Members: Debra Dupee - Chair, Janet Major, Steve Peters, Steve Banick, Brent Schlenker, Maggie Martinez, Michele Smith, Steve Moore (Mike Whipple Fundraising Chair)

• Thanks to CenturyLink and ILinc Communications
• Approval of Agenda
• Events - For Consideration
  • An informal after hours networking event. The plan is to hold these monthly at a company or organization location rather than at a bar or restaurant. We would like to see these take place in Tucson and Phoenix. Hosts would pay for refreshments (no alcohol) and provide a $200.00 contribution to GAZeL.  No program or presentation other than a brief welcome from GAZeL and the host, and a tour of the facility if appropriate.
  •  A Networking event that includes lunch, a program, sponsors, etc. These would be presented bi-monthly. 
  • The CEO/Executive Forum. This will be a lunch rather than a breakfast as we have done in the past to accommodate people outside of Phoenix. 
  • An annual conference or Summit

• January’s GAZeL Networking Event was held at t Cox Creative Services on January 25, 2012.  They provided a $200 corporate contribution.
• The Sokikom event on Sokikom’s Gamefication will be later in the year due to their conflicting schedules.
• The next tentative networking lunch event is being planned for late February on innovative technology and education programs in Arizona. We are trying to schedule Calvin Baker, Superintendent of Vail School District in Tucson and Rick Ogstan, Executive Director of Carpe Diem in Yuma.
• A February Networking event will take place at Lucid Agency, Feb. 22, 5-7PM, 51 W. 3rd Street. Suite E101, Tempe 85281. Ken Bonham, VP of Business Development is our host.
• For April, an Education Roundtable with several current "Arizona Online Schools", including Primavera and others, is being planned.
• The CEO/Executive Forum that would be held in March. Maybe this will be a non-education theme such as talent management/employee training/motivational as a general business topic, mobile security (Symantec is interested), economic development (the new Arizona Economic development Authority), broadband deployment in Arizona (ATIC and State of Arizona), issues and challenges for eLearning enterprises, and others to be considered. Steve Peters asked Brent Schlenker to also help identify speakers.
• Decision Theater at ASU: http://decisiontheater.org/  Mar 9 or Apr 13 (free). Decision Theater is a world-class research facility and decision lab for exploring and understanding decision-making.

Events Committee Meeting Minutes

January 5, 2012 at 4:15 PM

Attending: Steve Peters, Steven Moore, Rich Radford, Michele Smith, Maggie Martinez, and Debra Dupee

Debra requested we add a new agenda item regarding current online schools in Arizona.

Events under consideration for Fundraising Activities were discussed.

•  “eLearning Drinks” should be renamed to “eLearning Networking” . It was suggested we change the model of the event to the Tech Council’s model that has a company host it at their facility for 50 to 100 attendees. Possibly have the company give a brief presentation/overview of their company. These informal monthly events should be easier than coordinating our typical networking events. A company would provide appetizers and beverages. It is important to initiate the event in Tucson as well. This will increase visibility to find sponsors for other events. Janet is willing to help. We will contact Steve Banick to see if he would like to coordinate these for us as he was doing this for Steve Cooper’s events.
• CEO/Executive eLearning Roundtable event was discussed. This event would be more open than invitation only as in the past. Either semi-annually or quarterly. We should start with one and see how much effort is involved such as getting invitations out, finding a speaker, location and topic. Possible topics:

o   Issues in eLearning enterprises

o   Sokikom’s Gamefication  (Rich Radford)

o   Talent management/employee training/motivational as a general business topic (Steve Peters)

Late February, beginning of March is the target schedule. Steve Peters will chat with Brent Schlenker about his ideas on possible speakers. This would be a lunch event. Debra would like a list of the attendees from the last event. Steve Peters will try and obtain this. We will also try to avoid any particular product or service.