Co-Chairs:

• Carrie Port
• Mike McMillan

Members:

• Jesse Bowman
• Amy Tomaszewski

Committee Accomplishments: 

The committee coordinated 4 business meetings. Two were virtual, and two in-person meetings.

Business Meeting Logistics

• In-person versus Zoom/virtual. Committee suggests First and Last meetings to be in person due to weather and celebratory events. Middle two meetings on Zoom.
• Meeting dates. We recommend setting the dates for all Business Meetings at the beginning of the year. This makes it easier to plan and coordinate with venues and should also make it easier for Vice President to coordinate with speakers.  Tuesdays tend to work best as it tends to accommodate more people with hybrid office/remote schedules.  Always best to avoid Mondays and Fridays.
• Food/meeting cost for members. Meeting costs for members increased to $30 for 2023/2024.  Would a bump to $35 be tolerable and help CALL with associated costs and perhaps expand venue options with slightly higher price points?
• In-Person Meeting Materials. Name tags and check-in sheets is always something to consider for in-person meetings.
• Dietary restrictions? We didn’t hear any complaints. Neon does have option for “dietary restrictions” along with the vendor opt-out option, but not something that we used. Carrie and Mike tried to consider vegetarian options when making menu selections.
• AV Equipment. Good to try figuring this out on front end when coordinating with venues. Do we have a budget?
  • Some venues seemed to lose some of their capabilities during Covid, but have maybe rebuilt those options. For a previous meeting, we used Craig Schultz at AV Pro Connections (craig@avproconnections). He was great helping accommodate us last minute, but was a bit expensive.
  • Projectors add extra challenges. Some folks have them at work and can bring them, but it can be hard to coordinate. Are there any low-cost very portable options already within CALL or something to invest in maybe?
• Guest speakers. Make sure to include them in luncheon headcounts. It’s definitely nice to have speakers, but it’s probably OK if we don’t get anyone. It allows for more time for CALL business and networking. We’re not totally clear on how much time speakers have and/or if that should be enforced somehow.
• Zoom testing for virtual meetings. Some technical issues getting things set up on Zoom, partly due to login/password issues. We recommend running test runs a few days ahead of time, including any guest speakers and/or others who might have presentations they want to include.
• Event Registration. Neon can be difficult to figure out when setting up events. It’s not always super-intuitive and finding certain settings (vendor opt-out, dietary restrictions) seems to be tricky.
• We had a few sponsors who asked if they could make sponsorship payments with credit card. We were able to create a separate event in Neon for 1 attendee and the sponsorship cost to facilitate. This system seemed to work well.
  • Sponsor/vendor reps. We need to know how many are coming. What is the policy and how flexible is it?
  • Raffle prizes. Bridget MacMillan at Lexis has been great about keeping an open invitation for these and we then coordinate with the winners via e-mail. Someone mentioned that Blythe McCoy at Westlaw also threw the idea out there that they would be interested at some point, but that’s hasn’t been explored.
• Other committee members. Mike wishes he would have done a better job keeping the other committee members (Jesse and Amy) involved. It might be good to suggest that other members feel free to proactively insert themselves along the way. This committee is also a good option for newer members as they could help out at sign-in/welcome table and get to know other people.

Other Meetings

• The committee suggests that the monthly happy hours are hosted by different committees. That way there is always someone that will attend and the different committee chairs can choose a venue/time convenient to them. Also, these would not be canceled last minute causing issues for members’ schedules.
• Mandy, as President, tried to coordinate some less formal gatherings (lunches, happy hours, other?) that seemed like a great idea, but not sure how successful those gatherings were.
• Other meetings have fallen to the wayside a bit as it seems a bit much for Chairs to coordinate on top of meeting planning duties. Book/Media clubs have been suggested.
• The happy hour at 320 S. Canal in August was very successful – maybe this could be run by the board to kick off the year?

Committee Coordination

• Community Service. Mike also served as member on the committee and tried to coordinate for community service and donations messaging to go with meeting announcements.
  • Speaker Connections: It’s nice for Community Service to know our speakers so they can consider charities/organizations that speakers might be connected to for fund-raising, and/or avoid possible conflicts.
• Secretary provides write-up for Bulletin. Should photos be included?

Outreach

• Surveys. What do members want? We ended up skipping on surveys. Should Meetings Committee be doing them? Are they useful? It seems that a fairly simplified version might be advisable to make the feedback easier to consume and implement.
• Communications/Social Media.Besides e-mails, where else do we post meeting information and who is responsible for making the updates?  I know that previous years, there was confusion caused by info posted on the website, but we can’t recall who was updating that info. Carrie posted the information on the website but a new committee member should be trained on WordPress.
• New Members. Talk to membership coordinator prior to the May in-person meeting for the list of new members for the year. Either Meetings or Mentorship committee sends email to new members letting them know about their 1 free meeting perk. Members who accept are entered manually into the event (same as speakers and sponsors) and given free admission to the May meeting.

2023-2024 Meeting Details

CALL Meetings organized between August 2023 and May 2024:

• August 8, 2023– Happy Hour at The Green.
• September 20, 2023– Maggiano’s Little Italy with Steven Schwinn.
  • 56 registered.
  • Great food and service and good general venue for meetings and they had the A/V equipment we needed.
  • Sponsors: Trellis and TRG Screen
• November 16, 2023– virtual Business Meeting with breakout rooms in place of speaker who had to cancel.
  • 50 registered.
  • Breakout rooms seemed to work out OK, but something we had to scramble on a bit due to speaker cancelation.
• February 22, 2023 – virtual Business Meeting with Justices Aurelia Pucinski and Cynthia Cobbs.
  • 63 registered.
• May 16, 2024– Wildfire with AALL President June Hsiao Liebert.
  • 67 registered
  • Great food and service and decent space for our event with accommodating A/V equipment for our needs.
  • Sponsor: Thomson Reuters

Considering Venues

The committee gathered costs and/or minimums at the time, which are also available.

• Lettuce Entertain You is a great option as they have lots of great restaurants and a form for entering meeting criteria and selecting multiple restaurants. The restaurants still have to be dealt with individually, but it does help streamline things a bit.
• City Winery– probably too expensive for our budget.
• Il Porcelino– nice looking space, but looks like 50 max so maybe not flexible enough. Additional cost per person to add dessert.
• Osteria Via Stato– worked out great for previous meeting.  Lots of good feedback from members.
• Carnivale – $32 a person – could be an option for the future
• Hub 51 – 65 max.
• Lil’ Ba Ba Reeba– can check out space. Tapas charged per person. Maybe a decent option.
• Harry Caray’s Italian Steak House – might be fun – was booked for our dates, so we didn’t pursue pricing info.
• Beatrix River North – 65 max with a $3000 minimum.
• Tallboy Taco– 40 seated, 50 reception style. Probably not flexible enough sizewize.
• Ema– space looks decent and food yummy. Additional cost per person to add dessert. 60 max people for space.
• Petterino’s – now has a magic show in their venue room – no longer an option.
• Berghoff – only venue has bench seating.

Read about prior years on the Meetings Committee here on the Bulletin.