AOTA Annual Conference Blog

The Art of Conference Site Selection

How do you select a site for an AOTA Conference & Expo? According to Frank Gainer, AOTA’s conference and student programs manager, it’s a pretty complex process. The following are some of the things AOTA leaders take into account:

• Large enough space in the convention center for the exhibit hall and 22–24 concurrent sessions
• Room size for concurrent sessions to ensure there will be enough seats for the attendees
• Cost of renting the convention center
• Number of sleeping rooms available in each hotel
• Price of hotels rooms—AOTA tries to keep the cost below $200 per night per room
• Accessibility of all venues, including the convention center and hotels
• Density of AOTA members in a 500 mile radius—close to 50% of attendees at any given conference come from within 500 miles of the location
• Number of OT and OTA schools within 500 mile radius
• Weather considerations in the month of April
• Easily accessible location from the air—the city should be a hub for at least one airline

Although site selection is a very complex process, AOTA staff realizes how critical it is to the overall success of Conference. Long Beach, CA will serve as the site for the 2008 Conference, and staff is already working hard on selecting the site for the 2009!

Two Weeks to Conference

This week’s weather update is not nearly as nice as the others I have posted to date. The weather here Easter weekend is simply awful. Darn cold is the best way to describe it. I and many other St. Louis residents are spending time covering our perennials which seem to think that spring is really here. We are anticipating temperatures as low as 20 the next two nights.

On a more positive note, an experience associated with this conference that I had not anticipated has been my involvement with students. One of the hats I wear in my role as professor is serving as the faculty sponsor for Maryville University’s Student Occupation Therapy Association chapter. The organization’s focus this year has been for members to attend the conference. To that end the students have had a number of social and fundraising and social activities to facilitate that objective. It is great to see the students excited about attending their first conference. Many are planning to attend and others will participate by serving as volunteers. The president of MUSOTA  is working with occupational therapy students at St. Louis University and Washington University to organize the first student forum at this year’s conference. Another of our students is serving as a page for the meetings of the Representative Assembly. As a former member of the Assembly, I have enjoyed the opportunity to meet with the student and discuss the nature of her role and the workings of the RA. Overall the students are very excited about this opportunity to meet other students and participate in all that the national conference has to offer. I am hoping that this experience will encourage the students to be regular conference attendees and members of AOTA. I encourage each of you to talk to students during this conference and get the fresh perspective they bring.

This postings tip regarding St. Louis is St. Louis style pizza. St. Louis style pizza is very thin and uses provel cheese instead of mozzarella and is cut into small squares. Be sure to try it when you are here. A final piece of information is that the weekend of conference there will be major construction/destruction occurring on Hwy 40/ I-64 which is one of the major arteries leading to downtown. It is being recommended you avoid the highway all together that weekend. For those of us living in St. Louis this is only the beginning of a very painful road construction project. Looking forward to seeing you in two weeks.

Bob Cunningham

Behind the Scenes at Conference

It is ironic that I have been nominated to represent the Local Conference Committee for the Conference Blog. I say this because one of the main things I have been asked to do is provide information about St. Louis and what to do while you are here. The irony is that I have lived in St. Louis less than two years, compared to the rest of the committee who have all spent most of their professional lives here. Because I was the only one who knew what blogging was and how to do it, I got the job. The other members of the committee have assured me they will provide lots of information to share.

One of the things I plan to emphasize with this blog is how important volunteer assistance is in making the conference possible. The People Power Committee already has commitments from approximately 200 persons to volunteer and is anticipating adding another 100. Having attended conference numerous times in the past, I was never aware of the amount of work provided by volunteers. Volunteers serve as session scanners, workers in the AOTA Market Place, at the Registration Desk, at the Hospitality booth and with the Reasonable Accommodations area. That amounts to needing a lot of people to complete a lot of different tasks. The commitment of time already shown, speaks to the importance placed on service by occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants. A group that has been strongly to volunteer are students. We are fortunate in that St. Louis is home to three different occupational therapy education programs and three occupational therapy assistant programs. The committee has made a real effort to get students involved and excited about participating in all the events that national conference offers.

As Chair of the Reasonable Accommodations Committee, I have had a variety of duties to complete. The most interesting was touring each of the hotels planned for use during conference. Frank Gainer from national office and I assessed each hotel’s accessible rooms and developed a report of our findings. Surprising to me during this process was the differences between the rooms in each of the hotels. I was very happy to see AOTA making a real effort to effectively meet the needs of all conference participants. In future postings I will do my best to keep you update to date on what is happening behind the scenes.

On a personal note, I want to share how excited I am about conference being here in St. Louis. As a previous nine-year member of the Representative Assembly, I became a “conference junkie”. I look forward to learning new things, meeting new people and most of all seeing old friends.

In closing, I will share one those things you should do while in St. Louis. The thing is to try toasted ravioli. Toasted ravioli is a traditional meat-stuffed ravioli that is rolled in bread crumbs and deep fried until golden brown. They are served with plain marinara or red meat sauce. In either case, they are delicious and an authentic St. Louis treat.