Hi Ralph

From Gokce and Ecmel’s part: There is no signed contact with the venue. And we always had informal relation with ArtofMan team who holds all the other related information. However I do appreciate your offer with Eventbrite let us see the interested people and find out the number. I should add that I have a very heavy administrative job beside my classes and definitely need either self orginizing body or professional support to continue.

Regards,

Gokce

 

 

Some questions of discovery to see whether it is possible for the 5^th Art of Management Conference to proceed.

 

Who and where are all the conference information/registration/material/papers/applications/correspondence/emails held currently?

What state is the material in?

Is it on-line?

Can it be released immediately and unencumbered to a third party?

What delegate numbers are committed and deposited?

Have there been any payments made?  

Where is the cash held?

Can that be transferred into an independent third party bank account trust fund?

Is there an up-to-date conference revenue and expenditure budget?

Who holds it and are they happy to pass it over to a third party unencumbered and with a statement to the affect they are a true and accurate indication of the current state of affairs?

Are there signed contracts with the venue?

Who holds them?

What is the venue’s current expectation regarding deposit and confirmation?

Do the official organisers as listed Ian, Ceri, Gocke and Elmel have the right to allow the conference to proceed with the name under which it has been advertised, free of any potential litigation from any third party whatsoever?

 

I have set up a dummy 5^th Art of Management web site at http://aom.eventbrite.com/

 

Can I ask all AACORNERS who are currently committed or who would definitely attend if the conference proceeded, to complete the dummy conference registration form so we can have a fair indication of numbers to determine the financial viability of proceeding. This in no way means you are committed to attend. Just trying to sketch out a financial scenario.

 

If the AACORN membership support is strong and the conference AS PLANNED is able to proceed then time is of the essence from an organising perspective. On the other hand, if the community is able to act quickly there is still time to promote and communicate and make this happen, the only proviso being the event budgets stack up.

 

On the other hand, if the AACORN membership thinks this is too aggressive on my part, I am happy to step aside.

 

Kind regards,

Ralph

 

 

Ralph Kerle

Executive Chairman

The Creative Leadership Forum
www.thecreativeleadershipforum.com

+61 29403 5327 m 0412 559 603

  Ralph Kerle on LInkedIn

Ralph Kerle on Twitter (@creativematters)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good morning everyone. Thanks for this Ralph, and for Paul’s Montreal offer as well.  Lots of generosity in the air! To see whether this is feasible from the Istanbul side, perhaps you (Ralph) and Gokse should get in touch. From what you’re saying, it sounds like the venue setup is the critical point and she might know more about what’s happening on that end. I guess the other ‘must do’ is to get an Aacorn conference committee together. From what we’ve seen from organizing the EGOS conference, having a good professional event organizer makes all the difference. We have a wonderful agency working for us here in Lisbon, and it’s clear that having lots of experience is critical (and that you, Ralph, have it!).

 

Ian, from what you wrote before, it seems like it could be possible to rebrand the conference…a “considered regrouping” as Steve Linstead said. It appears that the biggest glitch has been trying to legally and financially transfer the conference from Essex and that if you wanted to re-title it as an Aacorn or some other conference name, it could go ahead. And if you still have energy for running it, maybe teaming up with Ralph and a few others could be a way to go. Granted, as Steve Taylor points out, the memberships aren’t the same, but perhaps it could still work. And I can also understand if you simply feel too burned out to continue just now. It’s been a lot to deal with in a short time. D

 

From: Aesthetics, Creativity, and Organisations Research Network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ralph Kerle
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 1:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Going Forward

 

 

Hey folks,

 

I'll echo your elegant solution. In fact, let me offer a 'crazy idea' ... why not go one step further ... there's already some foundation laid for Istanbul ... can't we simply 'reappropriate' the conference and proceed?

 

Having founded and run an event company for 14 years, let me offer this.

 

I can have an event management and conference booking site up and running that will accept payment, schedule events,  run the event financially and operational for a cost per head in 24 hours. The cost per head goes to the on-line software operator, not to me so it would be relatively inexpensive around 3%.  I am happy to contribute my time to get this happening.

 

All I would need is an ACCORN conference committee to guide me that is empowered to make decisions on the communities behalf around papers and schedules and a confirmed venue and the rest we can do on-line globally relatively simply.

 

The confirmed venue with catering arrangements is the only tricky part with financial risk. Most venue operators will want confirmed numbers within 3 months from the commence date of the conference and a 10% holding deposit immediately unless a university venue operation is prepared to be flexible.

 

You can usually overcome this with a deposit trust fund. All payments can be placed in a trust fund ie in PayPal (although they are expensive or something similar) until the conference viability is confirmed with a refund clause.  The venue can sometimes be persuaded to hold out for the deposit until almost a month out by which time we should be able to confirm numbers and schedules pretty well.

 

Accommodation options can be added to the site with a direct click through to the hotels or whatever options there might be so attendees can arrange their own accommodation..

 

Is this of any help?

 

Kind regards,

Ralph

 

 

Ralph Kerle

Executive Chairman

The Creative Leadership Forum
www.thecreativeleadershipforum.com

+61 29403 5327 m 0412 559 603

  Ralph Kerle on LInkedIn

Ralph Kerle on Twitter (@creativematters)