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LEISURE... A GOOD INVESTMENT Your Conference Highlights
By Lydia Lombardo Belief in the 1982 Illinois Park and Recreation Conference theme "Leisure ... A Good Investment" is expected to attract over 2800 delegates to the Hyatt Regency O'Hare November 18-21. Recreation and park professionals and commissioners will find that their commitment to bettering lives for others through recreation is reinforced at the annual meeting. For three days, conference delegates can invest in themselves as they attend workshops and sessions, visit exhibits, share ideas, and enjoy the company of colleagues in the many social events planned. Rewards for the investment are numerous ... gathering of new information from experts in park and recreation, business, finance, and human relations. • The Educational sessions are as diverse as the delegates and include practical sessions such as "Keeping Your Agency Legal" and "Chemical Warfare,"to creative sessions such as "Competition for Special Populations,"and "Group Adventure: Surviving as a Team."
• Sharing with other agencies will be emphasized in three new innovative ways this year: 1.) The Agency Showcase in the Exhibit Area will offer all park and recreation agencies the opportunity to enter premier programs and publications. These entries will receive "Best of the Show" acknowledgments from public relations/communications and marketing specialists. Twenty submissions in each category will be displayed. Categories are: Single Brochures, Brochure Series (one year), Special Events, Referendum/Campaign, and Logo. All agencies have been sent entry forms and rules for the showcase. 2.) Potpourri sessions also involves sharing with "round table" discussions of subjects like "Teen Programming"and "Small Park District Idea Exchange."
3.) Programming is Really Bazaar is an arena for unusual ideas, programs or activities. Look for the bright pink bulletin in the mail outlining the Saturday afternoon session.
• The Exhibit Area, 2/3 sold out at this writing, spotlights the best in recreation and park services, equipment, and materials for delegates' viewing. It's like "one stop shopping" in a pleasant area with giveaways, drinks for free and for purchase, a Saturday sandwich bar plus a mimist, robot, and helium balloons. Lots of special events are planned for the exhibit area.
• Social Events are mostly pure entertainment, a time to unwind and meet and greet colleagues, but some also serve to educate (painlessly!) and to honor colleagues like the All Conference Friday Luncheon and the Saturday Joint Awards Luncheon. Keynoting the Friday lunch is Dr. James Weigand who will expand on
Illinois Parks and Recreation 20 September/October 1982
the conference theme "Leisure ... A Good Investment" but the committee guarantees the presentation will be far from boring. Weigand, familiar to everyone who attended Indiana University or the Executive Development School, is known for his humorous approach to almost any subject. And so, even though delegates can expect to come away more knowledgeable about leisure investment, they will have a good time doing it. The evening social events include a riotous Thursday night entertainment special with the Fire Mountain Band providing: foot-stomping music and Captain Rat and the Blind Rivets alternating with a rendition of "Music of the 50's." Friday night's student bash offers a change of pace as the Hyatt Ballroom is transformed into Old Chicago Casino Night. Who needs Las Vegas?! • The Saturday Closing Celebration will bring you a superb dinner, a chance to unwind with friends after three days of conferencing, and entertainment and dancing provided by Dr. Bop and the Headliners. This group will present an off-beat musical show guaranteed to make the most exhausted delegate chuckle. The band will top off the evening with dancing music . . . playing oldies, standards, jazz, and rock. • Spouses' events will take place throughout the conference and include exercise and aerobics, museums trips, visiting Chicago's financial and news markets, shopping the Magnificent Mile, plus seminars on houseplant care, counted cross-stitching, career planning, and stain glass. Workshops will again be offered to IPRA and IAPD members on Thursday, November 18 and include an IAPD and an IPRA trip to Boling-brook Park District's Wave-Tek Pool. IPRA workshops pinpoint human relations, communications and time management. A secretarial workshop also features "Time Management and Concentration," for secretaries and administrative assistants who usually have too much to do in too little time. They, like all the delegates need the skills which will be presented — learning how to concentrate and complete tasks, controlling work pace, really listening to others, and leading a balanced life. Many daytime special events will be presented in the lobby and exhibit area throughout the conference. Expect to see Denby the Robot, Toots the Clown, a woodcarver, a Chicago Sting demonstration, a musical dance troupe, a mimist and a jazz dance performance. No, it will not be a quiet, get-away from-it-all type of hotel stay. Delegates will lose sleep, expend energy in sessions, dash from place to place conferring, learning and playing. But the investment will be worth it ... because everyone will return home to his/her own agencies better prepared to serve the public recreationally.
LEISURE: Illinois Parks and Recreation 21 September/October 1982 |
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