ABA Winter Meeting Booked To Capacity Waiting Lists Form

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November 1 – November 8, 2007 Edition

ABA Winter Meeting
Booked To Capacity,
Waiting Lists Form

LOS ANGELES, CA/10/30/07–Event and hotel registrations for the American Booksellers Association's Third Annual Winter Institute (Wi3) are booked to capacity. Wi3, in Louisville, Kentucky, from Thursday, January 24, through Sunday, January 27, 2008, is open exclusively to the owners and staff of ABA member bookstores and capped at 500 registrants. Booksellers who register for the ABA education program now are being put on a waiting list.

ABA is asking registered booksellers who are no longer planning to attend the Winter Institute to contact Program Assistant Margaret Nafz at Margaret@bookweb.org as soon as possible to cancel both their event and hotel reservations, so that waiting booksellers can fill their places.

Booksellers registered for the education program who have not yet reserved a room at the Louisville Marriott Downtown should contact Nafz to have their names put on a waiting list. In the meantime, ABA suggests booking a room at another hotel as a back up. If rooms at the event hotel become available, ABA will notify booksellers in order of their position on the list. A number of hotels are within blocks of the Louisville Marriott Downtown. (ABA reminds booksellers to read the hotel's cancellation policy carefully before booking a room. No special rates have been negotiated with these hotels.)

The ABA Board of Directors in its fall meeting in Los Angeles, began the process of rebranding the association's marketing efforts. The ABA is working with the identity company Brains on Fire to develop a detailed plan. In addition, the board is refashioning the association's Strategic Plan. Members will get a look at the new plan within the next several weeks. The ABA is also laying plans for BookExpo America 2008 to be held in Los Angeles from May 29-June 1, 2008.

Convened with booksellers Tova Beiser of Brown University Bookstore in Providence, Rhode Island; Joe Drabyak of Chester County Book & Music Company in West Chester, Pennsylvania; and Bill Reilly of The River's End Bookstore in Oswego, New York, as the Strategic Planning Committee, to continue work on a new five-year Strategic Plan focusing on broad "ends" policies, rather than goals and objectives as in past plans. The meeting was facilitated by Ivan Barkhorn of the Redstone Strategy Group.