International Leadership Committee

IT'S TIME TO REGISTER FOR THE LAS VEGAS CONVENTION
"The future is now." -- George Allen, Head Coach, Washington Redskins, 1972

The Kiwanis registration form for the Las Vegas Convention, June 24-27, 2010, is now online. You can access it through the address below; or you can go to the Kiwanis International website (www.kiwanis.org), click the convention tab and follow the instructions to reach it and many other convention related materials, including the hotel registration form. We will be staying at the Paris, by the way.

Registration form

As it happens, I was in Indianapolis at a Kiwanis International Foundation Board meeting when the registration forms were posted on Oct. 1. I filled mine out, walked it over to Kiwanis International headquarters first thing in the morning and became the first official registrant for the convention. Many others did so online during the day, including, of course, our very own candidate for Kiwanis International Vice-President, Past International Trustee Tom DeJulio.

Now it's your turn. Nothing is more important in building attendance from our district than the example of your own early registration.

It is terribly important that we have a strong early registration -- Our own version of "The Surge", as I described it at our campaign meeting at the district convention. Our early attendance figures will be watched carefully throughout the Kiwanis world as a sign of the depth of the support that Tom enjoys in his home district. Because the registration is open so early, a strong start by us might even discourage some of our potential opponents from entering the race.

Our goal is to register as many people as we can for this convention as soon as possible.

MAKE YOUR HOTEL SELECTION LATER

Just to be perfectly clear, we are focusing solely on the convention registration now. If you would like to fill out your hotel reservation form, if you would like to make your travel arrangements at the same time, that's all well and good, but it's not necessary to do all that now.

YOUR NEXT DIVISIONAL MEETING

I have asked your divisional coordinators to speak about this at your next divisional meeting, and then again each month afterwards. They have been asked to bring copies of the registration form with them. We need to have you and everyone else in your division fill it out and send it off as soon as possible.

I'm sure that some of you would rather not tie up a $195 registration fee between now and next June, which is understandable. The fact of the matter is that anyone attending the convention who does not pay the registration fee before January 31, 2010, will be on the hook for an extra $55 per person anyway, which is a lot more than the float that it will cost them to register now. Please think of that float, which will amount to a couple of dollars, as your own very, very small investment in Tom's campaign.

The future is now! Let's all move forward together.

Column Posted on Web Site October 24, 2009