September 27, 1999
DT-99-036
MEMORANDUM
TO: Designated Agency Ethics Officials and
1999 Annual Conference Attendees
FROM: Barbara A. Mullen-Roth
Associate Director for Education
and Program Services
SUBJECT: Ideas for the 2000 Annual Government Ethics Conference
Thanks to all of you who took time to complete an evaluation
form for the 1999 Annual Government Ethics Conference recently held
in Williamsburg, Virginia. According to the evaluation forms
submitted, this past conference was very well received, despite the
fact that it was cut short because of hurricane Floyd.
It is never too early to start planning for a conference.
While thoughts about the recent conference are still fresh in your
mind, I would like to solicit your ideas about next year's
conference. In particular, I would like to know what topics you
would like to see covered, both in concurrent sessions as well as
by plenary speakers, your willingness to participate in a session
or suggestions of individuals who might be willing to participate.
Please use the attached proposal form to submit your ideas and
suggestions.
In addition to proposals for topics and speakers, I would like
to solicit your thoughts on the following two comments we have
received consistently over the years.
1. Handouts. Every year we receive questions about why we do
not provide handouts from each session to all attendees. The
primary reason has been that because the conference is so
dependent on the ethics community members' willingness to take
time from already overloaded schedules to prepare sessions,
the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) has been reluctant to
put additional pressure on the volunteers to have their
material prepared by a specific date, well in advance of the
conference, to ensure that 500 copies can be made.
If you were a participant in a concurrent session, would you
be willing to provide your materials a month in advance of the
conference? What could OGE do to help you meet this deadline?
2. Repeat Sessions. Each year we also receive questions as
to why the key sessions are not repeated. Again, because the
conference is dependent on the willing participation of the
ethics community to conduct the concurrent sessions, and most
of these individuals are paying registrants to the conference,
OGE has been reluctant to ask them to give up attending more
than one round of concurrent sessions so that they could
conduct a session.
If you were a participant in a concurrent session, and a
paying registrant to the conference, would you be willing to
conduct your session twice over the course of the conference?
Would it make a difference if we offered an additional round
of concurrent sessions (six instead of five)? What else could
OGE do to facilitate the repeating of key sessions?
Please use the attached proposal form to provide your thoughts
and comments on these two questions. Your input will be very
valuable as we begin to plan for next year.
For your information, OGE is working on scheduling as many of
the canceled sessions from this year's conference in the Washington
area as possible over the next several months. Additionally, we
are attempting to obtain as many copies of the handout materials as
possible, in electronic format, to put on a special section of the
OGE Web site. If you have any of these materials in electronic
format, please submit them by E-mail, preferably in text format, to
either Tonda King at tgking@oge.gov or Barbara Mullen-Roth at
bamullen@oge.gov. Watch for DAEOgrams announcing the scheduled
sessions and the availability of materials.
Thanks again to all of you for your support of this
conference. It's because of your efforts that the conference has
enjoyed nine years of success. Let's make the tenth Annual
Government Ethics Conference the best one yet!
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