At Equity Residential's Leader Summits last year, the company invited its healthcare suppliers and vendors to come and put on a mini trade show that included an interactive Wii station to help attendees have fun--and work out a bit--in between sessions. // © Equity Residential
You don’t have to fly solo when it comes to making your meeting healthier. Teaming up with partners, whether they be direct business partners, vendors, or nonprofit organizations and charities, can not only help you save in costs but can add invaluable experiences and educational opportunities to your meeting.
As it did with its Spartan Race obstacle course at The Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, FL, Reebok often teams up with its brand ambassadors and other partners such as yogi Tara Stiles, CrossFit, or Les Mills, for its events, says Cosgrove.
For her healthcare industry meetings, Joann Chmura would often make it a point to theme her meetings around a particular health-related cause and work with nonprofits to drive the theme home. “If it was a particular month like October, we would do a breast-cancer awareness theme with pink as our focal point,” she explains. “It’s as simple as contacting those nonprofits and getting some collateral and even getting a representative to be outside the general session with a table and some healthy foods, brochures, or shower hang tags for self exams, etc.”
Equity Residential’s Director of Conference Services, Beth Cooper-Zobott, works with a variety of vendors to put on a trade show during her leadership summits. “The trade show has three different areas focused on different areas of wellbeing — physical, financial, and psychological — with representatives from various partner companies there to meet with attendees, take physical health assessments, and give demonstrations. “This didn’t cost a ton of money at all,” says Cooper-Zobott. All we needed to provide as a flat-screen TV to allow attendees to play on the Wii, and we brought in some laptops for kiosks to take surveys with.”