The last night of the convention was a night of awards and celebration. We had a beautiful string ensemble to play during the first part of the evening and then ended the night with a formal dinner. I am thankful for the knowledge gained from the essential skills institute and for the opportunity to network and meet members of the association this past summer. I look forward to working with the association and attending future events.
- Jacqui Bergstrom
I didn’t know what to expect from my trip given that I had never been to Tulsa and it was my first NALA convention. It turned out to be a great experience, and I am grateful I had the opportunity to attend the convention.
I participated in the corporate institute. One of the main lecturers for the institute was Stacy Bowers. She was a very dynamic speaker and made the institute seem much livelier than the subject matter appears to be. I expanded by baseline knowledge on not only corporations, but other business organizations, including LLCs, LLLPs, partnerships and sole proprietorships. On the last day we separated into groups and each group was given a sheet showing different facts and figures of a certain company. It was our job to guess what company we were reviewing. We had a certain amount of time to review our fact sheet and make our educated guess. Stacy had to give a few hints to various groups. Our group’s fact sheet described Tiffany and Co. (which we did guess).
The NALA member exchange on organization—what it takes to get and stay organized—provided good information and tips that we all could use in our daily work (and in our personal life).
Jacqui, Alice and I went to the Philbrook Museum of Art one evening. Philbrook was formerly a private mansion and was donated by its owners over fifty years ago for use as an art museum. Philbrook is a massive structure that houses thousands of permanent exhibits from all over the world along with various traveling exhibits. The house itself is a work of art and is built in an Italian villa style. In addition to the beautiful house/museum, the surrounding grounds include many acres of beautiful gardens, ponds and other water features to explore.
Thanks WDALA for the wonderful opportunity to attend the convention!
-Char Shroyer
It was truly an honor to have been able to attend NALA’s 40th Anniversary convention in their headquarters of Tulsa, Oklahoma! Even though the weather was more like the tropics in the summertime outside, the hotel accommodations, meeting rooms, and exhibit areas provided to our organization were exemplary. It wasn’t the hotel’s fault we got evacuated right before the noon luncheon because of a bomb threat! This little glitch in plans left the convention organizers scrambling to get in all that had been planned but, true to their amazing organizational skills, all of the meetings, seminars, and events were still held!
I attended the Legal Technology institute and was completely blown away by the vast amount of information technology that is available for use in practically any legal setting! It was eye-opening to say the least and led me to bring back some hard questions for our own IT people to wrestle concerning some procedures, etc. I also attended the NALA member exchange on Annual Reviews. The presenters gave us a wealth of information on what to do – and what NOT to do – to achieve a productive performance review.
The institutes and member exchanges were only a portion of the convention. We also had the opportunity to visit the exhibits displayed by vendors as well as other affiliate organizations, attend the annual meeting, attend the NALA Membership forum presentations, learn more about our organization and “what makes it tick”, meet people from across the nation that have the same goals and ambitions as we do, share in the joy of recognizing the outstanding work that a number of people have done for NALA, and welcome in our new NALA officers. We were also able to participate in the 40th Anniversary Celebration where we were taken for a trip down memory lane back to the very beginnings of NALA!