Chapter News

September 2021 Message from the President

Some of my key areas of focus for our chapter during my presidency were around industry collaboration, engagement, and operational efficiency with a simple strategic focus. Some of these areas aren’t the flashiest to work on but they are crucial to the sustainability of a successful PCMA GMC chapter for many years to come! I thought I would highlight some updates in these areas.

Industry Collaboration: Our past-president Rachael Riggs brought together all Midwest hospitality association leaders in 2020 to look at ways we could communicate more effectively as a community. I have continued that work and in our last meeting we decided to look at launching what we are calling (for now) the Chicago Meeting & Event Coalition at Industry Exchange in spring 2022. We continue to explore ways we can combine our efforts and it has been amazing to have this brain trust of leaders working on how we can best support our Midwest community during this challenging time.

Engagement: In addition to our webinars, happy hours, quarterly events and upcoming live events, did you know we’ve done 55+ engagements since January 2020? 😊 We also launched the PCMA GMC digital platform open to all members and even recently lapsed members. Check out the newsletter for login details and we hope to keep building more engagements in the platform with our live events and in general into the fall.

Operational efficiency: As we continue to work to be a more inclusive chapter, we launched the chair application process last year. This gives the opportunity of leadership not only to existing volunteers but potential new ones. We also have done so much work on our onboarding and organizational procedures to aid in succession planning. This coupled with the 2020 bylaw modifications, give the leadership team the flexibility and consistency to adapt however is needed.

I hope to see you at one of our events this fall! (https://greatermidwest.pcma.org/events/)

Molly Witges, CMP, DES
2021 GMC PCMA President
Maritz Global Events

 

Congrats and to all our members celebrating an anniversary this month!

5 Year

Tori Scatena
Allison Lewis
Roz Stuttley

10 Year

James Sweeney

20 Year

Lissa v. Salvatierra
Christie Tarantino-Dean
Debra Barrett

25 Year

Cindy Airhart

Jacky ListonSeptember 2021 Message from the President