It's very scary to put on an expensive conference, because you don't know if you will meet costs. One way to minimize costs is to find a hospital to co-sponsor the conference and provide free space in return for discounted registration for their staff. If free space is not available, shop carefully. Costs vary greatly in different conference centers and hotels. Some conference centers will give a good deal hoping that you will use them in the future. Make sure that av materials are included in the conference center fee. Some places charge daily for each piece of audiovisual equipment, up to $500 per day for an LCD projector (used to project powerpoint presentations or dvd video from a computer). Most presenters use powerpoint these days, so this is a necessity. Many places charge extra for cordless microphones as well. Add all this to your calculations. Another thing to consider is the reputation of the speakers. If the two OTs are well known across fields (like Lynn Wolf and Robin Glass, for example), this gives you both OTs and IBCLCs to draw from. Since they specialize in Suck:swallow issues, speech therapists are also interested. The wider the potential participant pool, the more potential participants. Think carefully of the date, check around and make sure there are no other conferences that would appeal to your audiences within a few months and 100 miles. The worst thing that can happen is that there is another great conference the same day, and each of you get only half the motivated audience. Communicate with organizations with similar interests and goals to avoid this (we learned this the hard way in NY). Establishing an early registration deadline before some of your deposits are due allows you to both confirm the feasibility of the conference, and have money for those deposits. It also helps with planning for how much printing to do, and how many meals to order. As for grants, the March of Dimes provides grants for conferences in their sphere of interest. If you feel it is right ethically, you can sell exhibit tables to commercial interests that provide tools and books to lactation consultants and occupational therapists. You need to use some of the conference time to allow the participants to browse the vendor tables, and need to carefully consider issues such as WHO code compliance, and the effect on prices to moms of HCPs getting freebies, including conference sponsorships. Advertising is important. Postcards or emails with "save the date" teasers are helpful so that participants do just that. ILCA Globe and website give free conference publicity to afilliates, and inexpensive for others. The OT journals and any local association newsletters could be consulted, and nearby college OT programs should receive notice as well. Making your brochure look professional and interesting is important. You want the conference title to be intriguing enough that people open the brochure to learn more. Hope this info is helpful. Catherine Watson Genna, IBCLC NYC (and NYLCA executive board and conference committee member for the last zillion years. NYLCA puts on 2 conferences a year, one general, and one advanced practice). *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html