What’s It All About??

“I pay my dues and am entitled to 10 dinners per year, what’s the idea of sending me a letter asking for an additional $10.00?” That is an excellent question, let me explain the facts:

1. Reservations are due by 12:00 noon on the Monday before the Thursday dinner meeting, not because we are trying to make life hard for you, but because the hotel needs a headcount that day in order to order sufficient food for the dinner. Since that number goes to them that day, if you reserve after noon, it causes a measure of extra effort on the part of three or four parties, so we assess a $10.00 surcharge for the inconvenience.

2. You have until 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday before the Thursday dinner meeting to cancel without penalty, obviously things can happen that prohibit you from letting us know you won’t be there, but certainly it doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable procedure. Illness, death in the family, inordinate traffic or even working late are among the reasons often cited, all of which are legitimate excuses, but the hotel still charges us for the guarantee we commit to at $26.00 per plate.

3. You “walk on” the evening of the dinner without a reservation. Please see #1 above. In addition should our headcount exceed the guaranteed count we give the hotel, there is a significant surcharge for setting up additional tables.

4. You “no show” the evening of the dinner even though you made a reservation. Please see #2 above.

5. The office doesn’t show you made a reservation and the registration table personnel look at you in a mean way—they consider you a “walk on,” see #3 and #1 above. This one is easily remedied by printing the web reservation receipt you can print when you make your web reservation. Bring it to the meeting and show it to those rascals at the registration table and shame on them for dropping the ball! There is a date stamp on it that will irrefutably establish your registration and its time to the minute, those guys will owe you one!

Each month there will be two major choices of entree for the evening. One will probably be a beef based dish and the other will either be a chicken or a vegetarian option, sadly the hotel does not afford us the flexibility of both chicken and vegetarian options the same night. If you have any special allergies or reactions to certain foods, please contact the House Chair, Terri Okazaki, C.P.M. at (714) 647-5329.

New members are given grace until the above rules are explained to them. Repeat offenders could reach a point where they may have to pay any assessments (3 or more) in arrears before they clear their record.

I hope this thoroughly explains the ramifications related to the importance of an accurate dinner meeting headcount. This year there have been meetings when 15-20 people have not attended despite having made reservations. It won’t take too many of these to hurt us financially, please do your part and keep us posted in a timely way. Thank you.

Chuck Ayres, C.P.M.
Executive Secretary
NAPM-Orange County

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