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OTHER CONSIDERATIONS


The PDS Finance Chair should prepare a budget in advance and a final report after the seminar. The following points discuss some of the items that ought to be considered in detail while preparing the PDS budget for a seminar:

 

Speaker Honorarium
Note the ACM honorarium policy. It may be necessary to guarantee the speaker a portion of the agreed upon honorarium even if the seminar should be canceled. The speaker should be compensated for time spent in preparing the course. Minimum enrollment for cancellation should be decided in advance. But also note that a highly successful seminar may support another of topical importance but less popularity.

Publicity Brochure
This could be the largest single expense, and is certainly the major administrative and distribution problem. There will be charges for artwork and layout, for printing, folding, stuffing, and mailing. Brochures can be mailed at the bulk rate if they are presorted by zip code and if there is enough lead time to allow for unpredictable delivery times. one such bulk mailing took only three days, but it could take as much as two weeks. Currently the processing of an application for a 3rd-class mailing permit is $60.00; the permit itself costs $60.00 per year; and the postage costs $.111 per piece with a minimum of 200 pieces (refer to information provided under "Mailings" in prior pages) . Brochure design can be simple or elaborate, but it should project an image of quality and professionalism. Given sufficient lead time, advertisements can be placed in trade journals. If details are not firm at the time the advertisement is placed, publish a telephone number that readers may call for further information.

Selection of Facilities
Sometimes a college or trade school will donate a room if their students can attend the seminar at reduced rates. Predicting the required room size is difficult. A good suggestion is to start with a medium size room. If your attendance is not large, it is easy to arrange the space so you occupy most of it. But if you have options available, choose a small room and upgrade it to a larger one, as your registration calls for it. It is best to preserve these options in writing, as part of the facilities contract. Choose a location near traffic arteries and public transportation and with ample parking. Comfortable chairs and a writing surface are important. Non-smoking rooms are the standard in most locations. The room should be well-lighted and offer all required and audiovisual- facilities. A seminar facilities check list is available in printed form from headquarters. It is important that access for the handicapped be provided. If your are hosting more than one seminar on the same day, leave the assignment of lecture room until the first day of seminars. Don't put the room assignments in the publicity brochure. This gives you some flexibility in assigning rooms depending on the number of registrants in each seminar and protects you if a change of room becomes necessary.

Refreshments
It is important to provide coffee, soft drinks, and/or doughnuts during the break to give people an opportunity to socialize. Some housekeeping arrangements will be required. Establish ahead of time the location of the refreshments table in a convenient place outside the seminar room and set the time for the service so you have the refreshments in place about 15 minutes ahead of the break, time. As your registration count may vary considerably on the day of the seminar, negotiate with the cafeteria the quantities to be delivered, as flexible as possible.

Certificates
Course completion certificates are a nice touch but are not required. Some evidence of registration or completion may be needed by students who are being sponsored by their companies. continuing Education credits can be considered, but the PDS Committee must be able to support all the extra paperwork involved in issuing them, as there is a 3-year requirement to keep records available for inspection.

Handouts/Books
Set a closing date for registration so you will know how many handouts to print. Add 20% for late registrants. When ordering books try to order an initial shipment of 50 books. Most publishers offer a substantial discount for this number and in the event that you have to return books because of a small class size, you will be able to negotiate keeping a good discount. Another negotiating point is that of buying the speaker's book for use at the seminar. Several publishers offer a special discount and if that is the case you should make sure that you get the special author purchase price. Or, arrange with a local, technical bookstore for onsite sales at a discount to the attendees.

Contingency
Throw in a 10% contingency factor to handle unplanned expenses such as refreshments for late registrants, mileage, telephone, supplies, etc. Make sure that these expenses are included in the budget for the seminar.

Registration Fee Schedule
Set a stepwise fee schedule so that early registrants pay less than late ones, ACM members pay less than nonmembers, senior citizen and students pay less than employed people. Shoot for as simple a schedule as possible. Fees should be nominal: less than $100 for a 1-day session for an ACM member and +$10 for a non-member. Consider that if you are giving attendees a book, the full price of the book plus tax and shipment costs should be added to this fee, if appropriate. If you are allowing companies to register their employees without sending a registration payment, but waiting for your invoice to do that, the schedule of registration fees should have a special category for that purpose, which reflects the additional expenses incurred in billing and collecting those payments at a later time. Always model the schedule of fees so that the expected revenue covers the seminar costs. Remember, if you allow invoicing, the chapter must have enough capital for the initial PDS outlays.

Attendance
In predicting attendance figures, note that there is much elasticity in the demand for training. People and companies are much more willing to commit funds for training in good economic times than in lean years. The inability to attendance impacts the budget preparation, but it should not prevent you from undertaking the effort the first time.

Billing
You will probably want payment to accompany the student's registration However, companies sometimes find it difficult to issue a check without an invoice. To accommodate them, you may wish to make provisions for accepting registrations without payment from reputable companies and rendering an invoice later. Do not advertise this policy. It you do not have printed stationary, your invoices showing the correct name of the PDI Committee to be written in the check. Include address information and state in a concise manner the name of the attendee, the date of the seminar and the information provided by the company at registration time (i.e.: Training request number, Purchase Order number, etc.). Invoices should be sent immediately after the seminar date. You can add a request for payments within the next 30 days. After such a date, consider requesting a small percent rate as a late payment penalty.

Copyright permission
Permission must be obtained to use copies of copyrighted material for handouts. The procedure for obtaining permission to use copyrighted material varies. Sometimes written permission is required from both the author and the publisher. The author of the material is usually a good first source of information in these procedures. Where proceedings are produced, a form must be obtained from ACM headquarters, as it is required that copyright to the materials in the proceedings be turned over to ACM.

Recording policies
Be prepared to handle attendees request to record the speakers presentation. In advance of the day of the seminar, discuss this issue with the speaker and make the announcement of his/her decision at the beginning of the day. Enforce the speaker's wishes. It is very important that the speaker has the freedom to give the lecture without any pressure that taping of the session may impose on.

Answering machine
It is important to consider that many prospective attendees could have questions regarding the seminars that need to be answered before they can make registration decisions at their companies. It is convenient to have a phone number listed in the brochure were people can call. An answering machine with remote retrieval of messages could solve the problem. An initial investment of approximately $ 75 will last several years and give the PDS Committee a lot of flexibility. The recorded message to which callers listen to can be updated as the seminar time approaches, including information on availability of space, early/late registration fees in effect at a given moment, cancellations, or any other information that you see is useful at that time. If you have set up a credit card account with a local bank and you are receiving phone registrations, the answering machine message may prove to be very useful.

The PDS Committee mailing list
The list of registered attendees to your seminars is the best resource left to the PDS Committee for future activities. Guard this information and keep it up-to-date as you repeat the experience. Enrich this list with the names of all those inquiring on the seminars, the local computer journalists of your area of influence, the SIG groups in those areas where you offer seminars, etc. If you have a computer program to prepare your registration, this list is just an application of such system. If not, invest the time to enter the data in a mailing program that will allow you to generate your own labels the next time you run a seminar.

 

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