Posted on July 31, 2012 at 2:31 PM by Clay Curtin
by Liz Pharis, City of Brea
This year’s MMASC Conference in the Desert was a huge success! Although attendance was a bit on the lighter side, the conference was packed with such great content it left those who attended with tough decisions about which sessions to choose. The conference began early on Wednesday with the golf tournament and an ICMA University Course. The afternoon session began with lunch and was followed by a highly interactive CEPO workshop on leadership and developing teams. An outdoor welcome reception ended the first day of the conference leaving the evening open for attendees to go out on their own.
Thursday, day two of the conference, began with breakfast and a welcome from the City of Rancho Mirage’s Mayor Pro Tem, Gordon Moller. That was followed by a general session presentation from Norman King on creating responsible employees, citizens and consumers. Then the concurrent sessions began, featuring three tracks in Leadership Training, Career Advancement and Skill Building. The morning sessions offered topics on leading from the middle, recruitment and presenting. Lunch got underway with the annual awards presentation, followed by a motivating presentation from award-winning entrepreneur, Larry Broughton, speaking about overcoming obstacles. The rest of the afternoon had two sets of concurrent sessions. The first had topics on leading through adversity, being promoted and building civic engagement through websites. And the last three were on labor negotiations, knowing when to make a career move and dealing with the media. The annual business meeting and bylaw forum ended the meeting part of the day. After a dinner break, a Las Vegas inspired president’s reception offered casino gaming, a visit from Frank Sinatra and networking with fellow MMASC members.
Following an outdoor breakfast, the last day of the conference began with concurrent sessions. These last sessions featured topics on flexible leadership, smart phone/tablet apps and the ever popular speed coaching with local government leaders. Networking continued with lunch with an executive followed by the last session on managing across generations given by keynote speaker Chip Espinoza. With that, the 2012 Annual Conference came to end. Whether you attended or couldn’t make it out, click here to glance through photos recapping this great conference.
A special thank you is owed to the conference planning committee who spent countless hours coordinating to make sure the conference went off without a hitch! Make sure you keep an eye out for information on the 2013 Annual Conference; it’s one you will not want to miss!