April 2021 Newsletter

President's Letter

NACE Austin Family,

I hope you’re having a great year so far! The close of the first quarter of 2021 was marked with two successful events with the ILEA Austin Chapter. We’re so thankful for their partnership on The ILEA Austin and NACE Austin Day of Education and the Corporate Comeback Panel. We hope that you were able to attend both events and found the content we put together informative and inspiring.

I’ve heard throughout our industry that spring and summer calendars are beginning to fill as we see more and more people getting vaccinated and more in-person events taking place. We, too, are excited to get back to in-person events and will be rolling out a few exciting networking opportunities for our membership soon.

We know that many of you are ready to get out and get back together at the networking and educational events that we all love so much.  As we begin this next quarter, I’m excited to announce our first set of “micro-networking” opportunities that we will officially roll out later this month. These micro-networking opportunities will be limited to 10 people and allow us to safely meet at local bars and restaurants. Stay tuned for more details!

In addition to these events, I’m thrilled to announce our first in-person event of the year is in the works! Please be sure to mark your calendars  for May 18th to save the date! We’re hoping to have tons of outdoor activities, great food, and, of course, time with your NACE Austin Family, so stay tuned!

In closing, I would like to invite our membership to get involved with our chapter committees. If you’re interested in helping with our marketing, chapter operations, or planning our monthly meetings, we have a spot for you! Please reach out to me or any other board member, and we’d love to get you plugged in.

I’m so excited for what we have in store for you as we begin the second quarter of 2021, and we can’t wait to see you (in person) soon!

Josh Hampson
President
NACE – Austin Chapter

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Calendar of Events

As things slowly start to progress back towards our old normal, we're ramping up our NACE Activities and hope that you'll join us in whatever method you're comfortable with!

April 8th:
There are just a few days left to register for Global Meetings Industry Day Austin (GMID) on April 8th! Click here to learn more about the speaker sessions and virtual conference details! This is an important session from 3:00-4:15pm for anyone working in the events industry and registration is pay what you can with a portion of the proceeds going towards ACC's Hospitality Program Student Scholarship Fund! Register HERE

April 20th:
We're having a member meet-up lunch at 12PM at Easy Tiger East on Tuesday, April 20th! Open to members only, no registration fees, just pay for your own lunch on site! We'll be opening up the RSVP on our website shortly so keep an eye out! Haven't renewed your membership or joined NACE yet? Make sure to get your status up to date so we can see you there!

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Cause of the Quarter

Our Q1 Cause of the Quarter, Central Texas Food Bank. was a great success thanks to our amazing members and NACE community! We collected $195.00 and 187lbs of food donations (at a value of $218)!! Thank you to everyone of our members and community members who donated in such a time of need. 

For Q2, under the leadership of our new Community Service Director, Andrea Calvert, CPCE, we are excited to announce that we will be supporting Austin Shift Meal!

In light of the COVID-19 crisis, many workers in the Austin's hospitality industry have been affected by closures and layoffs.  Inspired by the Houston Shift Meal team, Austin Shift Meal is dedicated to providing these individuals with meals so that no one goes hungry.​

We are accepting monetary sponsorships and donations from suppliers, businesses, and individuals who wish to help. These sponsorships will go to our restaurant partners to help offset their costs as they take care of our industry family during these difficult times.

For every $250 sponsorship received, a restaurant will be able to produce anywhere between 50-75 meals.

Thank you for supporting Austin's hospitality community. We are all in this together.

Click here for all the details and to learn more about how to donate!

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Member Monday

Say hello to our newest members who joined the NACE Austin Family in Q1!

Brent Drake, Surefire Event Staffing
Wendy Dahl, COVID Clinic
Michelle Stansfield, COVID Clinic

Regardless of how long you've been a NACE member, we want to know more about YOU! Be sure to visit naceaustin.com, log into the Member Area in our header (contact our fantastic Membership Co-Chairs, Gayle & Brent if you need help getting your login) and update your profile! 

If you have any certification credentials (CPCE, CMP, CERP, etc.), we'd love for you to add those to the suffix line in your profile so that they show up and everyone can recognize your hard work!

We recommend adding a 300x300 pixel thumbnail profile image, and a short bio so we can share with your fellow members. Please don't hesitate to contact any of our Board Members if you have questions or need help!

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On a National Level...

Evolve Conference

Members of the Board enjoyed the virtual leadership conference, EVOLVE back in January! We enjoyed sessions on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with Buth Ruffin, The Everyday Inclusionist, who is helping NACE National in the implementation of the NACE Action Plan for supporting Diversity and Inclusion. We encourage each of our members to get involved in this important work and welcome your feedback on a chapter level for how we can better serve and support our community!

Experience Conference (August 1st-4th at The Bellagio in Las Vegas)
It's never too soon to start thinking about the annual Experience conference! We don't know about you, but we're ready to get back to networking and education and can't wait for what is sure to be a conference to remember! Visit nace.net/experience2021 for more info!

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NACE One Awards

ICYMI, NACE Austin won the coveted Chapter of the Year Award in the 51-100 members category at the 2020 NACE One Awards, presented in January 2021! We are so insanely proud of our chapter for not only surviving, but thriving as much as we possibly could have in 2020!

And onto the next one... Submissions are open for the 2021 NACE One Awards. The Deadline to Submit is May 24, 2021.

This year, there are new chapter award categories to include: Diversity and Inclusion, Emergency Response, Chapter Engagement, and Chapter Hybrid and Virtual Events, and we intend to submit for certain award category submissions, but we highly encourage you to champion yourselves on an individual level as well! 

Did you host a really cool Micro event or hybrid and virtual event that you want to share? Consider submitting for the Professional Micro Event of the Year, Innovator of the Year, Virtual Event of the Year and 2020 Frontline Hero Award as new awards, along with industry favorites like Team Event of the Year, Wedding of the Year, Speaker of the Year and more!

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The Amazing NACE Annual Fundraiser!

Each year we do an annual fundraiser and this year's theme is Over the Rainbow, an Amazing Race-style scavenger hunt with the help of GoGame!

Teams will race to solve clues and challenges as quickly as possible to beat the competition and be the official winners of The Amazing NACE!

Don't worry if you don’t have anyone to go with you, you can either hang out and watch everyone solve puzzles while relaxing at the stops with a drink, or we can pair you up with a team to compete with! Anyone can race (we promise it’s not like a marathon or an obstacle course kind of race), but you certainly don’t have to race to have a great time!!

Once the scavenger hunt race is complete, join us for an after-party back at Springdale Station where we’ll have food, drinks, music and entertainment!

Our Race winners will be announced and we’ll party the night away with help from our generous corporate and in-kind sponsors!

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