Plan Your Meetings
Spotlights
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
Did you know that this year alone over 73 billion beverage cans and plastic bottles will be incinerated or tossed into landfills? Make a difference at your next event by checking out CynerGreen, an environmentally friendly company whose “Bottle Free” programs are specifically designed to eliminate the use of plastics during meetings and conventions. CynerGreen can create customized programs to meet a variety of needs, ultimately reducing the need for plastic water bottles and diminishing the cost of recycling them. They also sell reusable, eco-friendly and affordable water bottles, which make great door prizes and takeaway gifts. — Allison Goldstein
Virtual (phone) assistance
Onebox Receptionist is a virtual phone system for small businesses (i.e., the independent meeting planner) looking to bypass the expense of hiring a receptionist or answering service. Onebox provides a 24/7 automated attendant that answers calls and routes them to you or your team. Features include a toll-free number, a studio-recorded customized greeting, voicemail (with e-mail notification settings), advanced call forwarding, faxing and conferencing options. For more personalized service, there’s also “live receptionist” packages. Plans start at $50 a month; no set-up fee required.
Travel planning made easy
Want to avoid the stress of time-zapping destination research? ZipSetGo.com, an online community-based travel Web site, features one-page destination overviews and detailed travel itineraries tailored specifically to meeting planners. The innovative site offers insider information about popular destinations and utilizes social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to create a knowledgeable community of travelers. Free and business memberships are available. — Allison Goldstein
Event paparazzi
Looking for tried and true event photography? Consider the award-winning Northlight Photography Inc. Backed by veteran-photographer Ross DeLoach, the Atlanta-based company specializes in creative logistics and has captured diverse corporate and social events for the past 17 years.
Meetings with purpose
Give your meeting new meaning with the “Build a Bicycle” team-building program at the Brasstown Valley Resort & Spa in Young Harris, Ga. In addition to fostering better working relationships and team spirit among attendees — teams compete during seminars, answering questions, etc., to earn tokens to purchase tools needed to build bikes that will be judged on workmanship — the program also provides bikes for at-risk children.
Up-close and personal city tours
The Kessler Collection hotels (Bohemian Hotel Savannah Riverfront and the Mansion on Forsyth Park) in Savannah, Ga., put a new twist on traditional group tours. Meeting attendees staying at either property can get up-close-and-personal with historic downtown Savannah via self-guided iPod Touch tours. The tours have been customized to give visitors access to insider information, interviews, images, video and voice content, GPS maps and more.
Scheduled events
If time is a premium, checkout Tom’s Planner, a simple, yet intuitive, online project scheduler. The planner allows you to create schedules with drag and drop options, share them with your team and securely save them on your computer. Schedules also can be exported into Microsoft Project and incorporated into reports with images. Membership is currently free since the software will be in beta testing for another year.
