New York State College Health Association – New England College Health Association
2007 COMBINED ANNUAL MEETING
United in College Health
October 10-12, 2007 • The Saratoga Hotel & Conference Center • Saratoga Springs, New York
The 2007 Combined Annual Meeting in Review
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OVERVIEW
All of the months of planning for the NYSCHA/NECHA 2007 Combined Annual Meeting paid off! Thank you to the Planning Committee for their work behind the scenes to arrange an excellent Annual Meeting to meet the interests of our many disciplines in college health. We exceeded our expectations for attendance with over 200 people joining us for the Annual Meeting. We also had over 40 exhibitors sharing information about their products and services for students. The Combined Annual Meetings with NECHA provide us with an opportunity to meet and learn from our colleagues throughout New England. NECHA will host the NECHA/NYSCHA Combined Annual Meeting in 2009.
Thank you to all of our speakers who presented. The responses on the session and learner evaluations were consistent with the comments we were hearing from attendees during the conference. It was clear from the evaluations that the speakers did an excellent job sharing their knowledge and expertise on topics that were of interest and beneficial to our attendees. Approximately half of the attendees completed an Overall Evaluation form. The feedback about how well we met our objectives and how well the conference met the attendees’ expectations was positive. The results are summarized in the table, 
Summary of Overall Evaluations. The Planning Committee will do its best to plan a program for the 2008 Annual Meeting that will meet the needs and interests of attendees as well as the 2007 Combined Annual Meeting.
HANDOUTS FOR PRESENTATIONS
One of the most frequent comments on the evaluations was “Where is the binder with handouts for all of the sessions?” The Planning Committee decided early in the planning process that they would not provide a binder with handouts this year. Our reasons included the cost to print the handouts, as well as our interest in not being wasteful with paper and printing. Speakers were asked to bring copies of their handouts. In many cases, the number of attendees in a session exceeded our expectation resulting in the speaker not having enough copies for everyone in the audience.
Our plan was to put the handouts onto the NYSCHA web site soon after the Annual Meeting. It has taken longer than anticipated to request handouts and then prepare them for the web site; we apologize for the delay. We now have several handouts available on the NYSCHA web site. The handouts are grouped by discipline (i.e., clinical medicine, nursing, mental health, health promotion, administration). The program schedule and the program abstracts are also on the site for those of you who would like to review the schedule to decide which handouts you would like to review.
As more handouts are received, they will be placed on the web site. The handouts currently on the site were received from speakers by December 15.
ANNUAL MEETINGS THANK YOU’S
We could not have a successful Annual Meeting without the help and support of many people throughout the planning process and during the meeting itself. The NYSCHA Conference Planner would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped make the 2007 Annual Meeting a success.
Thank you to the NYSCHA/NECHA Planning Committee; all of the speakers who shared their expertise with us; Kathy MacLachlan & her husband, Gary, for their ongoing support; Pam Houle & her family (daughter, Lea, and husband, Gary) for the outstanding job with registration; Cathy Smith for arranging for presiders for every session; Mary Madsen for coordinating the exhibits; Shelly VanSlyke for organizing the basket raffle and taking a lead in coordinating the health promotion programs; our colleagues in NECHA - Bryant Ford, Julie Basol, & Denise McGoldrick; Tony, George, and Rita at Printing Plus in Rochester, NY for the wonderful work they did printing the conference booklet and learner’s evaluation booklet; Eric Ploof, David Reynolds, Cindy Sullivan, & the hotel staff for their help with the planning & their on-site assistance; all of our exhibitors and sponsors; Noah Lapidus, our webmaster, for his expert website skills; Chad Waxman, Cathy Smith, Kathy MacLachlan, Lisa Currie, Shelly VanSlyke, & Dan Wolman for loaning LCD projectors; Cynthia Perez at ACHA for assistance with the CE application; the Skidmore Dynamics and Swing Fever for their wonderful performances during our Annual Banquet; and our attendees for their support and interest.