Why Isn’t HGS having General Lunch Meetings and Why Have Prices Increased?

Why Isn’t HGS having General Lunch Meetings and Why Have Prices Increased?

 

Last year, previous HGS president Barry Katz and his Board of Directors voted to discontinue the General Lunch Meeting in 2014-15 as a cost cutting measure.  What you may not know is that in conjunction with ExxonMobil moving to Spring, TX is that the Petroleum Club is also moving from the Exxon Bell St. Tower to the Total Tower at the corner of Dallas St. and Louisiana St.  This move is scheduled to take place in January 2015.  The HGS Board decided to take this opportunity to reevaluate the General Lunch meeting and its location.

The last fiscal year was the first time in many years that HGS raised meeting prices for the General Dinner and Lunch and the Northsider’s Lunch to better reflect the increased costs at the venues.  The increase was not sufficient to cover the actual expense incurred at those meetings.  Each HGS Board of Directors desires to keep meeting costs low.  This year’s Board is no different from past boards.  One of each Vice President’s tasks is to negotiate the hotel contracts for our primary venues.  These include the Westchase Hilton, the Greens Point Hyatt and the Petroleum Club.  The venues do not directly charge HGS to rent the space used for its monthly meetings.  The venues recoup their cost for using their facility through meal cost, AV charges, cashier, bartender and a hotel service charge that ranges from 21% to 22% of the total invoice.  In addition to all of these costs there is also the 8.25% sales tax. This year the cost increases to HGS are nearly flat with last year’s because only one venue increased its meal cost by two dollars.  The 2014-2015 pricing schedule was calculated based on a per head cost at the minimum contract guarantee of forty people per event after the final contracts were received.  It was eye-opening to discover that the total costs to HGS ranged from $39.29 to $40.95 per person and that HGS had only been charging $30.00 per person at our meetings.  The increased income from walkups did not compensate for the increased costs incurred from subsidizing Emeritus, Honorary Life Members, and students nor make up for the income/expense differential.  This made it clear why HGS was having such a difficult time staying in the black or breaking even on the annual technical meeting budgets.  (These old and new prices do not have any office overhead included in them.)  It is for this reason that I recommended to the HGS Board of Directors in June that HGS raise its meeting prices significantly.  This recommendation has been hotly debated by the HGS Board.  Ultimately the Board concluded that meeting prices had to increase in order to be more in line with the true out-of-pocket expenses required to put these meetings together.   The new hotel-venue pricing structure is as follows:

  • $45.00 for all preregistered Members
  • $50.00 for all walkups and nonmembers
  • $40.00 for all Emeritus and Honorary Members
  • Students will continue to attend at a reduced charge of $10.00 provided that they:
    • Show a valid Student Id
    • Corporate sponsor underwriter is available
    • The students do not take advantage of HGS’s generosity.  Students are required to remain for the technical presentation in return for their free meal.

The “General Lunch” has been a long standing tradition in the HGS meeting line up and many HGS members would like to see that tradition continue/return, including me.  I like the Petroleum Club venue not only because it is a neat place but it turns out that it would also be our least expensive venue. 

By now HGS members should have received a “Survey Monkey” that asked if members are interested in a General Lunch meeting and would consider attending such if a talk that they found interesting was being presented.  The survey also asked if members would be more likely to attend a General Lunch meeting if the venue was downtown or located on the west side of Houston.  Upon review of the “Survey Monkey” results HGS may restart the “General Lunch Meeting” in February 2015 if there is sufficient member interest to have these talks.

I believe that HGS should allow Emeritus and Honorary Members to attend the meeting at or near the HGS average cost of approximately $40.00 per person. 

A nice meal with friends and colleagues paired with an interesting technical talk still makes an HGS meeting an excellent value.

Thank you for your continued support.

NOTICE:  Please take a short survey regarding HGS General Lunch.

source: 
John Jordan
releasedate: 
Monday, July 21, 2014