I came to the HCEA show two years ago, when it was held in Toronto, and found that while the education was great, the social scene was pretty hard to break into for a newbie. But the feel is different this year. While I got in too late to attend the reception on Saturday night, I did note that they were holding another pre-reception reception just for the first-timers in the group. All the staff and committee members also are wearing “Ask Me” buttons, signaling that first timers should feel free to ask them anything, anytime. One of the HCEA board members said in his presentation Sunday morning that each first timer also had a green stripe on their badge to make them easy to identify, and asked long-time attendees to go out of their way to make the newbies feel welcome.

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Always on the lookout for new and interesting ways to get people from the general session room to the exhibit hall, I think HCEA came up with a really good one. After the final housekeeping messages, a bunch of folks that looked like they were from housekeeping came on stage with trash cans, mops and brooms. But pretty soon, they started banging their mops and cans, and before we knew it we had a “Stomp”-like procession, led by HCEA staffers holding U.S. and State of Texas flags. The rest of us, clacking star-shaped noisemakers that were on the tables, proceeded along behind them. The only downside was that, once we got out of the ballroom and onto the escalators, the noise got a little overwhelming as it echoed around and bounced off the stories-tall windows. Still, it was a pretty cool way to start the day, at least for those who hadn’t been out partying on Austin’s famous 6th St. the night before.

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The Sunday night reception at HCEA was amazing, though a tad scarce of chow for us non-meat eaters. Held at Austin’s Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, we were allowed to wander the historical exhibits, though we couldn’t get into the air and space exhibit, which by peering past the ropes looked to include a space capsule and a very cool-looking old plane. The museum also has an IMAX theater, which I steered clear of after having gone to one on Egypt a few years back that made me a little nauseous with all the swooping and diving airplane views. But the gentleman I sat next to at breakfast this morning said it was a really good one on NASCAR, and didn’t once leave the ground. Oh well.

The best part, though, was the band. Seeing as Austin is pretty well-known for its music, the band seriously rocked, but the cool part was that the lead singers were all HCEA members! I’m not sure how it worked, but somehow the organizers had identified and invited those with vocal talents to take the mike and belt out their version of songs like Mustang Sally and, in the case of one woman who I swear was channeling Tina Turner, Proud Mary. They were all fantastic, and needless to say, the crowd went wild!

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From a press release: “In a decision that could reshape the association profession, the boards of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives (GWSAE), the ASAE Foundation, and The Center for Association Leadership each voted on May 25, 2004, to approve a merger that would combine all the current activities of the four organizations into two entities: ASAE and The Center for Association Leadership.
The positive vote for the merger came after months of due diligence that followed initial approval of the merger concept by the four boards in January 2004. The four board votes are conditioned and contingent upon an affirmative vote by the association professional members (voting members) of GWSAE.”

For more, go to gwsae.org/bettertogether.

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Bravo to MPI’s British Columbia chapter, which has added a dynamic newsreader to its Web site. It looks like it plugs directly into Google’s News Alerts function to bring you the latest headlines on meetings-related topics. While anyone who really wants the news can just go sign up for a news alert of their own, with more personalized key words, it still gives that chapter’s members more of a reason to check in often if they don’t want the hassle of yet more e-mail in their in box.

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According to this article, the current GWSAE/ASAE merger is already making some waves with the staff, some of whom have expressed a desire to split themselves–to new jobs.

While the leadership of both organizations say it’s premature to say what the new org chart will look like and who, if anyone, will be tempted to put on their boogie shoes, I don’t think anyone would be surprised to see some staff fallout by the time the dust settles. While breaking up is hard to do, so is joining together. I wish a smooth transition to all involved.

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