330 Attended the Boca Raton ELA Conference

by Christopher Menkin

 Leasing News was informed the November-December, edition of “ELT, the Magazine of Equipment Leasing & Finance,” now in the mail, will have a story on the Equipment Leasing Association (ELA) Boca Raton Conference, stating “...there were approximately 330 attendees at the convention;” over $1,000,000 registration fees paid by those who did not attend?

Perhaps there should be a ground swelling of ELA membership support, or a drive to replace money that is to be reimbursed, or a lease to those who registered, payable back in cash over thirty-six or sixty month payments, or discounts to future conferences, or given to the association as a donation as certainly the loss of funds is serious to the operation of the associations.

Perhaps with the announced retirement of Michael J. Fleming, CAE, 26 years of leadership, a tribute to his hard work should also be considered to help repay any reimbursements.

Earlier reports from ELA had estimated 400-500 attended, as well as 1200 had registered. A spokesperson yesterday clarified this, stating, “There were just over 1000 registrants, not 1200. The 330 attending were just under one-third of the registrants .”

Assuming the numbers are correct, that leaves 670 members who did not attend times the average cost of $1,550, or $1,038,500; not counting vendor fees, who did or did not attend. Plus the costs of speakers, printing, advertising, program, staff time, room and travel costs, this is then a sizeable chunk of the association operating costs, and is a very serious number.

There were complaints regarding not returned registration fees, due to the hurricane. Airlines and hotels reportedly waived their “hell and high water” paragraphs and returned money to those who had made reservations. While ELA had a “hell and high water” too, they were not originally going to return any money.

Bowing to pressures of members who did not attend, on November 1, 2005, the ELTnews ran a story that, ” ELA intends to return a portion of the registration fee to each and every individual who registered for the convention. The amount will be determined in the next few weeks, once we have as ascertained the cost of ELA's various expenses for the convention.”

An ELA spokesperson also told Leasing News, “ The reimbursement info will come later. It's not in the magazine article.”

How this is financially going to be treated should include members who did not go, contributing, as well as other members who did not attend, donating to a specific fund to overcome the financial loss that occurred due to this act of nature.

Non-members of ELA may also purchase “Equipment Leasing

Today” articles, or subscribe to the magazine, by going to:

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Previous stories on the Boca Raton conference registration are located at:

http://www.leasingnews.org/Conscious-Top%20Stories/ELA_Conv.htm