Charlotte Coberley

CTAC 495L2

12/12/17

Project Narrative

I began my work on the 2018 GLACURH Regional Business Conference

unsuspecting of the intense process that was before. Both of my advisors were

completely ready to support and encourage me through the process. That alone was an

experience I was not used to. The semester kicked off with a four-hour team retreat in

early September that brought the whole conference staff together. Since then, the

planning and development has been constant.

What began as a staff of around six members has grown into a staff of 14. I

meet bi-weekly with each committee chair and monthly with the finance chair to discuss

and move forward on individual projects related to each committee. The unique part of

being the conference chair is that the final decision for all conference related tasks falls

on my shoulders. Contracts, emails, budget reports, designs, catering, etc.-- all of these

elements have my final say. Handing the responsibility and managing the many moving

parts of the conference was a learning curve at first, but I soon found my niche.

Come October, I had established a set one on one schedule with a majority of

the committee chairs. The most difficult aspect of this was the changing of schedules

last minute. I updated my google calendar and shared it with my entire conference staff

so that they could pick a reoccurring time that worked best for hem every two weeks--

sometimes this worked, other times it did not. I had to change my approach and adapt
my meeting style to include conference calls, video chats, and email chains to make up

for the lake of in-person communication.

This conference has not run on 9:00 am to 5:00 pm schedule since it started.

Some days I would have meetings at ten oclock at night, other times I would have

meetings over lunch between classes. Coordinating video chats with the regional board

of directors required extensive use of Doodle Scheduling and late night Zoom Chats to

accommodate the varied time zones. Needless to say, I had to really be flexible with my

time and my commitments this semester (and will continue to do so until March).

November was a crucial month for the sponsorship and the technology

committees as contracts were due on December 8th and registration opens on January

2nd. We needed to finalize the budget and take into account the additional monetary

sponsorship amounts, change the registration platform from Google Forms due to its

varied security settings, and create the website for the conference. This is the task

currently on our team agenda while we rush to finalize many projects before the start of

our holiday break.

I continue to look forward to my involvement with the 2018 Regional Business

Conference and I am excited to see it come to fruition! This is truly an amazing personal

growth opportunity that I am extremely grateful for. I look forward to seeing what

becomes of my teams work and I cant wait to meet all of the delegates from across the

Great Lakes Region!