TSTCI Member Central
2018 Annual Membership MeetingOctober 3-5, 2018 | The Gaylord Hotel | Grapevine, Texas
This year, we gather in Grapevine, Texas at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center. We gather to continue the tradition of great programs and educational information, great networking time with old friends and associates and with new friends and associates. We will remember those that have passed since we last met, and we will honor those that have made significant impact to our industry this past year. This has been a good year in TSTCI and we have a lot to be proud of and a lot to share with the membership. We begin on Wednesday, October 3 with the Wesley B. Roberts Memorial Golf Tournament at the Cowboys Golf Club, 1600 Fairway Drive, Grapevine, Texas. So put your golf boots in the bag, your blue star towel on your clubs and your giddy-up wherever you put giddy-ups and let’s play some Cowboy golf. (Note: it may be their back-up plan if this football thing doesn’t work out!). After that wonderful outing, we roll out the welcome mat and red carpet for the Wednesday evening — Where the Stars are Still Big & Bright Welcome Reception/Vendor Table-Tops/& Silent/Live Auction! This event during the conference is from 4:30 - 7:30 pm. We have perfected the plan and timing for all these events to happen simultaneously. It is treasured time to spend with everyone and specific time with our loyal Associate Member vendors who work hard with and for all of us. In addition, the Live/Silent Auction benefitting the TSTCI PAC always adds a playful-competitive spirit to the evening. We end early enough that if you still want to make personal dinner plans you can. Several years ago we moved the Annual Membership Meeting to Thursday afternoon and introduced the “Rural Matters Dinner & Awards Banquet” Thursday evening. This allows us more time shared with all of our members. It also provides an encompassing-environment to introduce the new Board and Officers. The Awards Dinner gives us a special platform to recognize the recipients of the two Annual Awards — the “TSTCI — Legend Award” — which focuses on someone who has helped guide the industry and the Association for many years; and the “TSTCI — Friend of Rural Award” — that recognize someone — either internal or external to TSTCI — that has or is making an extraordinary difference to/for/in Rural Texas. Our industry, our members and our Association have so much to be proud of and we want to take the time to officially recognize those efforts. We hope you will plan to join in the celebration of our industry and of our rural roots. So, registration is now open for the Annual Membership Conference & Associate Member Table-Top Display at The Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas, October 3-5, 2018 CLICK HERE In addition to the social and educational events, the Annual Meeting is also the time where we come to do the business of the Association. It is the meeting where we do the State of the Association, we elect new Board representatives and the Officers that will lead TSTCI for the coming year. To help make your attendance and participation as easy as possible, we provide a link from the TSTCI website to assist you with “Registration” “General Sponsorship” “Hotel Reservations” “Golf — Participation and/or Sponsorship” “Banquet Sponsorships” — all the comforts of participation at www.tstci.org. On the website link you will also find a Pre-Agenda outline for the outstanding program sessions. But, to give you a peek behind the curtain so to speak, let me outline for you some of the conference highlights. As mentioned above, we begin our time together Wednesday, October 3, with the Annual Wesley B. Roberts Memorial Golf Tournament at the Cowboys Golf Club. The morning begins with breakfast being served at 7:00 am in the Golf Clubhouse and a Shotgun Start Tee-Off at 8:00 am. Your golf fee includes the cart rental, green fees, driving range balls, full breakfast, beverages, lunch and prizes. Registration for the golf tournament and opportunities to assist with golf tournament sponsorships is available on the online registration page. And thank you in advance for any of you that also bring golf door prizes that we give out at the golf lunch. After golf (and a shower please), join us beginning at 4:30 pm for the “Vendor Table-Tops” during the “Where the Stars are Still Big & Bright Welcome Reception” which goes till 7:30 pm. This evening event is highlighted by our Associate Member Table-Top Displays and our traditional PAC-benefiting Silent & Live Auction. Each of these events are important to our Association so we’ve worked the plan to give each aspect of the evening time to shine. We encourage all attendees to honor our Vendor Displayers with your time and presence. The Silent Auction items will be intermingled and will run from 4:30-7:00 pm. The Live Auction items will be presented in three 15 minute segments (the first beginning around 5:00) and spaced hourly throughout the evening. Each venue in this event packed evening is important — so please support our Associate Membership vendors and supporters and participate in the Auctions to continue support of our PAC. The Silent & Live Auctions benefit the TSTCI PAC — We depend and are grateful for items that are donated for either of these venues — so please donate items for the Auction(s). We include a list of all Auction Items and Donors. YOUR HELP IN LETTING US KNOW WHAT YOU ARE BRINGING as an auction item and a description and value would be helpful. Pre-planning helps us. PLEASE let us know your auction items/door prize items so we can plan for them and so we can include you in the program and on-site sponsor board. Thursday morning after a hosted breakfast (7:00 - 8:00 am), TSTCI President Craig Cook and TSTCI CEO Weldon Gray will welcome you all to the meeting. We are finalizing our Keynote Speaker — be assured it will be a great speaker to officially kick-off the conference. Following the opening keynote, Don Richards, Richards, Elder & Gibson, will address a “hot topic” of “Electric Cooperatives — Friend or Foe?” This topic has been circling in and through the industry for a little while now. It’s like the birds and the bees talk — a little uncomfortable but necessary. Following this hot topic, we hope to move to hot topic number two. We have extended an invitation for the FirstNet folks to come and give us an update; however, at this time their attendance has not been confirmed. We will update the membership as our programs are confirmed, however, we wanted to get the registration opened for your planning and convenience. Before we break for lunch, Wade Wilson, Bolinger, Segar, Gilbert & Moss, is going to moderate a panel of accountants, consultants & lawyers (oh my!). This group of left-brain people will tackle “Leases vs Service Agreements — It Matters!” Our confirmed panelist are: Blake Lackey, Curtis Blakely & Company; Karen Storms, GVNW; Sharon Minor, Moss Adams; Daniel Gibson, Richards, Elder & Gibson, PLLC. After lunch, only those attending the Annual Membership Meeting will return for the afternoon session — Annual Membership Meeting & Election of Directors.” This meeting is open to TSTCI ILEC members and their signed-in designees. Thursday evenings Annual Rural Matters Dinner & Awards Ceremonyhas become a must attend event. It is fun. It is full of memories. It is full of nostalgia. It is full of honoring our members and their contribution to our Association and to our industry. It is an evening of celebrating our journey together — today and always. There is not an additional charge to conference attendees and their guest for the banquet; however, when you register for the conference, we would very much appreciate your filling in the area about whether your spouse/significant other will be attending the banquet. This is a catered event and your help to ensure a reasonable headcount is greatly appreciated. In addition, we always make arrangements for a vegetarian dinner option or other special dietary needs, so please let us know of any special dietary requests. We have several opportunities for sponsorships of this important event including “Table-Sponsorships” and “Hosted Bar Sponsorship.” Table sponsorships are a great way to get extra recognition — your table will be reserved with your name and you will also get to invite other registered attendees who you would like to be seated with you at your table for eight. In addition, you will be listed as “Table Sponsor” in our promotional material and will get verbal and signage acknowledgment during the conference. Remember, too, this is part of the package for our Premiere Sponsorship — which we acknowledge Eastex Telephone Cooperative, VTX1 Companies and Moss Adams as our 2018 Premiere Sponsors. Details for all sponsorship opportunities are included on the website sponsor page. Please make plans to join us for an evening honoring our industry and some of your peers. Friday, after a continental breakfast open to all, Weldon Gray, TSTCI-CEO will moderate an industry panel of managers taking on “Tough Choices.” Panelist include: Kelly Allison, Colorado Valley Telephone Cooperative; Charlie Cano, Etex Telephone Cooperative; Steven Steele, Peoples Telephone Cooperative; and, Amy Linzey, West Texas Rural Telephone Cooperative. This will be a good discussion with some real life introspect. To close out the program part of the day, Andy Johns, WordSouth, will emcee in a game show themed presentation a panel of millennials in “Ask A Millennial!” Andy brought this creative program to the Accounting/Marketing & Customer Service Conference in July. It was very well-received and the information is worthy of the management hearing it too. Before we adjourn for another year, we will draw for the Grand Prize graciously sponsored by Texas Communications Expo. Please plan to join us in Grapevine!CLICK HERE for registration pageContinuing Education Units — The objectives of this conference are to improve the skills and knowledge of accounting and other issues related to the telecommunications industry. Participants shall receive 7 non-technical CPE credit hours for participation, and there are no prerequisites for participation. We have registered with the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy as a CPE sponsor. This registration does not constitute an endorsement by the Board as to the quality of our CPE program. TSTCI Sponsor ID# 2349 Award Dinner Sponsorships — Table Sponsors and Hosted-Bar Sponsors Sponsorship/Door Prizes/ Auction Items — As an appreciated sponsor, your company will be recognized in the on-site printed program, on the Sponsor-Sign displayed throughout the meeting and in the Weekly “This Week” leading up to the conference. To be included in the printed material, we need to receive your sponsorship, door prizes and/or auction items donation by September 11, 2018. As always, your support is very much appreciated. Hotel Information — The meeting is at The Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, Grapevine, Texas. For your convenience, we have a direct link to the hotel on the TSTCI Conference registration on the website. If calling the hotel direct, please make sure they know you are with the TSTCI group so they include you in our room group. Room rates are $199.00 with a daily resort fee of $20.00. This fee includes complimentary guest room high speed internet, 2 bottles of water per day, and fitness center access. Be sure to make your reservations by the September 11, 2018 cut-off date. After that date, rooms will be on a space-available basis at the regular hotel rate. Check-in time is 4:00 p.m.; check-out time is 11:00 am. Overnight self-parking is approximately $15.00+tax/day and valet parking is approximately $31.00+tax/day. Discretionary Fund — The TSTCI Board appreciates contributions to the Discretionary Fund — used for important off-budget expenditures such as payment for featured speakers, donations to death memorials, PAC administrative expenses, and more. The Discretionary Fund is included in the annual independent audit of TSTCI. Since this fund is notused to provide campaign funds to candidates and office holders, corporate contributions are acceptable. Contributions to this fund can be made online when you register for the meeting. Credit card payments (online), as well as corporate or personal checks made payable to the TSTCI Discretionary Fund may be sent to the TSTCI Austin office. 505 W. 12th Street, Suite 206, Austin, TX 78701. If you have questions or need assistance with registration for this meeting, please contact Weldon R. Gray, CEO-TSTCI at 903-658-0055, [email protected]; Kari Rouse at [email protected], or Pat Holder, TSTCI Event Planner, at 512-349-7470. |