Richard's Blog

 Posts Tagged ‘Regional Conference’

Therap will be hosting a Regional Conference in Florida December 4-5, 2012. The conference will be at the Palm Beach Airport Holiday Inn.

There will be specific sessions on agencies using Therap and working with APD.

Additional information will be available on our website in the coming months.

Therap will be hosting a regional conference in Iowa at the Holiday Inn  Northwest on Merle Hay road in Des Moines on September 19-20, 2012.

Further information will be available on the website.  Also check out Therap’s midwest blog for more information on Iowa and the midwest.

Therap will be holding a Regional Conference in San Diego, CA on December 4-5, 2012.  The conference will be geared for agencies providing service to people with developmental disabilities.

Additional information will be available on the website.   Also keep an eye on Kevin Dierks blog or contact Kevin for additional information.

The conference will again be at the Ramada Conference Center on Kearny Mesa road in San Diego.

We will be hosting a Therap Regional Conference in Kansas City, Missouri from May 22-23, 2012.

This is our third conference in the Kansas City metro area. T he first was on the Kansas side.   The 2012 conference will be at the Holiday Inn Coco Key Water Resort.

We expect sessions and attendees from a number of states including Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and more. 

Check our website for additional information.

I am heading this morning for the Therap Conference in Lincoln, Nebraska.

This week we have 3 conferences – one in Lincoln, Nebraska,  one in Salem, Oregon and one in Cortland, New York.

As I tell my children – sometimes you only learn from mistakes – and we really should not have had 3 conferences in the same week. Its not a big mistake, but just not really needed.   What seems so simple when I planned this months ago turned out to be a bit more complicated to get the right people to the right conferences. But I  think we have managed to have a really good set of sessions at each conference.

Next year my current planning has no more than one conference in any given week. While I won’t be surprised if we end up with two conference in one week – I will really try and avoid three at one time.

Therap will be hosting a conference in Atlanta, Georgia in June 2012 for Developmental Disability Providers. The developmental disability software conference will be June 5-6, 2012.

The conference will be at the Holiday Inn Atlanta/Roswell.

Additional information will be posted on the website concerning the conference.

This is part of an increasing amount of conferences and user groups in the Southeast.  For 2012 we already have Regional Conferences scheduled for Georgia, Tennessee and Florida.

Therap will be hosting a regional conference in Syracuse, NY November 7-8, 2012. The  Conference will be in the Central NY DDSO region of OPWDD.

We have other conferences for New York providers regarding our developmental disability software including in Cortland, NY in November 2011, the National Conference in  Northern New Jersey in Febrary 2012, Elmira, NY in May 2012 and Buffalo, NY in August 2012.

The conference will be held at the Ramada Syracuse.

Check our website for additional information.

Therap will be hosting its 2012 Regional Conference in New Mexico on May 30-31, 2012.

The conference will again be at the Holiday Inn Jefferson St in Albuquerque.

Check the website in coming months for more information on this and other conferences.

Therap will again be hosting an August conference for developmental disabilities providers at the Ramada Plaza in Northglenn, Denver, Colorado. The 2012 conference will be August 1-2, 2012.

Additional information will be posted on the website in the coming months.

Next year we are planning something like 25 different Therap conferences across the country. In addition to the National Conference in Feburary, this includes Regional Conferences and Side-by-Side Conferences with College of Direct Support.

There are a number of issues which go into choosing times and locations for conferences.  I am very conscious of keeping the cost of the hotels and airfare as low as possible. So for example the Florida Conference is in December in Orlando because the hotel said it was the lowest travel week of the year to Orlando and we were able to get a very low sleeping room rate for people. Apparently no school children travel to Disney halfway between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We also try to have only one or two Therap conferences the same week. There is a limit on Therap team members who can run sessions at the conferences. There is one week this year where we have conference in Oregon, Nebraska and New York the same week. We have the conference sessions covered, but we try and avoid three conferences the same time.

One issue in planning which has occurred recently is planning around holidays.  How far from holidays can a conference be run. For example we ran the New Mexico conference the Wednesday and Thursday after Memorial Day. That seems ok – as people were able to use the Tuesday to drive if needed.

I was just informed that the tentative date for the North Dakota conference was the day after Fathers Day and I will try and switch it to Tuesday and Wednesday so people don’t have to leave their families on the holiday.

We have tried to avoid the Thursday before Labor Day – but have felt a Tuesday and Wednesday conference the week before Labor Day would be ok.

Holidays are a time to spend with families for both patriotic and religious reasons. As we are running more conferences we are trying to be aware of holidays and customs around the country.

There are parts of the country where we would want people to have the day to spend with their family when hunting season begins. But for example just in looking at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources website there is not just one website. There are seasons for bear, deer, pheasant, grouse and more – and in fact even a archery season for deer.

I know that sometimes when scheduling conference 6-12 months in advance we make a mistake. I mistakenly put our Oregon conference on Veteran’s Day this year. When signing up a conference and asking for the 2nd Wednesday and Thursday of a month -I didn’t focus on the specific number and Veteran’s Day is always November 11. As opposed to Thanksgiving which changes the date but is always the 4th Thursday of November.  I apologize for this scheduling and hope to avoid this mistake in the future.

If people have other thoughts and questions on how and why our conferences are scheduled when they are – I would be happy to discuss.