Conference Coordinator

This article is a stub. A longer, more in depth article will be added at a later time.

Overview

The Conference Coordinator was responsible for planning our North American Conferences & Conventions each year, namely, Dragon*Con and JordanCon. This is an Staff level role reporting directly to the Director of Events & Conferences.

Chain of Command

This Conference Coordinator reports to the North American Mistress of Revels .

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, Keeper, Director of E&C and Selection Committee to approve location contracts for each event.
• Work with Director of E&C and others as needed to plan details of Tower plans and activities at 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.
• Crisis Management. No matter how much pre-planning you do, the unexpected will happen. Recognizing issues early and addressing them calmly and promptly is key.
• Share learnings with DoE&C team to ensure continually improving events.

Requirements

• 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 (Dragon*Con + 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.
• 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.
• 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.