How-To Guide: Hosting Regionals

Congradulations! You've decided to take a huge step in your development as a leader and your chapter's journey towards becoming the best it can be by hosting a Regional Conference. This guide will outline the major steps involved in the planning process.

Resources
As a first time Regional Conference host, you may be feeling a bit overwhelmed and wondering why you agreed to such a thing. Chances are, your chapter is very busy already with Recruitment, Pledge, and committee activites. But fear not! Your Regional Directors are the biggest resource at your disposal. Use them. In general they should prepare the content for Regionals--things like who the guest speaker should be, what he should be guest-speaking about, and any updates and news from the National Fraternity. This doesn't mean you can't have any say in the speaker (should you choose to have one), but chances are you've got your hands full as is.

The other great resource you have are the other chapters in your region. Since you've volunteered to host a Regional Conference, that probably means you've attended one before. This is a great place to start. What did you like about the one(s) you've attended? What would you do differently? Consult the previous host chapters and see how they went about planning.

The 4 Rs
While you have a lot of flexibility in planning a Regional Conference, there are 4 critical areas you should focus on. If that sounds like a lot, just remember the 4 Rs:

1. Reserve a hotel block

2. get Rooms

3. Refreshments

4. Recrational Activities

Let's dig a little deeper into these. Typically the R that will require the most ahead-of-time planning is the "Reserve a hotel block." Why? Glad you asked. Cost is a huge factor in determining how many brothers will attend Regionals. The better price you can get them on a hotel (and the earlier you can let them know), the more brothers other chapters are likely to send. Prices will of course vary based on your town/city, but using the hotel prices at Convention (~$100/night) is always a good barometer. Estimate 4 brothers per room for the number of rooms in the block--so if you are expecting 100 brothers plus your chapter, you should get a block of 25 rooms. This should be done before you send out any information to chapters inviting them to the Regional Conference (at least 1 month in advance).

The second R refers to meeting locations. All Regional Conferences are unique, but most of them incorporate the entire region meeting in a large lecture hall type of setting for announcements, chapter oral reports, and guest speakers. You should be familiar with your school's process of reserving rooms, and be sure to reserve this large room (depending on how many brothers you are expecting, but should fit at least 200) at least a month in advance. Depending on the format of your conference, you may have some breakout sessions planned. While you can do this in the corners of the main lecture room, your Regional Directors may prefer to have classrooms near the main room. Plan to reserve at least 2 of them along with the main meeting room.

A good way to keep your attendees satisfied throughout a long day of meetings, breakout sessions, and guest speakers is with food. Depending on the schedule of your Regionals, you should plan to provide breakfast and lunch. These can be as simple as coffee and bagels for breakfast and pizza for lunch, but it is a good idea to find out if any of the brothers have food allergies. We'll cover more on this in the registration section. You will want to have one brother whose primary responsibility is the food, and he will need to coordinate the delivery/pick-up and will likely need assistance from one or two other chapter members.

The last of the 4 Rs, Recreational activities, will likely be what your attendees remember most from the weekend. You have a ton of flexibility here, but it is generally a good idea to provide members with a list of local hot spots and directions how to get there. You can plan a banquet, rent out a restaurant, or organize a sporting event. It's up to you!