Principles and Priorities for Planning Joint Meetings
with Other Professional Organizations
(As adopted by the SAA Council, November 9, 2014)
Joint meetings of SAA with other professional organizations should aspire to:
- Be consistent with SAA’s "Principles and Priorities for Continuously Improving the SAA Annual Meeting.” (1)
- Be consistent with SAA’s Governance Manual.
- Be consistent with SAA’s commitment to social responsibility in all aspects of meeting planning and execution.
- Attract new and more diverse attendees.
- Enhance SAA’s relations with other organizations.
- Explore partnerships with nontraditional (i.e., non-records-focused) organizations.
- Result in an improved program.
- Not have an unreasonable impact on SAA staff workload.
- Result in increased revenue from new members and vendors.
- Experiment with new program features and formats.
When considering a joint meeting, the SAA Council and staff should consider the following in their discussions:
- What does SAA hope to gain from a joint annual meeting?
- What are the benefits to SAA's membership (in total, and from the perspective of component groups) from a joint annual meeting?
- What types of programming would best leverage a joint annual meeting for SAA's members?
- What collaborative assets does the other organization bring to planning and holding a joint annual meeting?
- What is the mission of the proposed partner and how can learning about it enhance the work of SAA’s members?
- What financial bottom lines (in terms of both expenditures and profits) would help determine the feasibility of a joint annual meeting?
- What are the top two things that would make a joint annual meeting a success from the perspective of SAA and its members?
- What one or two things would make a joint annual meeting less than successful from the perspective of SAA and its members?
- From SAA’s perspective, what benefits does it bring to the other prospective associations that would encourage participation in a joint meeting?
Any SAA member who is interested in submitting an idea for a joint annual meeting should contact the SAA Executive Director, who will forward ideas to the SAA Executive Committee and Council for discussion.
(1) Specifically, see the following from "Principles and Priorities for Continuously Improving the SAA Annual Meeting"(as adopted by the SAA Council, August 12, 2013):
- We will explore new locations, structure, and content for the Annual Meeting on an ongoing basis.
- We will embrace a culture of experimentation and will be willing to take calculated risks with respect to the Annual Meeting. No aspect of the meeting will be off limits based on “tradition.”
- We will strive to make every meeting as useful, affordable, accessible, and enjoyable as possible for all attendees,
- We will find ways to enable a highly diverse population of registrants.
- We will actively pursue ways of making meeting content available online.
- We will integrate a commitment to social responsibility into all aspects of meeting planning and execution.
- We will continuously seek feedback from both attendees and non-attendees on various aspects of the meeting, including site selection, content, options for online access, and affordability.
