SEMINAR FORUM SCHEDULE
by Ray Piwowarczyk - (posted on 04/22/14)
May 17 Forum 8 - 10 AM
Seminar Educational Seminars David Allsop: Education Forum

The Trips Seminar Education forum will be in the morning 8-10 Saturday May 17th. This is part of the all day trips seminar. This year we wanted to continue a few education topics, and added a few new ones. Please come prepared to have fun and learn from the other clubs ! The trips seminar starts right after the education sessions.

Significant for this year, we added a dedicated 2 hour session on taxes for non-profit organizations. This will run in parallel to the other 2 education sessions.

*** 8:15 AM to 9:10 AM ***

MARKETING and WEB SITE DESIGN Local Chicago web site design and marketing consultant Eugene Feygin from RawSEO will discuss how clubs can setup and design their web sites. The focus will be on effective web based marketing and engagement methods for clubs and not focus on how to code a site – how to code a web site would be an all day seminar in itself!

TRIP SELECTION / TRIP PLANNING Continued from last year, we will have a panel session by a number of tour operators familiar to the CMSC clubs along with a club representative. This year’s panel will be (in alphabetical order) Mike Hibbard (Sports America Tours), Gloria Saiya-Woods (Ski.com) and Shari Winter (Winter Ski and Sport). Each presenter and company is known nationwide for their expertise, product and excellent reputation. Each presenter will address a particular sub-topic that is critical to the process of a club trip. The sub-topics include: * How to narrow down and select trips * How not to swamp tour operators with bid options * How to Work With Your Tour Operator





*** 9:15 AM to 10:15 AM *** Club Membership OR Airline Consolidation Challenges

AIRLINE CONSOLIDATION CHALLENGES - Planning Timeline for Trips With the recent merger of US Air and American Airlines, we are faced with shrinking flight options. These options may change into our favorite destinations. Bill Tomcich is currently with Stay at Aspen Snowmas and has decades of experience in working with the airlines and clubs. Bill will cover the airline landscape going forward and ways that clubs can best work with these new challenges.

CLUB Membership – Keeping and Growing Paul Webber of PRW Group, one of our exhibitors, will moderate our Club Membership session, including discussions between the attendees on topics chosen from a short survey upon entering the meeting room. Participants will be able to share their problems, questions, ideas and solutions. A problem that exists in one club may have been solved in another, and the knowledge that a solution led to success elsewhere can be enough incentive to attempt a course of action. Attendees may likely leave this session with new contacts from other CMSC clubs with whom they can exchange ideas and information. The opportunity to further network during lunch and the beer party with contacts made in this session may prove to be invaluable to your club.

*** 8:15 AM to 10:15 AM *** (2 hour session) TAXES / FINANCES In this focused 2 hour session Professor Jonathan Decatorsmith will discuss Taxes / Finances for nonprofit ski clubs. This session is intended for club treasures and those responsible with keeping the club books in order.

Since 2000 Professor Decatorsmith has been a full-time clinical professor and instructor at the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law supervising the Tax Clinic, as well as teaching courses on federal tax practice and procedure, tax fraud, and other topics. Professor Decatorsmith was previously a senior trial attorney and internal instructor with the Internal Revenue Service for 11 years during which he was selected as the Lead Instructor for the National Trial Skills School. Professor Decatorsmith will address tax and finance issues as they pertain to Exempt Organizations such as our clubs.