ESC IBS Consortium Minutes 060519

ESC IBS Consortium Minutes from June 5, 2019 Meeting was called to order at 7:50 am Eastern Time Attendance: Burnaby Mfg Hoss Budde DTE Chris Cole DTE Kathy Ferguson ESC Dave Weiss New Jersey Natural Craig Trautweiler ONE Gas Emily Reh Piedmont Natural Gas Carl Peterson Spire Beverly Passantino UGI Utilities, Inc Bob Stoyko Washington Gas Jennifer Eugene Washington Gas Melissa Farrar Kiosk Vendors: Barb started the meeting by mentioning that of the 11 vendors that had exhibited in 2019 only 2 had opted out of exhibiting in 2020. As a result, a memo was sent to ESC affiliate members and three have stepped forward as wanting to exhibit in 2020; one has already returned their contract! The booth designers felt that we would most likely not to want to add anymore vendors at this point as we want to ensure a smooth traffic flow though out the booth. Timing for 2021: Barb shared that the dates for the 2020 show are January 21 – 23 in Las Vegas. She wanted everyone to realize that we will need to decide shortly after the close of the 2020 show if we plan to continue the consortium for the 2021 show. Many members at the meeting spoke of the importance of supporting the natural gas industry and the “local” builders that attend the show. We briefly discussed some items we may want to consider for future shows: Communications to builders inviting them to the site with links to vendors displaying in the booth. Targeted emails with location of the booth. Giveaways/door prize Messaging to leaders of large builders and local builders Lunch meeting at site with speaker from ESC/AGA (50-75 attendees) – 2021 event. Must check into that now. Also offers breakfast (approx. $10K cost) Focus on large national builders and multi-state builders Education/speaker presentation (national economist?) Sponsor PA State reception (UGI) Display with key messages….electronic and/or hands on (interactive screen) Consider smaller booth with greater expenditures in other areas (listed above)? Celebrity guest? Focus on front end outreach to builders with specific message to get the AGA booth and any event/lunch on their schedule. We discussed the possibility of hosting a luncheon at a show for our builders and/or providing an educational session. Barb has already reached out to NAHB to inquire about the costs for a luncheon and if that is even an option for 2020. Members must realize that any of these “extras” will require additional funding. Open Discussion: The items mentioned above came up because of a question that was posed to the group, and it is a question that we still need to discuss. Since we will need to decide rather quickly if we are going to continue the IBS consortium after 2020, Barb asked how each member company would determine what made the IBS booth a success? While all of the items above were worthy to be included in future booths, do they really answer the question of how YOUR company would determine that this was a success and should be continued after 2020? This is a huge topic and will be discussed on our next call. This is scheduled for June 25th at 2:00 Eastern time; the dial in number is 1-866-377-2531; access number is 8247150. The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 am.