Meeting News - January 7, 2008 - (Page 50)

Live from the Forum @ MeetingNews.com TOPIC: In search of creative ideas for an all-white menu I am working on a creative proposal featuring a cool winter theme.The food will be passed hors d’oeuvres for two hours. I am toying with an all-white concept with the only color coming from berries. I would welcome any thoughts. —Gael Sandoval, Director of Business Development pulse220, Southﬁeld, MI Do you have a burning question to ask your peers? Log on to the MeetingNews Forum to get answers fast. meetingnews.com/forum Some white food ideas that popped immediately into my head were fried ravioli (I make these myself by frying the ones you buy ready-made in the store) dipped in alfredo sauce. Of course a white chocolate fountain with pound cake, marshmallows, and even white crackers. Lots of white cheeses are available beyond just parmesan and mozzarella.We love the pecorino and of course goat cheese and brie are white so you can go crazy with those with pastry crusts. If you have some buffet table space, a mashed potato bar is a wonderful white addition and you can offer fondue, too. Don’t forget there’s white asparagus— that would be great for the fondue in addition to breads and crackers. We had a special banquet at our church last night; the table decorations were clear glass cylinders ﬁlled half-full with large sea salt grains into which they poked spray-painted branches. Ours were gold but you could do white. On each branch was hanging a little crystal ornament. It was so simple and so stunning! Your touch of berries in these would be gorgeous. Anonymous This sounds like a great theme. If you’re going with this, in addition to having white food, I hope you can have the guests dress in white, and the room decor all white too. I don’t know what your music will be, but possibly all songs that contain the word “white,” i.e., Whiter Shade of Pale, Nights in White Satin. If there are trees in the room, you can decorate them with little white lights, and probably use the white lights in other areas of the room, possibly the entrance into the ballroom as well. You can use the spiderweb that they sell for Halloween to create clouds and hang them from the ceilings. Fake snowﬂakes can be incorporated into the centerpiece. Marshmallows can be used and decorated throughout the room. I guess if you really want to go to the extreme, you can rent a snow machine and make real snow in an area of the room. The food can be all white also: red snapper, or other white ﬁsh, potatoes, white corn, vanilla cappuccino, white desserts. I like your berry idea as coloring, so I was thinking possibly the only berry coloring is red napkins on white tablecloths. Diana Maccia, Regional Director HelmsBriscoe, Ocean Township, NJ I see crudites: cauliﬂorettes, white radishes, chilled wax beans, white asparagus, sauteed endive bites, popcorn with a variety of white seasonings (parmesan, garlic, white pepper), lobster dainties, crustless sandwiches with a variety of white ﬁllings (white tuna, lobster, or crab), savory cheese, tiny white chocolate cups ﬁlled with sweetened mascarpone…the possibilities are fun to think about. Christine Galvin, Ottawa County Director United Way, Port Clinton, OH You’ve received so many great food ideas. . .and to make it all look great, I would suggest full linear drops with either white or an off-white guest table cloth and for any registration, food stations, buffets. . .make sure you not only have the linens, but enough for building elevation and visual interest as well as integrating either UL-approved lighting under the toppers and/or infused candlelight (remember 1-inch ﬂame below the protective candle holder that meets ﬁre coding) strategically placed to be out of the line of ﬁre—literally with sleeves that may get near—and for ﬂoral, it’s the perfect time of year to mix white and ivory, with oiled lemon leaf with airy Ming or tree fern, giving your event the understated elegance that will pair your food match-ups. Gloria Nelson, Chief Experience Ofﬁcer Gloria Nelson Event Design LLC, Winneconne, WI If a dessert item is going to be passed, consider mini white chocolate or vanilla milkshakes in shot glasses. Chocolate and strawberry versions were used at one of my programs, during an afternoon break. Cute and delicious. Nancy Sutta Berns, Senior Conference Administrator IEEE Signal Processing Society, Piscataway, NJ TOPIC: Attendee tracking I ’m interested in finding out how some of you track attendance at your meetings, for certiﬁcation purposes, other than RFID. —Deborah Gaffney, Director of Conference Planning Tax Executives Institute, Washington, DC RFID is a nice high-tech solution but is cost prohibitive for many groups. Other technologies and processes that I have seen work for various group sizes, including for CEU tracking, are: G Survey or ticket with bar code (1D or 2D) that can either be scanned in the individual room or in a centralized area. Your registration database should be appended to capture all information. G A magnetic-strip card swiped to receive CEU. This works best when coupled with your lead retrieval needs. G Online survey where attendees enter a code given by the speaker to receive credit and print out their CEU certiﬁcates. Dave Lutz, Managing Director Velvet Chainsaw Consulting, Aurora, OH MEETING NEWS (ISSN 0145-630X, USPS No.356-010, January 7 2008, Vol. 32, No. 1 is published semi-monthly except for August, which is monthly, by Nielsen Business Media, 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003-9595, tel. 646654-5000. Subscriptions are offered free of charge to individuals actively engaged in planning meetings or conventions in the U.S. and Canada. The cost of a subscription to non-qualiﬁed subscribers is $79 in the U.S. and $95 in Canada (Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40031729). The cost of a foreign subscription, payable in U.S. dollars, is $195. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing ofﬁces. MeetingNews is a trademark owned exclusively by Nielsen Business Media. Copyright © 2008 by Nielsen Business Media Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this magazine, in whole or in part, is prohibited unless authorized by the publisher. For address changes (please include mailing label), single copy sales ($10 per issue including shipping and handling, prepayment required), subscription information, and other customer service inquiries, write to MEETING NEWS, P.O. Box 1189, Skokie, IL 60076-8189 or call 847-763-9050. Printed in the USA. POSTMASTER: Send changes of address to MEETING NEWS, P.O. Box 1189, Skokie, IL 60076-8189. 50 MeetingNews January 7, 2008 www.meetingnews.com http://www.MeetingNews.com http://www.meetingnews.com/forum http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - January 7, 2008

Meeting News - January 7, 2008
Contents
What’s Up @ MeetingNews.com
Inside the Meetings Industry
Successful Meetings University
MN Webcast Report
Reed Cancels China Show
Advertisers Index
Live from the Forum

Meeting News - January 7, 2008