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July 30, 2010 Website
Upcoming Events 319 June 14-17, 2011 Concession Bites
Ron Athey Award
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Postcards from the National Association of Collegiate Concessionaires Annual Conference 2009 Post Cards: Day four, the last day of the 2009 NACC conference from College Station Texas Day four started off with Hope Kaser and Jessica Velazquez from the University of Notre Dame providing the group a look at what is coming up at the 2010 conference. It really looks like they have put a lot of planning into the conference already. The College Football Hall of Fame and the Studebaker Museum are possible sites for two of our functions. A Notre Dame experience day, exciting education sessions with guest speakers and more is already in the planning stages. How exciting! We hope that travel restrictions loosen up so more NACC members will be able to join us next June 7-11th. The UCMT class will be held at the University of Notre Dame June 12-15th. Look for the 2010 conference mailer with full details coming this Fall. We began the education session with Brett Bristel and Bill McQuerry from the University of Arizona explaining how they expanded their points of sale on a shoe string budget. They reconfigured the layout of the stands, remodeled the front counters and made room for more cashiers up front. They were able to show how the sales changed and compared to other stands that are not remodeled yet. The increase in sales was significant; in fact, they doubled their sales. Well worth the small cost, which was paid for within the first couple of events, that they spent making the changes to the stand layout. Give them a call if you would like to get more details of what they did and cost information. The second and final education session of the conference was small, medium and large concession operations presented by Paul MacGregor from University of Massachusetts. We all know concession operation size does matter. Paul explained in great detail his operations, which includes much more than just concessions. He talked about the multiple units that he oversees including, outdoor concessions, indoor concessions, mobile carts, Café, Snack bar, Grand Lounge, C store, Pool Hall and Juice Bar. Paul talked about some of the benefits of running multiple units, pulling labor from other areas when needed, equipment, purchasing, being able to transfer goods to avoid spoilage. After a constructive morning of education sessions the members finished up with a quick lunch before some had to leave for the airports. I would like to thank the Texas A & M staff for all their hard work putting together the conference. Even though it was a smaller group this year they provided a great mix of education, fun entertainment and great southern hospitality. It was a great conference. We want those that were not able to make it to this year’s conference know that we will be sending out our bi-annual news letter covering several of the education topics and post as many handouts as possible on our members side of the web site. Look for that in the next few weeks. The NACC is committed to making sure that learning and sharing of ideas is passed along to as many members as possible. Please keep the NACC website forum pages buzzing with questions and answers, as this is a great way to include members from all over the country. Member / Vendor Golf Outing – Dynamic Drinkware Please take a look at the websites of all the vendors that took part in the NACC tradeshow, we appreciate all of them spending their time with us the past couple of days and showing us their products at our tradeshow. Signing off until next June at the University of Notre Dame. Theresa Traulsen PS – thanks Bull, Chuck, Mo, Paul, Brett, Bill, Mari for sticking around Friday night and going over to Grand Station for a couple games of Bowling. West Coast team wins! And a dozen games of laser tag. Thanks to the negotiation education session at the conference we negotiated a couple free games and a double session, way to go team!!! Day three of the 2009 NACC conference from College Station Texas Day three started off with the membership voting to fill the two open NACC Executive Board positions. Congratulations to Paul MacGregor University of Massachusetts and Krystal LaReese-Gaule from Kernel Season’s. We began the education sessions with guest speaker Don Conlon speaking about developing collaboration in negotiations. Don is a Eli Broad Professor of Management and the Chairperson for the Department of Management at Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from the organizational behavior group at the University of Illinois. Prior to joining the faculty at Michigan State, Don was on the faculty at the University of Delaware. Don also spent time as a scholar at the Summer Institute on Negotiation and Dispute Resolution held at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA. We had a great discussion and I hope that everyone was able to take away something from this topic. Dave Bullock was the facilitator of the second open forum. We’d collected questions for the last couple of days and people were able to bring up additional subjects. We went over the membership fees again. If members pay their dues between July 1st and September 15th 2009 the fee, for the first three members at your University, will be $100 each. The fourth member and higher will be $75 each. You will also continue to have access to the member’s only side of the NACC website. After September 15th, the first three member’s fee will be $125 each; the fourth and higher will be $100 each. The member’s side of the website (where the menu survey, forum, facility profile, University and Vendor contact information are all located) will be turned off until you bring your membership up to date. If you have ideas or suggestions feel free to go to the NACC website log into the members side and post your ideas or questions on the forum page. Let’s keep the questions, ideas, solutions flowing all year long. If you don’t have the solutions another member might, let’s utilize the NACC membership resource. After a break for lunch and a tour of the Kyle Field facilities, we regrouped for the afternoon education sessions.
The first afternoon education session was on Sustainability issues and how schools are handling it. Hosted by Jessica Velazquez of the University of Notre Dame. Jessica discussed how the University of Notre Dame has implemented a very extensive program and how others can get started. We will have additional information from her presentation linked on the web site soon. Or you can email Jessica at the University of Notre Dame for a copy jvelazqu@nd.edu. The second education session was on new trends and menu items. We discussed what others have tried along with what some others are going to implement next season. Of course there were a couple that didn’t work; but that’s the nature of change. Aaron Black of BYU hosted this session. A big thank you to Aaron for filling in, as the speaker, at the last minute!! Some topics included bottled water, nutrition, specialty items produced by your University like the Cougar Tail in BYU’s case. Look for the newsletter to cover this topic in greater detail. The third education session was a discussion of the Facility Profile. You will find this profile on the member’s side of the NACC website. Click on each university, you can see the short profile. Members can take a look at profiles if they are looking for a certain element. Maybe your school is considering fryers or flat top grills or suites and you want to find out whom to call in the NACC membership to ask a few questions. Now you have a way to do that at your finger tips. If you have not filled out your facility profile or maybe you have made changes since you submitted the profile, go to NACC-online.com and fill in your school profile. As a NACC member in good standing you can go to the website all year long to make changes or review other Universities information. The fourth education session was NPO’s – feeding, training, commissions, bonus, cash handling, uniforms, shortages and more. Hosted by Mo Quinones of the University of Maryland. We all use NPO’s but how we answer these questions varies greatly. The group shared what they do and what has worked along with what has been less than successful. Change is always a tuff situation, but with the economy the way it is, everyone may need to rethink how they work with NPO’s in the future. After a long day of education sessions the members were ready for a little fun. Texas Digital and Tailgater Toby helped out the NACC by hosting us at the Texas Digital facility for dinner and fun. The group had a great time, pictures with the Texas Long Horn bulls were funny, bull riding was great, take a look at all the cow girls and cow boys we have in the NACC, who knew. We didn’t even notice how hot it was, ok I lied a little, it was HOT! Thank you to all the staff at Texas Digital and Tailgater Toby for their Southern hospitality!
NACC wants to thank the following conference sponsors for their support of the NACC. Member / Vendor Golf Outing – Dynamic Drinkware Vans will start at 9:00 A.M. taking the members over to Burkherdt Auditorium at Kyle Field. I will be back tomorrow with day our fourth posting until then good night from College Station Texas. Theresa Traulsen Day two of the 2009 NACC conference from College Station Texas
Day two started with a welcome to Texas A & M from head football coach Mike Sherman. He shared some great stories with us about past football players. Next was the general session, the group went over some NACC operational business. The formal nominations for the two open board positions were made and they are, Paul MacGregor, University of Massachusetts and Ron Perrin , Montana State University for the Secretary position and Paul Collins with ITW Hi-Cone and Krystal LaReese-Gaule for the open Vendor seat on the board. The final vote is scheduled for 9:15 A.M. Thursday morning. Dave Bullock, President of the NACC and Hope Kaser past president and past Ron Athey award recipient, awarded the 2009 Ron Athey award to Theresa Traulsen, NACC Executive Director and owner of Concession Solutions, Inc..
The first education session on the schedule was reviewing the sales survey. Theresa Traulsen reviewed how the first online submission went this year. Where the problems for the members entering the data were and where the problems in the summary pages were from the point of combining all the data. There were some great suggestions of how to improve the process. As the survey is online the members in good standing can access the survey throughout the year and make updates as they happen. The group went over the time line to pay the NACC membership dues so that access to the Sales Survey will continue throughout the year. For those not at the meeting, your yearly membership needs to be paid between July 1, 2009 and September 15, 2009 for the membership year (July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2010). For those that don’t have the membership paid by September 15th each year, access to the members side of the website will be turned off until their membership has been brought up to date. The 2009 tradeshow was next on the agenda. Our group was smaller this year, but it gave everyone extra time to talk with all 35 vendors that participated in the tradeshow. I know that members always come away with new ideas for their operation and renew relationships with the companies that they utilize.
We want to thank each of the vendors that presented at this year’s tradeshow and hope that the members that were not able to join us at the conference take a look at the vendor’s company websites or call on the companies if they are interested in getting samples or product materials sent to them. (goto www.nacc-online.com, Directory page, there is a list of all vendors that are current members of the NACC. Click on a company name it will take you to each company website). We had a small break in the action for members to win prizes after the tradeshow. The lap top winner this was John Gibson of Texas A & M. The afternoon education session was facilitated by Joe Carney. Open Forum – where members were able to discuss any topic.
We talked about Dippin Dot decreasing sales trend, selling ice cream in a helmet, Molly cools or other alternates, NPO commissions, sub contractor commissions, raising minimum wage impact, marketing agreements and IMG impact, pizza sub or in-house, how do you handle sub contractors selling bottle water and a few others. The Texas A & M Concession staff took the members on a tour of Reed Arena. I don’t know about anyone else but a tour of the operation is a great way to see how others have things setup, take a look at how that compares to your own operation and find little things that you can take back to your operation and use. The only thing better is seeing the operation in action. The NACC provides this opportunity during our small site visits each year. These are one day events that are free to both members and non-members. We have a couple Universities that have volunteered to host an event. The University of Indiana would like to host a football game and R.E. Arena in North Dakota for a hockey game. We will be sending out additional information soon when dates are set. You can also check the NACC website for dates as soon as they are set. We ended the day with dinner at the Zone Club at Kyle Field. The NACC members had Texas BBQ, beverages and entertainment by the Aggie Wranglers.
NACC would like to thank the following conference sponsors for their support of the NACC. Member / Vendor Golf Outing – Dynamic Drinkware On Thursday morning, vans will start at 8:30 A.M. taking the members over to Burkherdt Auditorium at Kyle Field. I will be back tomorrow with day three posting until then good night from College Station Texas. Theresa Traulsen Day one of the 2009 NACC conference from College Station Texas The NACC’s annual golf tournament sponsored by Dynamic Drinkware was held at Texas A & M Traditions Golf Course. The golfers were up early to beat the Texas heat it was a beautiful day for golf. Dave Hrechkosy selected a challenging course this year, I think the group still had a great time.
This year’s winner foursome consisted of Bill Kost, Paul Collins, Joe Blando and Romney Stewart. The longest putt for the men was Paul Mac Gregor, closest to the hole as John Krezanosky. For the women, longest putt was Krystal LaReese-Gaule, closest to the hole was Kelly McCahon.
The alternate activity this year was at Grand Station Entertainment, sponsored by J & J Snacks. The group started off with a bowling tournament. Then we had free time to play laser tag, mini golf, pool, arcade games. The group had lunch back at McAlister’s next to the hotel.
The winners of the bowling tournament were team goonybirds – Carol Swift, Alan Wilkinson, Dale Nagele and John Gibson. A couple other prizes go out to high score Dale Nagele, most gutter balls Jessica Velazquez, Laser tag winner was Mo Quinones, and for best technique on the dance revolution game is John Gibson. For those that wanted to take in a site tour of the traditions at Texas A & M John Gibson arranged an afternoon tour, with a stop at the bookstore for a little shopping. Hope Kaser and the NACC board had a short new member orientation to explain a little bit about the NACC and introduce the board members.
After a full day of fun the NACC conference was kicked off with an evening at the George Bush Presidential Library. The group was able to tour the presidential library before the reception in the rotunda section of the library. NACC members were able to catch up and relax with some great Texas treats and a couple beverages.
Thank you to the sponsors of the evening Churchill Containers, Perfect Fry and Johnsonville Sausage.
The end of the evening, some went out on the town and others kicked back at the NACC hospitality room back at the Hawthorn Suite. Day two starts at 9:00 am, with our opening general session and tradeshow. Tune in tomorrow for highlights of the day. Signing off from steaming hot College Station Texas Theresa Traulsen
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