Welcome to the blog for INANE 2014! This will be the place to come for updates and news pertaining to the INANE conference to be held in Portland, Maine, August 4-6, 2014. Our plan is to update the blog twice per month, on the 1st and the 15th, with more frequent updates if needed.

This website went live one month ago, on August 1st. Since then:

• Eight people have registered for the conference;
• Fourteen people have reserved their hotel rooms;
• Two corporate sponsors have pledged support at the Platinum and Silver levels;
• Two donations have been received for the Developing Editors Grant Fund;
• One nomination has been received for the Developing Editors Grant Award.

At the website, we have had 299 visitors from 13 countries with over 1000 page views!

The Planning Committee from the conference that was held in Cork shared the conference evaluations and I am happy to say that many of the comments from attendees have already been addressed. One person noted that she missed the posters. I know there was a space issue at the hotel in Cork; I am happy to report that the posters will be back for INANE 2014. There were several comments requesting more variety and interactive activities–again, we have scheduled nine breakout sessions and have specifically asked presenters to include audience participation in their sessions. The call for abstracts for both posters and breakout sessions is open now and will continue through December 31, 2013. Information on the call can be found here; the online submission form is here. Please give serious thought to submitting an abstract and sharing your editing innovations with your colleagues.

Chas Summers of the Regency and Lisa Marshall discussing the merits of a deck room on the fourth floor of the hotel.

Lisa Marshall, who is on the planning committee, and I are both local. We’ve had a couple of visits to the hotel to see the accommodations and meeting rooms. All of the rooms at the Regency have been renovated in the past year and I think everyone will find their room to be extremely comfortable. I also think that it is safe to say that no one will be disturbed by inebriated, shouting individuals outside their window!

YUM! A dessert that exceeded my expectations.

In the interest of “research” I had lunch at the Regency earlier this week and it was excellent. I had a fancy salad and my companion had a lobster club sandwich, which she reported was delicious. But the thing that really knocked my socks off was the dessert–called “The Bar” it was a deconstructed Almond Joy, with toasted coconut ice cream, almonds, crispy sizzled orange liqueur rice, and two squares of chocolate nougat. Yum! It was so good I had to take a picture and now I can share it here with all of you. 🙂 All desserts are made in-house by their dedicated pastry chef. Who knows what imaginative ideas she will have by next summer!

One other evaluation comment suggested the idea of virtual attendance. Cost prohibits us from having a live feed or webinar; however, the comment was the spark that gave me the idea to start this blog. In the coming months, I hope to recruit a few “reporters” who will act as live bloggers from the conference. With four or five people posting, we should be able to have coverage of all the sessions complete with pictures. If anyone is interested in learning more about this opportunity, please contact me–use the Feedback page which can be found here.

This blog is linked to our Facebook page, so for those who follow us through FB, posts to this blog will automatically appear there. (Posts from our other blog, nursingeditors.com also are linked to FB.) You might want to follow this blog: click the button in the lower right corner of your screen that says “Follow.” This way, every time a new post is added to the blog, you will receive a copy directly in your e-mail–a quick and easy way to stay abreast of INANE 2014 news and developments.

Thanks for reading, everyone. On behalf of the Planning Committee, I am looking forward to the countdown to INANE 2014 and welcoming everyone to Portland, Maine, next summer.

Leslie

Planning Committee: Leslie Nicoll (chair), Peggy Chinn, Margaret Comerford Freda, Shawn Kennedy, Lisa Marshall, Jean Proehl, Suzanne Smith