 A meeting hotel in a large city certainly contains an appeal to many meeting planners, but sometimes the more isolated setting of a Conference Center & Resort creates the kind of intimacy more conducive to the team building corporate planners often seek. For the past four years, George Trussler, operations manager of Security Equipment Supply (SES), based in Earth City, Missouri, has held the company’s annual sales meeting at Cedar Creek Conference Center, a rustic luxury Resort and meeting venue in New Haven, Missouri.
"When we held in a city, like St. Louis, and flew people in, the hotels were very nice, but a lot of our corporate people would go home after the day’s meetings," said Trussler. "It wasn’t as effective in building the camaraderie."
Trussler’s company is SES, a business-to-business supplier with 10 full-stocking warehouse/showrooms throughout the Midwest, specializing in "low voltage electronics, ranging from Burglar and Fire protection installations to Closed Circuit TV systems and even Home Theater installations. Camaraderie—the need for everyone to be motivated as a team and to update that team on the latest product and sales information is—crucial to company performance. The overriding mission of the company’s annual get together is renewing and strengthening that camaraderie.
"The benefit of a Conference Center like ours is that it lends itself to team building," explained Jennifer Hollander,  director of sales and marketing, Cedar Creek Conference Center. "We have the facilities to provide for the actual meeting, the business that is conducted, and to have semi-structured free time so attendees can visit and have informal get-togethers."
Recreation time and activities are key to successful meetings. One of the features of Cedar Creek is that its spectacular 9-hole golf course can be used exclusively by a meeting group. This exclusivity however is not so the executive who plays golf obsessively can feel like Tiger Woods for a day, but that golf can be fun activity conducive to the camaraderie mission of the meeting.
 "Basically, Friday is a meeting day, all day and Saturday is a recreation day and having the golf course all to ourselves allows us to have more fun," said Trussler. "Not everybody in our group plays golf, or plays golf all the time like some of the others. The whole group plays golf on Saturday, and it’s an informal game, and when you have the course you don’t have to worry about upsetting other golfers. You can have fun."
"Not having to worry about different groups overlapping on the course has been a great incentive to meetings," said Hollander. "For planners, it is important to package the green fees and other costs into the whole package."
 After the informal game, those team members who take the game more seriously (the ones who bring their own clubs to Cedar Creek), go back to the greens while other smaller groups take advantage of the available recreational activities at Cedar Creek, which include fishing on a 7-acre lake, tennis court, pool, the recreation lounge featuring a fireplace, self-service bar, big screen TV with satellite service as well as various tabletop games, and the 4-mile Blue Bird Hiking Trail.
"The trend of course is to have other activities besides the golf course so meeting attendees can have semi-structured time together," said Hollander. "We have 130 acres for people to enjoy. The hiking trail seems to have become extremely popular, I think it’s because it appeals to people’s love of nature and the need to do something healthy, like hiking or jogging."
 The entertainment factor is enhanced by Cedar Creek’s "Western Town" area of the property, which is faux old west setting reflecting the frontier history of the region. Central to the experience is the Western Town Hall & Saloon, where the SES employees regroup on Saturday night. "The food is great, and we get to kick back," said Trussler. "Our annual meeting builds our inter-personal relationships, but it is also meant as a reward too. Going to the saloon together is fun."
Friday, the "meeting" day, has likewise become vital—that is when the training and updates take place. While a Conference Center like Cedar Creek has a western Resort  setting featuring recreational amenities as a strong selling point, the behind the scenes meeting services are essentially the foundation of its appeal to corporate meeting planners. "With the internet connectivity, we can interface with the home office for various reasons," explained Trussler. "For example, we were introducing new sales software, and the meeting was important to training everybody on it, and we were able to interface with the home office to demonstrate the software."
In addition, the meeting space available has allowed the SES meeting to expand. "Our vendors are coming to the meeting to exhibit their products, demonstrate and train our employees in them, so there is sort of like a mini-trade show that is a growing part of the meeting now and the facilities at Cedar Creek allows to expand."
With its unique packages with features such as the exclusive use of the golf course, to its western American settings  and other Resort and meeting amenities, Cedar Creek is becoming one of Missouri’s and mid-America’s unique Conference Centers. But it seems what really makes Cedar Creek an effective destination for meeting planners to organize Team Building Events is the Cedar Creek "Team." According to Hollander, it’s this team—which includes 25 full timers and 15 part timers—that enables the venue to handle meetings ranging from 10 to 120 attendees. "Our staff devotes itself around the clock to make a meeting a successful meeting. All the feedback we get tells how important the staff was to the meeting. They almost always mention that first." |
