Tradeshow season does more than send you home with great ideas for your next meeting or event; there’s also all of that booth swag—a seemingly endless array of trinkets and gadgets. While that tote or T-shirt felt like a must-have at the show, it often ends up forgotten in your closet or cluttering up your office. Even if you plan on using the items, consider this—what did you do with all of last year’s swag? Chances are if you didn’t keep and use it then, it’s now this year’s garbage. Why not repurpose it?

In the age of ever-evolving gender diversity acceptance and recognition, creating warm and welcoming experiences for all attendees is becoming increasingly important as meeting professionals. At MPI's WEC 2018, Bernadette Smith offered the following action steps for designing LGBTQIA-inclusive meetings and events.

MPI is collaborating with NYU to develop a four-hour course on how to make meetings and events more inclusive for attendees.

While he’s known as one of the top meetings technology educators in the industry, a lesser-known aspect of Jim Spellos’ contribution to both the meetings industry and those with an acute need of nutrition is his efforts working with Rock and Wrap It Up!, an award-winning anti-poverty think tank.

Since January 2018, Sookman has volunteered her time to Women’s Empowerment, a Sacramento, Calif.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has helped more than 1,300 homeless women secure housing, a job or enroll in school or training programs.

When 35-year meeting planning veteran Sandy Biback retired she found out her work was not finished. But instead of continuing to be tasked with the myriad responsibilities of managing meetings and her Toronto-based independent meeting planning business, she set out to help some of the most vulnerable, and often forgotten, members of our society: victims of human trafficking.

StoneTurn, a forensic accounting and corporate compliance firm out of Boston, was already booked into the luxury Casa Marina Key West, A Waldorf Astoria Resort for an early December meeting when the news spread on Sept. 9, 2017, about Hurricane Irma’s devastating hit to the Florida Keys. The company decided then to forgo its usual on-site teambuilding activity and instead looked to work with and help the Keys community.

The wide-open expanses that are the backdrop for the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa are the perfect environment for horses.

The U.S. and the meetings industry have given a lot to Burt Cabanas, founder and chairman of Benchmark, and since handing over the CEO reins to son Alex in 2013, he’s upped his lifelong efforts of giving back to the organizations and people who helped shape his success.

It seemed our whole world was turned upside down just a few months ago when hurricanes were slamming the Gulf region.