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I’m not a big fan of things that I enjoy doing coming to an end---of BIG change in general for that matter. I cried for weeks before college graduation and when I recently changed jobs, I was scared out of my mind about what was ahead for me in my new position.
So, you can imagine that as the end of my term as President of ISES comes to an end that I’m feeling a bit uneasy. Not because I’m worried about the direction of the organization, or because I’m not going to be involved anymore (because ISES can’t get rid of me that easy!), but because I have so thoroughly enjoyed being President. I was blessed with a group of fellow board members who worked their tails off and who made my job as President very, very easy.
We’ve had a great year as an organization, and I’m SO incredibly proud of every single person involved in contributing to that success. Thank you to not only the board members, but also to the ISES members who have volunteered their time, donated products and/or services and most of all been extremely supportive of what ISES is trying to accomplish. This organization would not be successful without the involvement of each and every one of you, and I’m so incredibly honored to have had the opportunity to meet and work with all of you.
To the Board of Directors----I sincerely thank you. I am so honored to have had the opportunity to work with each of you, and I am thankful to have you in my life—not only as colleagues, but as friends. You’re such a talented group of individuals—ISES is very lucky to have all of you.
To the members---thank you for entrusting me to lead this organization, and I hope that I have lived up to the expectations required of the position. I was very blessed to have followed some incredible leaders, who have positioned ISES as a leader in the industry. It was my responsibility to continue down the path that they started, and I hope that I was able to steer us in the right direction. I learned so much from this experience, and I am looking forward to seeing just how far this organization will go!
And, as I have done with every message that I have written for this newsletter, I will once again challenge all of you to get involved in ISES. I challenge you to get involved in a committee or talk to someone about getting involved on the board. It is only then that you will TRULY get the full benefit of your membership. We will have committees for the 2006-2007 year forming soon, so please let us know if you’d like to get involved. There is a place for everyone.
Finally, for those of you that don’t know Kate Touhey, CSEP, I want to tell you that you have an incredibly talented incoming President. Kate brings with her an impeccable attention to detail and great vision about the direction of ISES. And, she will be supported by a fantastic group of board members who will continue to work hard to keep ISES as an industry leader in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Look for the full slate of nominees for the Board of Directors to be arriving in your mailbox soon!
Again, thank you so much to all of you! I look forward to working with all of you as I continue my involvement in ISES over the upcoming years! Have a great summer!
Sincerely
Jodi M. Collen, CSEP
ISES-MSP President 2005-2006
jodi@ises-msp.org
This year, as part of an international branding initiative, ISES Headquarters rolled out a brand new logo and marketing program. The ISES Board of Governors recognized the importance of all of the ISES chapters having a consistent and professional look to their marketing materials, which reflects their commitment to the events industry. The new logo was introduced to the chapter leaders at EventWorld in Hollywood and chapters were challenged to begin work on updating all marketing materials to meet the new branding standards put in place by the international committee.
By now, you’re hopefully all seen the new logo--which we have been using since last fall. Additionally, we also decided that the ISES Minneapolis-St. Paul chapter was long overdue for a new and significantly improved website. We wanted to create something that would reflect the new look of ISES, that would be more user-friendly and most importantly contain more information. ISES Minneapolis-St. Paul has so many great opportunities and exciting information to share – what better place to go to for this information than our website?
Of course this is a work progress, as we will constantly be adding and updating the information so please visit often! The website is there as a resource for you, our members and guests, as we want it to be useful to you. Please let us know if there is information or services that you’d like to see available on our site. Finally, if you’d like to get involved in writing articles for the website and/or our newsletter, please contact us at info@ises-msp.org and we’ll get you involved right away!
Go to www.ises-msp.org to check it out!
David Farr has been making corporate & private events entertaining and fun since 1987 and has been an active member of ISES for 5 years. Unlike most other entertainers, he's never been employed doing anything else besides entertaining people with magic. David performs all over the country and this year already he’s performed two different corporate events in Las Vegas and also one in San Jose, California (in addition to all over Minnesota). David’s top clients include: Blockbuster Video, Best Buy, Target, Wells Fargo, and Discover Card. He’s entertained such celebrities as: Kid Rock, Norm Coleman, Jesse Ventura, Kent Hrbek, and Kenny Rogers.
David truly specializes in making your events amazingly successful, entertaining and fun. That's all he does. His interest in magic began at the age of ten and since then he has made a full-time living performing it specializing in entertainment for corporate dinner parties. David customizes his presentations for your group using fun magic, clean comedy, audience interaction and a little bit of pick-pocketing. Your guests will enjoy the show and remember it for a LONG time because the presentation was created especially for them. All of this makes you look like a hero in front of your superiors/team members. Your group will be entertained by a wide range of magic that is backed by a total satisfaction, money-back guarantee. Other magicians & entertainers don't dare offer a guarantee on their services.
The president of our local chapter of ISES, Jodi Collen, CSEP, had this to say about working with David, "We have used David consistently over the last few years at events such as our family picnic and our Homecoming Tailgating Party. David has a great rapport with guests and he has a wonderful ability to connect with a wide range of people---kids love him, but he can just as easily entertain adults and even college students (who are as finicky as they come!). David can command the attention of a group in a way that few performers can.....he's wonderful!”
You may have seen David Farr as the official magician of the Minnesota Twins in Minneapolis for 6 seasons. He was also our VP of communications that introduced us to the power of the web. Now we are fortunate to have a great website, online registrations, email blast capability, and audio postcards, all stuff David set up for us when he took over in communications back in 2001. He’s been serving on the board ever since.
Visit his website to learn more about the different entertainment packages David offers for special events and meetings. Or call his office at 877-566-8597
To become a strategic partner and have your own feature article in the ISES newsletter please contact Ruth Wikoff-Jones at 651-683-1590 or ruth@ises-msp.org.
Ever wonder exactly what a winning Esprit Award entry looks like? Well, here is your opportunity! The Minneapolis-St. Paul chapter has been given the opportunity to have its membership judge some of the entries for the International event planning competition.
The ISES Esprit Awards honor industry excellence through this prestigious awards program. The ISES Esprit Awards recognize the best and most creative talent and efforts in the special events industry. Esprit Awards help ISES members who exhibit a spirit of excellence in their work develop global visibility and recognition for their creative work.
So, if you’re been thinking about entering some of your events for the Esprit Awards, or for the local Minnesota Star Awards (which feature almost identical criteria as the Esprit Awards), then this is a great opportunity to see exactly what goes into putting together a winning entry. You’ll get to see the best practices for how to lay out your award, what key materials should be included, and probably even a few examples of you should NOT put together your entry. But, it will be extremely beneficial to you if you’ve been considering entering!
If you’re interested in participating in the judging process, here are the details:
Dates/Times:
Saturday, June 3, 2006; 9am-1:00pm
Thursday, June 8, 2006; 3:00pm-8:00pm
Locations:
Skyway Event Services
1809 East Hennepin Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55413
What to bring:
We suggest brining a pen or pencil to use while judging. All other supplies will be provided.
Details:
If you’re not able to attend an entire session, that’s just fine. Feel free to come for any portion of the available time slots that you can attend. Snacks and beverages will be provided on both days.
Questions?
Contact Jodi Collen, CSEP at 612.340.5750 or jodi.collen@thrivent.com
RSVP:
Please RSVP to Jodi Collen at jodi.collen@thrivent.com. Please include the date that you will be attending.
Renowned food networking celebrity, Sue Zelickson, hosted ISES Tour for your Tastebuds, on Thursday, May 11. Each tour featured a specialty drink and sampling of the Chef’s signature dishes. Sue was able to share her abundant knowledge of food and trends with members and guests.
The tour began at Graves 601 Hotel at Cosmos, Minnesota's only AAA Four Diamond Restaurant, then downstairs to Infinity, a stylish sexy, seductive, cool, hip night club!
The next stop was NBA City. This restaurant was designed to make the guest feel like they are in a luxury box inside the arena as it is equipped with high definition state of the art flat screen TV's throughout the restaurant and at the courtside bar, which is the center attraction of the venue. The restaurant seats up to 300 guests and has private party space available for all types of events. The Naismith room provides a great VIP space to entertain clients or staff members.
The last venue was Palomino, an upbeat city restaurant and bar famous for its rich and stylish ambiance. Guests love Palomino's European-inspired regional American Cuisine. Only Palomino offers such a versatile menu in extraordinary surroundings at reasonable prices.
Sue Zelickson shares her passion for food every Wednesday during the Pat Miles Show and seasonal weekend specials on WCCO Radio. You will find her food insights in her Minnesota Monthly "Maitre Z" column. Sue judges chef and cooking contests around the country for the James Beard Foundation and has edited 9 cookbooks. She is active in numerous community organizations including Women Who Really Cook, and serves on several boards including the Cookie Cart.
By, Amanda Ling
The Grand Hotel Minneapolis
Most job seekers believe that salary negotiation starts once they have an offer in hand, but nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, your resume can make the difference between negotiating at the top end of the salary range—or the bottom end—in your next job offer. If that sounds strange to you, consider the following points:
- A prospective employer’s first impression of you is created entirely by your resume.
- The employer’s first impression of you will assign a value and build a level of urgency for the employer to contact you—before someone else does.
- First impressions are nearly impossible to change.
If your resume sells your skills short, then you can’t expect to receive offers at the upper end of your salary scale. Your current resume could be losing you thousands of dollars in income power. By making a few key changes in your resume now, you can position yourself for higher salaries in the future.
There are three resume strategies for promoting high salary negotiation success:
Show that you are a high return on investment with quantifiable results.
Many job seekers throw around the phrase “results oriented”, but they fail to back it up with concrete evidence—leaving the reader to conclude otherwise. You may feel that you have no quantifiable evidence of your value in previous jobs, but every job has quantifiable results that can better reflect your worth on your resume. Revenue, sales dollars and material costs are not the only results that use numbers.
Consider using the number of man-hours saved in process improvements, the percentage of repeat customers, or the number of peers helped by a particular efficiency to help reflect your abilities. Every employee is hired to solve problems, and most problems have some quantifiable element at their core.
Illustrate the breadth of your experience.
Notice the use of the word “breadth” rather than “length” of experience. Just because a candidate has been doing a job for a long time does not necessarily mean he is worth more. Breadth of experience focuses on quality, not quantity.
There are two key ways to express breadth of experience:
- Industry knowledge
Since industry expertise is usually in high demand, you can show your value through insider understanding of industry issues.
- Transferable skills
If your career spans many industries within the same occupation, highlight the transferable skills that have enabled you to bridge the gaps from industry to industry.
Entice the reader to want to know more about you.
Job seekers often make the mistake of assuming that the job of their resume is to inform the reader. Not so! The ONLY job of your resume is to entice the reader to want to know more about you.
What that translates to is an understanding of what to include and what to leave off your resume. Too much detail can distract the reader and lose his interest, but not enough information, and the reader will wonder what you have been doing with your life. A proper balance between detail and result will win the reader’s interest and leave them saying, “I’ve got to call this guy for an interview today!”
A professional resume writer can create a resume that sells you as a high return on investment. By portraying you as someone with great breadth of experience and a wide range of critical skills, potential employers will see you immediately as someone of high value, building their vision—and your self-confidence—of you in the upper end of the salary scale.
By, Deborah Walker, CCMC
Career Coach ~ Resume Writer
Find more job-search tips and resume samples at:
www.AlphaAdvantage.com
Email: Deb@AlphaAdvantage.com
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