Message from the Chair
By Diane Walker
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Host Users Group 2020 newsletter! After a successful HUG Conference at The American Club (thanks to all who attended and our vendor sponsors for making it such a success), the HUG Board has recently returned from it’s first meeting of the year and we have lots to tell you!
First of all, a huge shout out to The Bavarian Inn Lodge in Frankenmuth, Michigan who hosted our January Board meeting. Their service and hospitality were outstanding, and we all loved learning about their history, seeing their town (everything really is German!), and having some outstanding meals, beer, and bourbon! Not to mention meeting Amy Zendher Grossi, one of the Zehnder family members and the General Manager of the Bavarian Inn Restaurant!
We do spend 8+ hours a day in meetings, and the Chair gets to plan teambuilding events for the evening. Proving that the board and SMS don’t take themselves too seriously…see the picture above from our “super special teambuilding event: Pretzel Rolling”! Our second night’s teambuilding was indoor mini golf. Congrats to Kim Whalen and Jenn Craig who got the lowest score!
We used to have our January meeting in the SMS Las Vegas offices in January, but we now meet at a HUG property. So, if your property is too small to host the HUG conference, do consider hosting a two day HUG Board meeting for 10 people! If you are interested, contact Erin Butler (ebutler@smshug.org) or me (dwalker@smshug.org).
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The first order of business at our January meeting is to vote for Vice Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary positions so the Chair and Past Chair (that’s me and Marie Bell this year) have some help! I’m pleased to announce our newly elected positions are:
- Vice Chair:Â Erin Butler, Regency Hotel Management
- Treasurer:Â Jenn Craig, The Otesaga Resort Hotel
- Secretary:Â Alex Landers, The HendersonÂ
The remaining board members are:
- Chair:Â Diane Walker, Woodstock Inn & Resort
- Past Chair:Â Marie Bell, Six Flags Darien Lake
Board Members:Â
- Reza Rahman: Noble House Hotels & Resorts
- Kim Whalen: Bavarian Inn Lodge & Conference Center
- Karine Young: The Resort Collection
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Next, I introduced our “word of the year” (borrowed from Erin Butler’s tradition). Our word for this year is “RENEWAL”. I have asked the board to take a good hard look at each and every thing we do, question it, evaluate it, determine whether it should stay the way it is or if it can be changed for the better, all with the goal of renewing the Board and the HUG Conference. As a result, you will find many things just the way they always have been, and many things being altered a bit (okay, some things may be altered a lot) for the conference.Â
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One of the things we spent a lot of time on was our budget. Over the years our expenses have grown more than our revenues, and that’s not a good trend. So, we evaluated each line of our budget, determined some areas we could cut back by changing how we approach things, and found other areas that we felt were working well so we left them as they were, to come up with a balanced budget.Â
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For example, we listened to your reviews of our conference app and determined that we could do better. We also read your mixed reviews about our Keynote Speakers and determined that was an expense we should find a way to reduce. So, this year we will have a different type of presentation in lieu of an outside Keynote speaker and we will spend some money on a better conference app. We are all very excited about this new app and we think you will be too! You will be able to select the sessions you want to attend, add in your SMS one-on-one session, and have an agenda of your day on your phone! In addition, completing that session surveys will be quick and easy!
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One of the things we determined to keep the same is the property annual membership dues at $195. This membership allows each property to bring as many people to HUG as they wish for the conference price of $595 (if paid by July 31st), plus each person receives $500 in SMS dollars to spend on product and/or training so the net cost is $95. Non-member hotels that have SMS products will pay $899 per attendee with no SMS dollars! Invoices will be going out in the next few weeks. Would you please help us by letting your accounting department know how beneficial those dues are to your property?
In future newsletters, we will unveil more of our plans for HUG 2020, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we are looking for session leaders for November. If you have any interest in leading a session, please contact Marie Bell at mbell@smshug.org. Whether you have a session you know you want to present, or just know you want to run a session, Marie will talk with you and help you determine the best session for you. And, you receive complimentary registration if you lead a session, so your property will be more apt to approve your attendance this year so sign up now by contacting Marie!
In March we have our pre-con meeting at Sandestin where we will plan all of the conference sessions. More on that in our March newsletter!
In the spirit of renewal,
~Diane