead of a 4-inch service saddle secured by clamps, as was the case in previous years. “It’s a new product that has a groove that’s designed to fit around the PVC pipe once the hole is cut,” explains Operations Challenge Committee Co- Chair Billy Allen. “You insert the rubber sleeve in the service hole, then take a tapered PVC adapter and drive it into the rubber seal to create a compression fit.” He adds, “It’s a small change, but in such a fast-paced event, it is challenging to work in a new routine when the whole event takes just 80 to 90 seconds to complete. It’s something that takes a lot of practice.”  

A small change has also been made to the Laboratory Event to decrease the possibility of errors in the ammonia or alkalinity test results. Bad readings have made it challenging for teams to make the appropriate calculations during the event.  

The committee is committed to the continuous improvement of the Operations Challenge. “We have built the Operations Challenge from doing one event each year to doing all five events each year, closely mirroring what they do at WEFTEC,” says Allen. The committee starts making preparations for the conference in March or April, after WEF releases preliminary rules for the national Operations Challenge. In the early part of the summer, the committee holds a scrimmage event, a mock competition to help the teams prepare for the Annual Conference. Leading up to the fall event, the members of the Operations Challenge Committee meet about four times.  

The committee has one coordinator for each event. Working closely with their national counterparts, all NC AWWA-WEA Operations Challenge event coordinators ensure they have the current rules for their event, including the judging sheets that indicate the time value associated with each penalty. All coordinators are also responsible for ensuring that the NC AWWA-WEA has the necessary supplies and special equipment for each event. “We work with NC AWWA-WEA to negotiate contracts for equipment and talk to sponsors about donating equipment,” says Allen. “We try to ensure the NC AWWA-WEA recoups the cost of renting equipment and helping pay the winning team’s registration fees and travel expenses involved in representing North Carolina at WEFTEC. We talk to sponsors to help us out.”  

The close relationship between the Operations Challenge and Sponsorship committees is typical of the coordinated efforts between the various committees under the umbrella of the Conference Coordinating Council. Likewise, the Program Committee works closely with the Local Arrangements Committee to fill each slot in the technical program with an appropriate session for each program stream.  

The Program Committee is also responsible for securing the keynote speaker and organizing the public forum. “That can involve significant time,” says Chair Marco Menendez.  

This year, Menendez took a slightly different approach to finding a keynote speaker. “I saw an individual present a session at the Spring Conference,” he says. “I was so impressed by her that I thought she would be perfect for the keynote at our fall event. She is not very well known but I think people will be pleasantly surprised.”  

The Program Committee has a core group of approximately 23 active members with varying levels of responsibility. The committee identifies chairs for each individual track, who in turn identify a group of individuals to organize the sessions for that track. The staff at the NC AWWA-WEA puts out a call for abstracts, via email, NC Currents, and the website.  

This year, the NC AWWA-WEA received 189 abstracts. Within each track, four individuals grade the relevant abstracts using Precis software. The volunteers download the abstracts, grade them according to various categories of criteria, and upload the information into the system.

“Once the reviews are done, it is easy to see the top-scoring presentations that will be selected for the conference,” says Menendez. “We then identify two abstracts within each track as alternates. Inevitably, certain speakers drop out. Even on the day of the presentation, someone can become ill and fail to show up, so it’s important that we have those alternates in our back pocket, ready to present at a moment’s notice.” Because the alternates are part of the same track, the replacement session is still relevant to those who signed up to hear a speaker on that particular topic. Precis automatically sends out three letters, based on the committee’s decision: an acceptance letter, a denial letter, and a request to be an alternate. Then it’s up to the committee to confirm that selected individuals are still available to give a presentation.  

Throughout the more than dozen years that Menendez has been involved on the committee, he has seen many improvements. “There is always something you can improve on,” he notes. “You want to make sure that the valuable time that people spend coming to this conference is ultimately fulfilling. I am very proud of the quality of the technical program.” The Program Committee meets every two to three months throughout the year to share ideas and come to a consensus on how the conference program will take shape. Preparations for the Annual Conference kick off early in the year – this year it was in March – with an in-person/ teleconference meeting of all members. “We like to have a video-conference so that people in Raleigh, Charlotte, and anywhere else, can see the materials,” says Menendez, adding that this initial meeting is followed by a meeting where he, the vice-chair, and all the track chairs start the more detailed planning process.

After the abstract review process, this group reconvenes to finalize the first draft of the technical program. “We don’t just look at the abstract score,” notes Menendez. “If we find that one company has more representation than others, we try to balance things out to ensure a wide range of ideas are represented.” Volunteers recuse themselves from reviewing submissions by members of their own companies to make sure the process is fair for everyone.”

The next step is to slot the presentations into the conference program. “There may be a group of presentations that work very well with one another,” notes Menendez. “We try to put those presentations in a consecutive timeframe.” At the same time, the committee tries to avoid scheduling presentations by one company in the same time slot because individuals in the company may want to attend both presentations. Once the schedule is solidified, the NC AWWA-WEA publishes and distributes the program.  

“But our job doesn’t stop there,” says Menendez, adding the committee then has to find moderators for each of the sessions. “It can be challenging to get other individuals to take time they were going to spend at the conference to volunteer as a moderator. That’s why it’s very important to start that process in the summer, rather than closer to the conference. It’s an interesting and rewarding process.”  

This year, there will be slightly fewer presentations at the Annual Conference in response to feedback from exhibitors that the previous years’ schedule has not allowed enough time for networking. Unlike in past years, there will be very few technical presentations going on during the lunch period. Instead, the Program Committee will be offering a pre-conference and post-conference webinar on subjects selected from submitted abstracts. “One of the questions we asked those who submitted their abstracts was whether the topic was suitable for a longer presentation,” notes Menendez. “I think having fewer presentations during the lunch period will have a positive impact on networking.” The webinars, which will take place one week prior and post conference, will allow those who were looking to obtain all their continuing education credits from the conference to still meet their targets.  

Like Menendez and Allen, Jackson is looking forward to witnessing the unfolding of another successful conference. He emphasizes that this ongoing success is due in large part to the work of countless volunteers. Many larger municipalities and consulting firms encourage their employees to get involved because they know that participating in the event as volunteers is a rewarding experience that provides an opportunity for networking as well as growth and development. Says Jackson: “We encourage people to go to the website to check out all the committees and the opportunities they offer for getting involved with the Annual Conference either ahead of time or during the event.”