Conference Coordinator

Overview

The Conference Coordinator is responsible for planning our North American Conferences & Conventions each year, namely JordanCon.

Position Level: Staff

Department: Department of Events and Conferences

Rotation: Non-rotating position

Merit Eligibility: Local Liaison Merit or Staff Merit

Chain of Command

This Conference Coordinator reports to the Director of Events and Conferences .

Duties and Responsibilities

Work with hotel locations for each conference to set up blocks of rooms for use by Tower members. Negotiate financial and amenity terms.
Communicate conference information and Tower participation information to TarValon.net community.
Work with Amyrlin Seat, Keeper, Director of Events and Conferences and Selection Committee to approve location contracts for each event.
Organize and Delegate. Work with a team of committee leaders & members, site contacts, and Tower execs who can all help you. Making sure to use them to the benefit of the event and giving them appropriate work is what enables our events to happen.
Share learnings with DoE&C team to ensure continually improving events.

Expectations

Must be professional. Responsibilities of this role include representing our community with outside organizations such as hotels and convention organizers, and potentially negotiating contracts with these groups. In addition you are held accountable for the responsible management of the funds many of our members pay to attend events. Professionalism, high-performance, and self-starting are mandatory.
Must be detail-oriented. You must be able to think logically through entire event and needs for members. Everything from ceremonial activities, payments, registration, marketing, budgeting, room assignments, negotiations with the site, etc. Almost all of the Conference Coordinator work is done well in advance of the event.
Must be organized. There is a lot of information to keep track of, including legal contracts with the hotels, schedules, and registration information including medical and personal data which must be kept confidential.

Time Commitment

Must be able to dedicate several hours per week to this role. This role is very cyclical and will have times of heavy workload, and other times with lighter.

Qualifications

Must have attended at least one conference event. Helpful, but not required, is attendance at more than one event. Even better is attendance at more than one kind of event (JordanCon + Anni, etc.). Better still is serving as staff of an event through committee work or similar.
Must be a member in good standing for at least six months (you need NOT be a senior member).
Must be able and willing to travel to most conference/convention events at your own expense. Because the conferences that are currently identified as official Tower events both take place in or near Atlanta, Georgia, it could be an advantage to live in that area of the country – but this is not a requirement.

History

The position was discontinued temporarily in May 2005 and again in January 2012, following the decision to no longer book blocks of Tower rooms at these events as the Departmental Director could fulfill the requirements. It was re-instituted January 10, 2013 at which time it was also responsible for Dragon*Con.