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Post -2008 Report Hilton Seattle Airport For NW Convention rate at the hotel be sure to mention the NW Naturopathic Physicians Convention special rate. Room Reservations
For Recording of 2008 Convention By Tree Farm Communications
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2005 Feedback Report Our Mission The NWNPC is organized by a group of dedicated volunteers. We conduct two committee meetings as well as countless telephone conferences each year. We consider venues, speakers, entertainment, budgets, and scheduling during this process. Our mission remains the same: Provide excellence in continuing education, ensure professional camaraderie and deliver financial support to the naturopathic profession. Your Feedback The 2005 NWNPC was a tremendous success thanks to the support of you, the delegates and our faithful exhibitors. Each year we strive to improve on the convention. We take your feedback seriously and we know that your recommendations help us conduct a more appealing conference. This year we had a lot of interesting responses regarding our choice of hotels, food selections, speakers and lecture topics. I felt it would be helpful to list some of the suggestions we received and offer responses where appropriate. Hotel Feedback We received a lot of positive feedback about our hotel choice this year. Delegates and exhibitors repeatedly expressed their approval of the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. Quite simply, the NWNPC had outgrown our previous venues. Although costs were higher for this four star heritage property the larger meeting spaces, high quality sound system and physical layout of the meeting and exhibitor spaces were welcomed by both exhibitors and delegates. Food and Beverage Feedback Food and beverage feedback is a topic we often get many comments on, often contrary. As you can imagine selecting menus for our diverse group is in and of itself a tremendous challenge. We strive to provide variety and selection and routinely consider individual preferences and requirements such as protein sources for vegetarian delegates and alternatives for those who have wheat or dairy sensitivities. We operate under pretty significant restrictions, however. Hotels won’t allow us to supply our own food items and prohibit us from securing our own caterer; this is standard practice and part of our contractual agreement. Hotels generate much of their conference revenues from their food and beverage sales and costs can be extremely prohibitive. Understanding the dietary requests for a group of NDs can also be a learning curve for hotel staff, one some chefs take to without enthusiasm. We work with rather limited menus developed by the hotel’s chef and while substitutions can be made, the costs skyrocket. This year we had requests for more fruit, veggies, nuts, seeds, and juices and less coffee, tea, muffins, and pastries. For edification purposes: An apple or banana costs $3.70 each! A pitcher of juice is $46.75! A muffin or bagel is $6.75! A cup of tea is $5.85! These are the standard menu prices. Hotels also charge 15% service on top of catering costs. When we start making specific requests the costs can become entirely prohibitive. We also cannot police or control consumption. We supplied a fair amount of fruit and juice at each break, but unfortunately these items were consumed quickly, disproportionate to the number of delegates and exhibitors at the snack table. We sincerely strive to make the meals and break items as appealing as possible, but as you can see, costs alone can be an unmanageable obstacle. One possible solution to this dilemma is to bring a small cache of items such as juice, fruit and nuts with you. Speaker Feedback Speaker feedback was largely positive. Our keynote speakers were very well received and Dr. David Suzuki’s lecture was roundly applauded. Most delegates appreciated the diversity in subjects and speakers offered this year. Requests were made for more in-depth clinical pearl discussions as well as increased emphasis on naturopathic principals and philosophy. We are planning a series on naturopathic principals starting with hydrotherapy by Dr. Letitia Watrous, next year. We also plan to develop more round-table and interactive lectures in future conventions. Some delegates requested more naturopathic doctors and fewer medical doctors. Fourteen of sixteen speakers this year were naturopathic physicians. We also had two PhDs and two MDs. We feel it is important to keep our horizons open. It is valuable to know what is happening in other disciplines and, in fact, our colleagues from Oregon and Washington require Pharmacy CE that necessitates we go outside of naturopathic medical experts. That said, we can employ the suggestions of many who asked that debate-style presentations be made whereby an allopathic position could be countered by naturopathic response. We think this is an excellent idea. We also had requests for more lectures on clinically relevant materials and more complete notes. We agree. This convention should allow you to leave with tools that you can use in your practice. We direct speakers on lecture themes and topics and consistently request clinical relevance and advance copies of their lecture notes. Despite many, many efforts to secure notes our program publishing requirements are sometimes not met. In these instances we advise speakers to provide lecture notes to the delegates. This remains a work in progress and one of our biggest challenges. We’re Listening Our plan is to abide by our mission and be receptive to your input. Conventions are planned up to three years in advance. Speakers are engaged and contracted eighteen months in advance. Venues are selected three to five years in advance. You can see that it may take time for your requests to filter through. Still, your suggestions make this convention better and better every year. If you would like to offer additional input please contact one of the committee members listed in your convention program.
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