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Whew! This week was a WHIRLWIND!!!
The Benton space planning is pretty much done. Heath and I are so appreciative of them for taking time to make sure layouts and rooms look good and feel good. The vendor hall will be halls this year to make the best use of meeting space. The bulk of the vendors will be in the main hallway. But we’ll also have some in the dead-end hallway when you first walk in and in the main meeting space.
Of course, all of this changes if we end up with 600 people there. That would be a good problem that we would be thrilled to have happen.
Some fun things to share. We have our first keynote speaker mostly secured. I have to send the contract and get that signed and then we can officially announce who it is. Those who are in the NCSLMA Facebook Group already know. Shhhhhhhhh.
We are now working on scheduling storytellers. Instead of an author panel, we will be hosting a storyteller’s guild. We are working with a production company to have four Drag Queens run a session and tell us a story or two (and party with us at NCSLMA-Jama!!!). I am working to get a HUGE name in storytelling as another keynote speaker. I still have three slots to fill and I have reached out to a few people to pick some brains.
The Call to Present went out or goes out, depending on when I get this published, on Monday, February 6. I really cannot wait to see what awesome sessions you all come up with! And I really can’t wait to see the session titles. It’s a little embarrassing how much I’m looking forward to reading those.
The Vendor application went out. We have had exactly one vendor already fill it out. Shout out to Becky Henry with Bound To Stay Bound for being on top of it! They will have first dibs at their booth of choice.
I think I only met with Heath this week, but I texted and e-mailed Jennifer and Jenny so much, it felt like a real meeting, so we’re going with that. My week absolutely flew by and I really don’t know what happened.
Heath was able to get the hotel room blocks finalized. He called and e-mailed so many times I’m sure the good people at Embassy and Marriott were thrilled to finally be done with us. But it got done! Kudos to Heath!
The PR Team meets this Tuesday and after that meeting, we will send out the Share Your Magic promotion. I’m really excited about this. It was not my idea and I’m mad I didn’t come up with it because it’s so good. You’ll see on Wednesday what it’s all about!
The whole team will meet on Saturday, February 18, to get up to date on everything that’s going on and that will happen. I look forward to these check-in meetings. Who am I kidding? I love meeting period. I’m that fool who still looks forward to faculty meetings, if that tells you what level of nerd I am. I feel so isolated in the library and my NCSLMA family means so much to me. I am grateful that I am part of this organization, this family, and I hope you all can feel that through these blog posts and all the fun stuff we are planning. NCSLMA is the best PLN out there!
Upcoming dates to know:
February 13-17 - Winter Tune Up PD Series
February 15-ish - Awards, Scholarships, and Grants window opens
March 31 - Call to Present ends
April 14 - Notification of session acceptance
April 15 - Early Bird Registration Opens
I hope you have a fantastic week. We'll be working on the conference!
Kristy and Heath
