2018Issue1_Alabama_v2.indd

CONVENTION CHAIRMAN' S MESSAGE

2 0 1 7 C onv e n t i on I s s u e s ar e addr e s s e d

HAROLD GARRETT PRESIDENT, GATEWAY FOODS 2018/19 AGA CONVENTION CHAIRMAN

As a way of introduction, i am harold garrett, president of gateway foods and the 2018/2019 aga convention chairman.

If your company is a Diamond Sponsor or you are interested in becoming a Diamond Sponsor, I would encourage you to reach out to the AGA Staff for more details on this new event! 4. We got countless remarks about the Monday night event in the survey. We are going to fix as many of these issues as possible. We have decided to move away from Casino Night and do something very exciting! In 2018 we will be hosting a Night at the Derby & Silent Auction Party! The Silent Auction items will be in the Camellia Ballrooms this year so you can browse the items at your leisure. When you enter the large Azalea Ballroom you will be given play money, betting slips and a racing program. We will have betting booths with tellers and a giant projection screen where we will watch 10 filmed horse races with a live announcer giving the pre-race favorites. You will place your bids on your favorite horse for each race! At the end of the night, you will take all your winnings and trade them in for raffle tickets. Tickets will be used for the raffle of door prizes ranging from a 55” 4K TV to a Camera Drone!

Many of you attended the 2017 Convention and I must say Keith Lusk and his committee did an outstanding job last year. It is going to be a hard one to beat this year. After each convention, we send out a convention survey. We gather a lot of information from how we can make adjustments for the coming years to make the convention better for each of our attendees. You wrote in and we listened. Below I would like to address the top 5 issues from 2017 and see if we can answer some of your questions. 1. “I had no idea that the final dinner was wear your team colors.” I apologize this was not communicated as well as we should. Please note that this year we will again have a “Wear your team colors night” We want to encourage everyone to support their favorite team by sporting their colors! 2. “Organized Tennis Event.” The convention committee and AGA staff is limited and can only organize so many

events. Years ago, we would hold a tennis tournament at the convention. However due to the lack of interest from attendees we opted not to hold this event as an AGA sponsored event. That being said, if enough people come to us and commit to participating and we can get a sponsor, the committee would be more than happy to look into it for future conventions. 3. “Opportunity to set up one on one meetings with requested retailers.” I am happy to announce that after a strategy meeting we have come up with a option for these retailer/wholesaler meetings. Starting this year we will be implementing Round Table meetings for Diamond Sponsors. On Monday afternoon, each diamond sponsor will be able to visit with key retail decisions makers one on one during the round table meetings on Tuesday afternoon. We have already had several retailers committed to participate and are working on more as we speak.

| ALABAMA GROCER 12