New Location for 2008!
For the past several years, the MAHSC conference was held at the 57th Street
Ramada Inn at the Virginia Beach oceanfront. As of May 1, 2007, the Ramada
Inn became a Wyndham Hotel property. The Ramada Inn was a good venue, but
for a number of purely business reasons The Virginia Horticultural
Foundation decided to move the conference.
As part of our post conference evaluation, and after reading the attendee
comment cards, it became obvious we needed to change venue sites. Our
conference has steadily grown, and we now have more than 1000 people
attending. Class room size and parking concerns reached a critical point. An
internal team from The Virginia Horticultural Foundation evaluated every
hotel and conference facility in the Southside Hampton Roads area. We
evaluated a number of critical factors, which included on-site parking,
size, number of meeting rooms, hotel room rates, food services, rental cost
of the facility and availability.
In the final analysis, we selected the Founders Inn because it best met the
criteria we evaluated. The Founders Inn was built and is managed as a
professional/luxury conference facility. The day-to-day operations,
scheduling, budgeting and all staff of the Founders Inn conference facility
are employed by Benchmark Hospitality International
www.benchmarkhospitality.com. Organizations such as NATO, Pfizer
Animal Health, General Dynamics, Wells Fargo Mortgage, Virginia Society of
Landscape Designers, American Nursery and Landscape Association and Dollar
Tree have all held conferences at the Founders Inn. Additionally, our goal
this year is to present a more “green” conference, and the Founders Inn is
one of only 50 properties in Virginia to receive certification as a Virginia
Green Lodging hotel from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
Our goal is to present the best possible professional horticultural
conference in the Mid-Atlantic. As in previous years, we will encourage all
conference attendees to submit comment cards, and we take them seriously. We
will do a post conference evaluation with regards to the attendee concerns
and whether the conference facility met our high expectations in quality and
service.
We hope you will enjoy not only the new conference facility but contribute
in what we think is yet another exceptional program sponsored by The
Virginia Horticultural Foundation. We thank you in advance for your time and
participation.
The Virginia Horticultural Foundation
John Eberwine, President
The Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course
Bruce E. Leuthold, Conference Chairman & Foundation Vice President
