It is also comforting to speakers to know that all necessary arrangements have been made for their attendance at the meeting.
Speakers are the most important components of an association meeting.
They provide the educational content, the drawing power and the spice to a meeting. A speaker who fails to show up on time or who addresses the wrong topic is the kind of meeting disaster which can embarrass both the speaker and the meeting planner. Thus, making sure that proper arrangements are made for speakers is one of the most important tasks performed by a meeting planner. All speakers, whether they are being paid, or appearing voluntarily, must be properly informed by the meeting planner concerning their obligations and responsibilities at the meeting. The only way to ensure that all of these considerations are properly handled is to set out the obligations and understandings of the parties in a written agreement.