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Linda Bailey, Division Manager, Meetings & Conferences |
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Mike Hazell, Web Publisher |
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Anna Thompson, Manager of Meeting Services |
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Joanne Durham, Manager of Conferences & Meetings |
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Cheryl Green Pozner, Director of Business Development |
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Eric Holden, Sr. Product Manager Training Development |
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Victor Bishop, Marketing Specialist |
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Questions? Send an e-mail | |
Take a look at our new, 12-page brochure (PDF, 3.4 MB) for a full preview of our upcoming conference.
Inside, you'll find a run-down of our more than 130 educational sessions, including dozens of case studies, test results, and code updates, as well as details on the 21 pre-conference seminars we'll be offering on June 6-7.
And don't forget: you get free Expo-only registration if you sign-up by April 30, 2009.
McCormick Place has got a new team in place - a "green action" team, to be exact.
Home to the 2009 NFPA 2009 Conference & Expo in June, McCormick Place is aggressively seeking new ways to provide an environmentally responsible facility and services. According to general manager David Causton, several initiatives are already underway, including the purchase of new receptacles that will help visitors easily sort garbage from materials that can be recycled. In addition, the facility's "West Building" recently attained LEED Certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) from the U.S. Green Build Council, the organization that sets the standards for what is officially considered environmentally-friendly or “green”. The West Building is the largest new-construction facility in the country to be certified.
We'll be striving to make our 2009 conference in Chicago as green as possible, and we'll update you on our plans as we get closer to the event.
We'd like to hear from you: do you have any ideas on how NFPA can make its annual conference more environmentally-friendly? It's easy to respond: just click on the "comments" link below, enter your name (just your first name is fine) and your e-mail address (this will NOT show in your post), and type your comments in the white box. Then select "post".
We look forward to hearing from you.
Why not take advantage of your time in Chicago next June by taking one or more of our pre-conference seminars? These popular one- and two-day seminars give you a head-start on all of the learning you'll be doing at the NFPA Conference & Expo.
Full details - including speakers, pricing, and scheduling - will be coming soon, but here's a preliminary list of topics that will be covered. Visit our conference web site for descriptions of these sessions.
Note: When the final list of pre-conference seminars is announced, pre-registration will be required, but full conference regislation is not required.
On Wednesday, June 10, we will feature a presentation from Dr. Shyam Sunder of the National Institute of Standards and Technology-NIST. Dr. Sunder, Director of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory, was NIST's lead investigator for of the World Trade Center disaster. He will discuss his report on the collapse of World Trade Center Tower 7. This presentation will describe the investigation process, and the analysis necessary to determine the sequence of events that resulted in the collapse of Building 7.
We've got a special treat in store for this year's General Session. On Monday, June 8, from 1:00-3:00 pm, we'll be hosting The Second City, the acclaimed improv group that's been performing sketch comedy in front of audiences for nearly 50 years. So much talent has come from the ranks of The Second City that it reads like a "who’s who" of contemporary American comedy: the long list includes John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Steve Carrell, and Stephen Colbert.
Last July, Joanne Durham, Manager of NFPA Conferences & Meetings, and I took in a Second City show when we were in Chicago for a site visit. Talk about funny! It was a terrific show and we know you'll thoroughly enjoy yourself at their presentation at the Arie Crown Theater at McCormick Place in June.
If you never got around to ordering recordings of educational sessions from our conference in Las Vegas last June, here's your chance. Through December 31, 2008, we're offering a special 25% discount on all conference recordings, available on CD or as MP3 downloads. Order today and save!
The deadline for booking a hotel room for our Chicago conference -- and still receive special convention rates -- is not until April 15. But we received word yesterday that the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place is already sold out.
So before too much more time passes, we suggest you book your hotel room now. We've got great deals on accommodations in several other fine Chicago hotels...and we're offering four easy ways to make a reservation.
The Motions Committee of the Standards Council has determined that the following documents in the 2008 Fall Revision Cycle have at least one certified amending motion that may be presented at the 2009 Association Technical Meeting in Chicago:
There are also 12 documents in the 2008 Fall Revision Cycle that received no "Notice of Intent to Make a Motion" (NITMAM) or were not certified by the Motions Committee, and will therefore be forwarded directly to the Standards Council for issuance on December 9, 2008. The effective date of these documents will be December 29, 2008.
Download the entire Motions Committee Report (PDF, 168 KB) issued on November 7, 2008.
Late last month, a committee of NFPA technical experts met to evaluate the more than 320 presentation proposals that were submitted for our 2009 conference in Chicago. It was a difficult task, since only 130 papers could be selected to be part of our conference education program.
We were very impressed with the quality and breadth of submissions received this year, and we made our selections based on relevance, focus, practical application, timeliness, as well as on the presenters’ experience and credentials. If you submitted a proposal, you’ll be notified of the committee’s decision later this month.
Now we put together the pieces of the puzzle - programming the selected presentations into time slots and finalizing the schedule. We’ve got a robust educational program planned, with more than 15 pre-conference seminars, education topics in 11 tracks, case studies, code updates, “Spotlight Sessions” (special seminars that don’t conflict with other conference events) and “behind the scenes” tours. Watch this blog and our conference Web site for details.
So, you’re wondering why the name of the NFPA conference has changed…
Frankly, we didn’t think “NFPA World Safety Conference & Exposition” (WSC&E) kept up with what the event had evolved into. We wanted to come up with a new name to more accurately represent the event.
Some of you long-time members will recall the event used to be called the “NFPA World Fire Safety Congress & Exposition. We also used to hold a Fall Education Conference. That event was combined into the WSC&E.
After considerable discussion and debate, we decided including the word “fire” in the name would be limiting since the conference covers such a wide range of topics. The new name – NFPA Conference & Expo – is simple, identifiable with NFPA, and reflects the broad constituency the conference serves.
- Linda Bailey
