This October 14-17, 2020, Virginia TESOL (VATESOL), an affiliate of Southeastern TESOL (SETESOL), will be hosting the annual SETESOL regional conference in Richmond, Virginia. SETESOL is a consortium of 9 affiliates representing 11 states (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee). Each fall, one of the affiliates is responsible for hosting, and 2020 is Virginia’s time to welcome TESOL professionals to our state and Richmond.

Hosting a regional conference is a major undertaking for a small affiliate like VATESOL. More specifically, VATESOL has experienced growing pains for several years as our membership, board participation, and annual conference attendance declined throughout the early 2010s. In 2016, under the leadership of Katya Koubek and Monica Starkweather, the board began revamping outreach efforts, cognizant that it would be our turn to host SETESOL in 2020.

Currently, VATESOL has about 330 members, and our annual conferences typically draw 150-250 attendees. Thus, hosting SETESOL 2020 has challenged (and inspired) the current board to think outside the box to make SETESOL a success. SETESOL conferences in the past have drawn between 450-1,000 attendees, a wide range to consider when planning a multi-day conference. Many questions came to mind as we tried to estimate our attendance, especially given our membership size and typical conference attendance. Moreover, planning SETESOL has pushed many of our board members to become budding experts in negotiating conference center, AV, and hotel contracts, a skill many of us did not have before joining the board.

As we reflect on our conference planning, we wanted to share with affiliate leaders several steps we have taken to prepare for hosting this multi-day conference with many unknowns (e.g., estimating how many people will come). Some of the steps we have taken include:

• Solidifying conference location, dates, and contracts early (1.5 years in advance)
• Offering exhibitors at our 2019 conference a discount for exhibiting at SETESOL 2020
• Extending membership to all VATESOL 2019 conference attendees, which increased our membership
• Filling all VATESOL board positions as we realized that our organization needed to march into SETESOL with a full board
• Revamping the VATESOL newsletter into a blog, which is allowing VATESOL increased engagement and conference promotion: http://www.vatesol.com/BLOG
• Attending educational conferences as exhibitors to promote SETESOL and engage with potential exhibitors
• Connecting with past SETESOL affiliate leaders to learn from their planning experiences
• Partnering with Richmond Region Tourism to learn about how to engage local businesses and take advantage of promotional opportunities

Moreover, we realized early on that the success of SETESOL 2020 depends on spreading the word about this fantastic professional development experience in an excellent location—Richmond is a great city to explore. Thus, we encourage all affiliate leaders to consider presenting and attending SETESOL 2020, and we want all to know that participation is not limited to SETESOL affiliates. We are accepting proposals until April 15, and conference registration opens in March. For more information, including submitting a proposal, please visit www.vatesol.com.

Lastly, if the thought of connecting with affiliate leaders is not enough to woo you to Virginia in the fall, Richmond was recently listed as one of the 52 places to visit in 2020 by The New York Times (number 39 to be exact)! Read the article here, and we hope to see you in Richmond in October: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/travel/places-to-visit.html.