• Develop a theme, look and feel for the conference to be carried out in all communications with attendees and prospects.

• To assist with the creation of all conference materials (conference brochures, program, welcome packets, agendas, name tags, menus, opening video, banners, speaker presentations, etc.)

• Oversee event scripting.

• Manage all speakers and presentations.

The theme, “CO-OP Financial Services Delivers…” was approved at the end of 2006. The idea behind the theme was to build on last year’s name change announcement and emphasize that CO-OP is, indeed, more than just a network and generate more interest in the conference. In addition to “save the date” postcards and registration brochures, targeted email blasts were sent out, a microsite dedicated to the conference was designed, and special ads were run in trade publications. This year, instead of just offering general sessions, an afternoon of “tracks” was introduced, allowing those interested in learning more about marketing, product affiliates or operations to listen to and interact with panelists in a smaller, more comfortable forum.

The conference was an overall success. This year, we used an audience response survey system to gather results from attendees by having them answer questions about the conference after the last session. Instead of passing out surveys, questions were displayed on the screen and each attendee was given a keypad to record their responses. I’ve attached the results of the poll (questions 1-11 on spreadsheet). Since this was conducted on the last day, we only have a sampling of the attendees, but everything skewed positively.