The NRPA Congress is Nigh

The National Recreation and Parks Association's Congress and Exposition is just around the corner, beginning in Houston, TX on October 8th. As one of the recreation industry's favorite professionals, will you be attending?

According to their website:
NRPA's Congress and Exposition is the flagship event of NRPA and the premier annual event of the park and recreation community. The three-day conference brings together more than 7,000 park and recreation professionals, citizen advocates, and industry suppliers for amazing networking opportunities, hundreds of educational sessions, and the industry's largest trade show showcasing the products and services of nearly 400 exhibitors.
http://www.nrpa.org/Congress2013/About/

To me, that sounds incredible!

Sadly, Flexible Solutions is not currently planning on having a booth to promote Heatsavr, the liquid pool cover, to commercial aquatics facilities like yours, but it is certainly a venue that we respect. 

I had a look over the Preliminary Program, and the event sounds inspiring. The full seminars are broken down into segments, and include the categories of: Citizen/Advocacy, Employee/Volunteer Management, Environmental Stewardship, Healthy Lifestyles, Leadership and Management, and Planning, Design and Maintenance. Certainly, your core concerns and questions will be addressed in at least one seminar!

The new development that I find particularly intriguing is the "Speed Sessions." Throughout the second day of the congress, there will be two 20 minute segments where there will be 20 speed sessions happening at the same time. With only a 20 minute time commitment, you can update yourself on key industry trends in an interactive seminar. The only downside is that you will only be able to choose one session in each time slot, so choose wisely!

I'd love to know if you are going to the Expo, and why or why not? As with most businesses these days, we (at Flexible Solutions) are being quite choosy about where we spend our time and dollars, as I am sure you are. It would be great if this post could generate some discussion to help all recreation professionals with their NRPA pros and cons lists. Please, leave your comments and stay involved!