2014 APA Conference – Call for Mobile Workshop Proposals

As many of you know, in 2014 the American Planning Association Conference will be here in Georgia with Atlanta serving as the host city. As the professional planning organization for the state, there are many of our members that have volunteered their time and efforts to help welcome everyone to our state and showcase the superb planning work we are undertaking. As part of these preparations, the Mobile Workshop Committee is seeking proposals for consideration to help conference attendees get out of the Georgia World Congress Center and see for themselves the planning topics of our region.

The mobile workshops can highlight complete or “in-progress” planning initiatives. We hope the majority of them will be no more than 1 hour drive time from the conference center. Workshop lengths can be from under 3 hours and up to six hours. One or two full day workshops can be considered, but they will be highly scrutinized by the Mobile Workshop Committee and APA.

As a proposer for a mobile workshop, you will be responsible for overall implementation of the workshop you initiate. This includes arranging all logistics pertaining to your workshop (route, transportation type, speakers, food + beverage, maps, itinerary, determining cost, etc). When developing details for the workshops, it is important to note that conference attendees must return on schedule. Please consider items such as traffic, lunch, loading and unloading of attendees, rest stops, etc into your proposed time frame. Also, try to be considerate of the cost of the workshop so that the fee to participants is not prohibitive for most conference attendees. Tickets will be sold by APA for participation for each mobile workshop which are paid for through their APA Conference registrations and with some sold at the conference itself. These are all included in the following specific tasks you will be asked to undertake:

  1. Propose a Mobile Workshop Concept to the Mobile Workshop Co-chairs by May 17;

  2. Submit a substantially complete workshop concept to Mobile Workshop Committee Co-chairs by May 31;

  3. Submit a complete mobile workshop proposal via the APA online portal by June 14;

  4. Determine the program objective of the specific mobile workshop; and

  5. Arrange the details of the mobile workshop.

More details will be provided to those that have an interest in leading a mobile workshop program. We hope to have workshops that cover a broad range of planning topics (land use, transportation, environmental protection, sustainability, economic development, redevelopment, housing, historic preservation, multi-cultural interests, etc) and have workshops that are geographically dispersed throughout the region. We also encourage a range of transportation types if it is applicable to your workshop idea (walking, transit, bicycling, bus, kayak, etc). If you will require coach service for your workshop, APA has a contract with a service that will handle those needs for you. If you are using specialized transportation (bikes, kayaks, segways, etc.), the organizer will be asked to have the details worked out, not necessary taking on the financial burden of reserving them.

If you have an idea for a workshop or would like more information please feel free to email one or both of the Mobile Workshop Co-Chairs: Michelle Alexander or Dana Johnson. We look forward to your participation.