, 2008, p 6)

The steering committee meets twice a year; every spring at the annual AAA-MW Region meeting and in Au- gust at the national meeting of the American Accounting Association. The typical process for organizing the AAA-MW annual meeting was as follows:

1. Eighteen months prior to the meeting (usually at the August AAA national meeting), the steering committee determines in which city within the Midwest region to hold the meeting and submits a meeting site search request to the AAA national office.

2. The program chair for the meeting is a volunteer of the steering committee and is a different (and new) person each year.

3. The event coordinator (a third party hired by the AAA national office) contacts hotels in the chosen city and provides the AAA-MW steering committee with a list of hotels, room rates, and parking rates.

4. At the spring AAA-MW regional meeting, one year prior to the next meeting, the steering committee chooses a hotel based on its location in the city and room rates offered.

5. The event coordinator negotiates the final contract, it is signed by the AAA executive director, and a copy is kept in the AAA headquarter files.

6. The new AAA-MW regional meeting program chair is then responsible for organizing the meeting.

There was little in the way of a formal process, so each program chair would determine how he/she wanted to run the meeting. There was a tradition of charging a registration fee that covered food, audiovisual needs, and meeting rooms. The program chair, working with a few other volunteers, would organize the call for pa- pers, review of papers, program speakers, receptions, and communication with members within the region. Typically, the meeting had multiple continuing professional education (CPE) sessions, offered breakfast on Friday and Saturday, lunch on Friday, snack breaks on Friday and Saturday morning and Friday afternoon, and evening receptions on both Thursday and Friday. All of this planning was a significant amount of effort and generally consumed the program chair’s attention. All cash inflows and outflows were handled by the AAA staff members.

They collected registration fees, paid the hotel bills, etc., charging or crediting the region’s accounts. The AAA-MW steering committee president would receive periodic account activity reports. Prior to 2002, the AAA-MW meetings had generally resulted in an increase in cash flow and the steering committee had little need to worry about finances.