Chapter News

October 2020 Letter from the President

Welcome fall 2020 GMC Members!

I am excited to share two upcoming events with you.

  • Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Taskforce – we will host our 3rd community conversation on October 22 from Noon – 1pm CST. Register here.  As you know, our goal with this series is to create a safe space to have bold and brave conversations.  We are so grateful to Yolanda Simmons-Battle and her taskforce for bringing us this education.
  • November Quarterly Meeting – we are thrilled to share that GMC will be going LIVE for the 4th Quarterly Meeting. YEAH! The event will be held on Tuesday, November 10. We will be hosting a hybrid meeting with a hub and spoke model for the live component. Here is the plan:

Main Location-OLC Education & Conference Center (Rosemont) will host the main broadcast. Given the government regulations, our capacity will be at 50 people. At the OLC, we will host 3 “Ted Talk” type sessions including:

    1. PCMA Shifting Convening Leaders to an Omni Channel Event
    2. Inclusion, Diversity and Equity – A Brave and Bold conversation
    3. Wellbeing – taking care of you in tough times

Our 2nd location will be downtown at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Chicago Magnificent Mile. At this location, attendees will experience a socially distanced event and we will have a live stream of sessions happening at OLC. Again, our maximum capacity downtown will be 50 people.

Finally, we will broadcast the event live on zoom for anyone who prefers a virtual experience.

Registration for the event will open on Tuesday, October 20 at 9am CST. We encourage everyone who is interested in attending live to register quickly. Registration for the two live events will be capped at a 75/25 ratio of planner/suppliers to align with how our registrations for our digital events has been this year.

We are thrilled that this is happening and cannot thank our team enough for working toward a successful FACE TO FACE event. When you see the folks below, give them a huge shout out for all they are doing to bring GMC together.

  • Bob Kobosky -Board of Director – Events
    • Sherry Vale – Events Committee Chair
    • Jenny Lynch – Events Committee Co-chair
  • Dawn Amaskane – Board of Director – Education
    • Joe Wilush – Education Committee Chair
  • Mia Friel – Board of Director – Sponsorship
    • Sarah McKinney – Chair
    • Maddie Metcalfe – Vice Chair
    • Chris Gowe – Sponsorship partner
  • Jacky Meracle & Jena Vonderhaar – Staff

Plans are being solidified with our sponsors and announcements will be coming out shortly.

Finally, I want to give another shout out to the Sponsorship team for hosting GMC’s first Partnership Summit last month.   We engaged with our supplier friends to learn what works and does not work in the COVID-19 world for sponsorship so that we can be ready for 2021.  We were thrilled with this discussion and appreciate the valuable feedback gained.  Thank you to all of those that attended.

Have a great month and we will see you soon!

Be Well,

Rachael Riggs
2020 GMC Chapter President

Jacky ListonOctober 2020 Letter from the President