Southeast Regional Conference 2011

Southeast Regional Conference in Atlanta – 2011

Town Hall Questions and Answers Provided by David Ivey-Soto

After a slow start, we ended up with a great deal of questions. Below are my responses.

Please feel free to let me know if you want clarification on any of my answers here. I will post my answer to any question I am asked to answer.

Catersource is having about 8,000 attendees at there conference coming up in a few weeks. Part of their conference is hands-on demonstrations. How can we address the need of the membership for hand-on presentations?

I think it is great that Catersource is having another successful conference. I have been saying for a long time that we need to address the needs of our membership. I want us to gather more scientific data on our membership and our industry. We do a lot of surveys; however, they are not scientific. We need to be better at doing that. It will require us to outsource that task. Additionally, we need to market our conferences not only to ACF members, but also to non-ACF members. What better way is there to attract new members than for them to see the great things that happen at our conferences?

At Catersource, there are only 100 attendees allowed for the hands-on presentations. Often a presentation will have a wait list of 250 people.

This has a lot to do with the number of attendees at the conference in general. I reiterate that we need to be attracting non-ACF members to our conferences.

How do we get to 8,000 attendees like Catersource?

Again, it goes back to a better understanding of what the industry wants and needs. This can only be done by collecting proper data that we can rely on. Too often, we do a simple survey and have unscientific data – unreliable data – and yet, we rely on it. I feel we need to be aggressively growing our data on the industry. This will allow us to provide higher return on the investment for the sponsors and purveyors. This can be done by outsourcing our data collection and gaining proper analytics about our membership and our industry.

Can we have seminars that are more like workshops? Can they relate to business and work skills?

In the past, I have presented seminars on business and work skills. They were part of my Culinarians MBA series of seminars. Yet, they were seminars and not designed to be specifically a workshop. My presentations are interactive and do encourage participation. I like the idea of focusing those same seminars – and others – in a workshop style setting. I think you have brought a great concept to the table. I have wanted to see more panel discussions again. But, your concept is really powerful. They may require to be longer than 90 minutes long. However, if they are useful, I feel we can fit them in!

What about the content of the seminars? Who determines them?

Again, this goes back to the need to have better analytics. The Education Department and the Events Department puts together the content of the seminars. Please note that there is a place on the surveys where you can indicate what seminars you are looking for. The Education Department does review them to bring seminars on those topics to the conferences.

What are you going to do do keep the ACF strong?

We need to get away from the concept of "passing the hat." When we need more money, we "pass the hat." This mom-and-pop, fraternity manner of raising money does not work in today's economy. We need to have a more business-like approach to growing our revenue streams. This can include grants from the private sector as well as the public sector. We should have a development office that is focusing on long-term sustainable revenue streams. Ideally, the organization should be able to run without the need to rely on high dues.

We need to also look at our programs and determine the return on the investment from them. We need to establish metrics to address how to have the different initiatives and programs grow to sustainable levels. Part of the Strategic Plan that we have released here at the conference addresses this process; we need my leadership to see this through.

What is your greatest weakness? What is your one thing you want to achieve?

My biggest weakness is that I collect "stray dogs." It is hard for me to say, "no." And, then I pursue a "lost cause" because I am passionate about being able to help the "stray dog."

As for my achievement – changing the paradigm of how the ACF runs. We need to be a business and behave as such. We need to have business-think. We need to focus on return on investment, chapter compliance, and chapters behaving as businesses as well. In other words, we need to strengthen our business-think from the Board of Directors to the Committees to the National Office to the local chapters to the membership. The Strategic Plan addresses this. I need to be a part of making it happen.

I earned my MBA from the College of William & Mary. Through that program I honed my skills and learned new ones that help me understand the business aspect of operations.

How do you feel about the term of office and the continuity in its present form?

Consistency is valuable. We have changed and changed and changed the process – too many times and too many formats. This format is fine. We do not need to keep changing it. And, the Strategic Plan addresses the need to have a consistent operation. In fact, a great part of the plan is focusing on strengthening the different entities to ensure that the organization continues to operate through continuity with whichever leadership we have. We have begun the reform necessary in the operation.

Having elections every two years establishes accountability. Additionally, it keeps the leadership "on its toes" and focused on addressing the needs of the membership.

What marketing strategy do we have to grow our Professional Culinarian category of membership?

I believe that if we address the needs of our membership and of non-members, they will come! "Build it and they will come." Our newly minted Strategic Plan addresses this.

We need to be better at gathering information. As we do this, we will build our programs in a manner that will address the needs of our industry and carry it forward. And, members of the industry will want and need to be a part of our organization.