Agenda Item 4.2 (b) – CSCE Board of Directors Meeting of December 1, 2013
CSCE Fall Convention
Feasibility Study
October 2013 (FINAL DRAFT )
Prepared by:
CSCE Fall Convention Feasibility Task Force – Feasibility Report Sub-group
Linda Newton Reza Kianoush Ioan Nistor
1 | P a g e Table of Contents 1. Introduction... 2 2. Vision ... 2 3. Potential Market... 2 a) Participants ...2 b) Location...2 4. Implementation ... 3
a) Starting Small and Evolving ...3
b) Resources ...3
c) Location...3
d) Organizational Structure...4
e) Potential programme...4
f) Timeline and Timing ...5
5. Finances ... 5
6. Risks ... 5
7. Conclusions ... 6
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1.
Introduction
In June 2013 the CSCE Board created a Fall Convention Task Force, to examine the potential for creating a new CSCE Fall Convention. The purpose of the Convention would be to serve as a gathering place for non-academic CSCE members who currently do not consider themselves served by the CSCE Annual Conference, held each year in June.
2.
Vision
The vision for this Convention is that it would evolve into an annual event attended by many CSCE members who have the means and desire to participate in an annual gathering but who do not identify with the strong academic focus of the June CSCE Annual Conference. The Fall Convention would have technical, soft skills and business education components and could also host civil engineering achievement and civil engineering history components. It would be targeted at CSCE members who do not identify with peer reviewed research papers. The purpose of the Fall Convention would be to provide member services to a segment of CSCE membership not currently served with a convention/conference.
3.
Potential Market
a) Participants
The CSCE has 4048 members, including 94 international members as of 2014.
Approximately 40% are practising engineers and/or academics. Almost 45% are students and the remainder are technical affiliates or retired.
The majority of participants at the annual conference are academics and students.
However, practising engineers are the majority participants at Section activities, where up to 50% of attendees are non-members. This participation by non-members represents a significant potential market for a Fall Convention if the primary focus is industry. Other groups that should be targeted include 4th year students, recent engineering graduates and Associate Members. An industry focused conference would provide networking
opportunities and further exposure to engineering practice while promoting the CSCE to these individuals. Finally, there is the potential to attract professionals from the broader field of the ‘built environment’ (e.g. urban planners, architects, surveyors, government, etc) depending upon conference themes.
b) Location
The CSCE Annual Conference typically serves 350 to 400 participants. Although
variable from location to location, about 20% of the attendance is local to the hosting city area and the remainder travel and stay in the conference hotel. A Fall Convention will be
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expected to draw attendance locally initially. Eighty percent of the current membership, and the potential industry market, is within two hours of the following locations:
Montreal/Ottawa Toronto
Calgary/Edmonton Vancouver
A well established, well known Fall Convention might attract as many as 250 participants from the following sources:
Organizing committee 20
Presenters / Keynotes (member or non-member) 50
Local section/industry participants (non-member) 60
Local Student Chapter participants (dependant on timing) 30
Travelling CSCE members 50
Travelling non-members 20
Travelling CSCE students 20
TOTAL ESTIMATED PARTCIPATION 250
Until a CSCE Fall Convention has become a tradition, it is quite likely that attendance numbers will fluctuate greatly and be in the 100 to 150 range.
4.
Implementation
a) Starting Small and Evolving
It is not likely that the initial Fall Conventions will attract 250 participants. It would be wise to plan for smaller, simpler, lower cost and lower risk Conventions in the early years and allow the Convention to evolve as its popularity grows. If 25 or 50 CSCE members who would not elect to attend our Annual Conference find learning and fellowship at a Fall Convention, then organizing it will not be a wasted effort.
b) Resources
A fall convention will require volunteer, staff and financial resources. In the early years, if a small capacity convention is planned, the following team might be sufficient:
Fall Convention Chair Fall Convention Treasurer
Fall Convention Sponsorship and Marketing Coordinator Fall Convention Program Coordinator
CSCE National Office staff support
c) Location
The Fall Convention should be held in a city where there are volunteer resources, including those from industry to organize it. Volunteer resources are going to be key to mobilizing the awareness within the local civil engineering community that will lead to sponsorships, presentations and attendance. The largest single CSCE Section is Toronto,
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and travel to Toronto from the rest of Canada is relatively convenient and competitively priced; however, many other CSCE Sections would be capable of organizing a successful Fall Convention. If smaller Sections are considered, they must demonstrate feasibility to hold a conference - i.e. they need to have a market.
At some point in the future, it may be that a well established CSCE Fall Convention location could be selected because of the tourist appeal of a city (example – Niagara Falls), however, this is not as important as a location with an LOC which is well
supported by the local civil engineering community. In addition, if late fall becomes the norm, many tourist activities are winding down and some families have children in school.
d) Organizational Structure
The organizational process in place for hosting a CSCE Annual Conference would serve a Fall Convention equally. A local organizing committee (LOC), endorsed by the local CSCE Section and Region, proposes to the CSCE Regional Coordinating Committee and subsequently the CSCE Board of Directors, that they be granted hosting privileges for a specific year. When this has occurred, a Memorandum of Understanding between the LOC and the CSCE is prepared by the National Office Executive Director. The MOU outlines expectations and responsibilities of each party. Following signing of the MOU by the LOC chair and treasurer, the process of identifying a venue and negotiating a venue contract is begun. This is a cooperative joint effort between the LOC and the National Office. With a venue and dates secured, the LOC proceeds to organize the Fall Convention, seeking assistance from the National Office staff as required and keeping in regular contact with the Local (Host) Section, Region and Conference Monitor.
e) Potential programme
A Fall Convention must differentiate itself from the June Annual Conference. It should have a programme that is relevant to industry. The following recommendations, based on experience of Committee members who have attended conferences/conventions with a large industry presence, are presented for consideration:
Presentation only format – Presenters submit 200 to 250 word abstract as basis for selection
Encourage presentations on significant engineering projects, ideas, challenges or academic studies on problem presented by industry
Morning plenary session attended by all participants with keynote speakers invited from industry
Limited breakout sessions – two to four per time slot
Panel format for questions and answers session at the end of each session to encourage discussion
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f)
Timeline and TimingA minimum timeline for an initial Fall Convention, serving a maximum of 100 people and running over two days, is estimated to be approximately 1 year. If the Convention grows to be more similar to the CSCE Annual Conference, the lead time will increase. The Convention should be scheduled so that it does not conflict with large, established events such as the American Concrete Institute (ACI) convention in late October/early November.
5.
Finances
The attached pro-forma budget (Annex A) has been prepared for varying Fall Convention sizes, to show the current estimate of costs and required revenues to achieve target net revenues of 20% of expenses. The 20% is potential “profit” to be shared between the Section, Region and National divisions of CSCE and it is also a contingency, in case something happens to upset projections. This is a conservative budget. It is based on an average registration fee of $450 and reduced rates for Associate members ($250) and Student members ($100). It does not include tradeshow revenue and proposes reduced sponsorship levels and revenues.
Note that in its early years, it is very unlikely that the CSCE Fall Convention would generate large revenue surpluses, as sometimes happen with the Annual Conference and stand-alone Specialty Conferences. The relationship between registration fees and attendance numbers is expected to be very significant for the target market of the Fall Convention.
a) Expenses – major expenses are meals, room rentals and audio visual equipment services. Also any keynote speaker charges, such as accommodations and travel. b) Revenue – major revenue comes from registration fees and sponsorships
6.
Risks
Organizing a Fall Convention involves financial risk, volunteer burnout risk and risk of damage to the reputation of the CSCE. The financial risk can be reduced by selecting a go/no go date and structuring the meals, venue and audio visual contracts to minimize costs if cancelation occurs prior to that date. Then good marketing and early registrations prior to the decision date will allow the LOC to decide whether to proceed. Initially, the CSCE Board of Directors will need to budget for and be prepared to accept a financial loss until the convention finds its audience. A break-even event should be considered a financial success.
The volunteer burnout risk is minimized by having an up front MOU outlining expectations, so that organizers know what they are signing for. The satisfaction of delivering a successful event is a very tangible reward for a volunteer team that knew what was expected and signed on anyway.
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What is delivered has to match or exceed what is promised. We do not want to attract international delegates or sponsors expecting one size and stature of Convention when we are delivering something smaller.
7.
Conclusions
This task force, having considered the opportunity and risks associated with establishing a CSCE Fall Convention, concludes the following:
a) A CSCE Fall Convention which is established to complement the CSCE Annual
Conference, targeting a segment of CSCE members generally do not participate in the annual conference, would be a fine addition to CSCE member services.
b) The market (registration fees and sponsorships) will ultimately decide, however, based on our pro-forma budgeting, a CSCE Fall Convention is financially feasible.
c) The availability of volunteer and staff resources to create a CSCE Fall Convention may be limited. Further refinement of the concept and then advertising to Sections the opportunity to host, will be the ultimate determination of interest.
Number of Delegates to Conference:
Fixed Per Attendee Factor 80 100 150 200
Revenues
Sponsors $ 27,000 $ - $ 27,000 $ 27,000 $ 27,000 $ 27,000
Trade Show Displays $ - $ - $ - $ - $ - $
-Registrations $ - $ 30,770 $ 39,274 $ 60,128 $ 83,532
Offsite Social - to be decided $ - $ - $ - $ - $ - $
-Workshops $ - $ - $ - $
-National Office Mtgs $ 4,400 $ 4,400 $ 4,400 $ 4,400 $ 4,400
HST $ 3,822 $ - $ 8,082 $ 9,188 $ 11,899 $ 14,941
Grants & Seed Monies $ 6,000 $ 6,000 $ 6,000 $ 6,000 $ 6,000
TOTAL REVENUE $ 41,222 $ - $ 76,252 $ 85,862 $ 109,427 $ 135,873
Expenses Fixed Per Attendee
Planning / Administration $ 8,780 $ - $ 8,780 $ 8,780 $ 8,780 $ 8,780
Printing & Postage $ 2,250 $ - $ 2,250 $ 2,250 $ 2,250 $ 2,250
Advertising $ 1,000 $ - $ 1,000 $ 1,000 $ 1,000 $ 1,000
Facilities $ 23,000 $ - $ 23,000 $ 23,000 $ 23,000 $ 23,000
Catering $ - $ 182 0.90 $ 14,530 $ 18,162 $ 27,243 $ 36,324
OFF-SITE FUNCTION - To be decided $ - $ - $ - $ - $ - $
-Companion Program (Based on 2/10 accompaniment)$ - $ - $ - $ - $ - $
-Miscellaneous (excluding Contingency) $ 900 $ 32 $ 3,488 $ 4,135 $ 5,753 $ 7,370
Taxes $ 21,898 $ 50 $ 8,082 $ 9,188 $ 11,899 $ 14,941
Contingency $ 5,790 $ 30 $ 6,130 $ 6,670 $ 8,010 $ 9,390
Seed Monies $ 6,000 $ - $ 6,000 $ 6,000 $ 6,000 $ 6,000
TOTAL EXPENSES $ 69,618 $ 294 $ 73,260 $ 79,185 $ 93,934 $ 109,055
Error in between expenses sheet and this for Expenses
Net Return (rounded) $ 3,000 $ 7,000 $ 15,000 $ 27,000
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