Complete Idiot's Guide to Meeting and Event Planning

If you are given the responsibility of planning a meeting for your business, you need to make your company look good. This guide gives you suggestions for planning the budget, negotiating a space to meet, choosing a caterer, setting up the room, and planning programs. You will be able to produce an event that is organized and within your budget.

Robin E. Craven and Lynn Johnson Golabowski launched Alliance LLC Meetings Management in January 1997. (Alliance LLC organizes national and international conferences, workshops, and seminars.) Together, they plan meetings and events for corporations and associations. They are also partners in MeetingsCoachSM, a division of Alliance LLC. As Meetings CoachesSM, they share their meetings-industry knowledge and experience with meeting planners by providing timely, constructive, and affordable assistance on just about any meeting-planning issue or topic.

Robin and Lynn also speak and provide training for the meetings industry. They have written numerous articles and currently write columns for Midwest Meetings and Small Market Meetings. Both are active members of Meeting Professionals International (MPI).Robin resides in Richland, Washington. She has a Bachelor's degree in biology from Virginia Tech University and has more than 22 years of experience as a meeting planner. She is a past president of the Wisconsin Chapter-Meeting Professionals International and was the first chair of MPI's Information Technology Advisory Council. She is currently the president of the Alliance of Meeting Management Consultants.

Lynn has more than 24 years of experience in the hotel, meeting, and tourism industry. She has an Associate in Arts degree from Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois, and a Bachelor's degree in hotel and restaurant management from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie. Her industry experience includes managerial positions in sales and marketing with Stouffers, Marriott, Hyatt, and Wyndham. This experience, from both sides of the meetings industry-supplier and buyer-brings a unique perspective to her role as a meeting planner. She is currently the executive director of Meeting Professionals International-Wisconsin Chapter.