NNA Conference coordinator.(NNA State Activities)(Conference news)

The 2008 NNA Convention was planned in collaboration with the UNLV School of Nursing's 2nd Annual Multicultural Nursing Conference previously scheduled for September 22 and 23, 2008 at the Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. As you may recall, our 2007 Convention was held in this collaborative format with UNLV's Inaugural Multicultural Conference. Because it was much more economically feasible to pool resources with UNLV, the NNA Membership voted to use this format again for our 2008 Convention

As NNA's Convention Coordinator, I represented NNA on the UNLV Multi-cultural Conference Committee both in 2007 and 2008. The 2007 Conference was held in a local format and was a great success, and a regional format was the plan for 2008. The 2008 Conference was designed to include nurses and sponsors from the neighboring states of Utah, Idaho, California and Arizona; this would have substantially increased NNA's share of the Conference's proceeds.

The Orleans Hotel was selected for it would allow accommodations for those registering from the neighboring states as well as from our colleagues in Northern and Rural Nevada. Special hotel and meeting room rates were negotiated with the Orleans to make the conference affordable; however all of the negotiated rates were based on guaranteeing a certain number of hotel room sales, primarily from the non-local attendees. Unfortunately, as of August 1, 2008 we were faced with an extremely low out-of-town registration and no where near to meeting the hotel room number requirement. By August5, 2008 we had to make our final confirmation with the Orleans. Without being able to 'sell' the required amount of hotel rooms to our attendees, we stood to lose a substantial amount of money for we would have to pay much higher rates for the meeting rooms and food. Therefore, after much discussion and brainstorming for alternatives, the committee was forced to make the decision to cancel the conference.

No doubt the economy played a big part in the low registration as the advertising and marketing of the conference was even much more extensive than last year when we had a great attendance. Our exhibitor sponsorship for the 2008 was also severely decreased from last yet, again despite an increased marketing effort from the previous year. All the sponsors seemed to have the same problem of recent economic downturns.

Independent of the reason for the cancelation, without the UNLV Multi-cultural Conference proceeding as scheduled, NNA was left without a venue for our annual meeting and convention. The Board of Directors, now working under a time constraint and with a very limited budget, decided on using available State resources and technology to hold our annual meeting and convention as a real-time, state-wide Video Meeting/Convention. The date decided on was October 25, 2008 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The program is still in development at the time of this article, but most likely will focus on NNA's legislative agenda and the legislative activities of NNA and our Lobbyist for 2008-2009.

The available possible sites for members to attend include Elko/NE Regional Hospital, Garnerville/Carson Valley Medical Center, Las Vegas/CCSN Cheyenne Campus, Reno/Pennington Building, and Winnemucca/ Humboldt General Hospital. All details for the final sites and agenda for this innovative approach for our annual meeting/convention will be made available to the membership as they become available. Very special thanks are being sent out to Pam Larason of the University of Nevada School of Medicine, for her efforts in the coordination of video sites has been secured around the State.

Mary Bondmass RN, PhD

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