Kiwanis Annual District Conference Notes

After a long day at the 92nd annual convention for the Illinois-Eastern Iowa District of Kiwanis International, Dena gladly shared some brainstorm thoughts for next year's conference which will be featured here in town. Since she'd been up since 3:30 a.m. I was glad to use my secretarial skills to record them:

1. Is the itinerary too long? Is there some way to redesign it so it isn't quite so long? What is required versus tradition in the House of Delegates meeting?

2. The governor-elect voting had 3 candidates, and in such situations "run-off" voting takes place. In other words, a preliminary round of voting occurs to eliminate one of the candidates and reduce the field to two. Could there be a way to reduce idle time during this process? For example each candidate (some slower afoot than others) walk up to the front and give a 3-minute speech that often resembles a straight read of their biography. Could the speech be replaced with a printed bio?

3. On another front, where a run-off situation exists, each candidate is interviewed pageant-style by answering an impromptu question and then leaving the room. This is a good test. Should it be expanded to all votes regardless of the number of candidates?

4. Is there a better way to utilize technology? This year the large screen was mainly used for a promotional video, and then sat silent with a single cover slide the rest of the time. Perhaps this would be a place to list candidate bios or other announcements throughout the day in a rolling fashion?

5. The itinerary didn't account for the possibility of a run-off vote, which put things 15 minutes behind schedule.

6. The voting process allows nominations from the floor. Given the sizable logistics of the event, should a deadline be set in advance?

7. There were a lot of standing ovations.. over 30 it seemed. Is this excessive? Probably can't do much about that other than the occasional "hold your applause to the end please" in certain situations.

8. Did they serve chicken at every meal?

9. Bill Piper's introduction was like 20 minutes long. Felt too long.

10. Amador Medallions... no need to read all the bios aloud? We have them in hand. Find a way to delay the photo op with the governor so that it doesn't add to the ceremony length.