Recommendations from the BGAV Committee on Convention Sites
Background
During the October 2008 Mission Board meeting at Eagle Eyrie, Kelly Lane offered a motion to have our annual meetings in Virginia Baptist churches rather than in a convention center. He suggested that such a move would reduce costs and provide a more intimate, reverent venue. At the BGAV meeting in November 2008, messengers referred back to the Mission Board a motion regarding future meeting sites for the BGAV annual meeting. The question presented was: Should future BGAV meetings, whenever possible, be held in local churches that could accommodate the meeting? The following month (December 2008), the Mission Board voted to appoint a special committee to study the feasibility of having annual meetings in our churches.
Methodology
In going about our assignment, the committee laid out the essential required elements for having an annual meeting. We researched the suitability of our largest churches to meet these required elements. We determined both the costs and attendance of our annual meetings going back eight years. And we discussed what we discovered.
Findings
Our annual meetings provide a time for worship, fellowship, inspiration and giving reports, and a time and place for our various ministry partners to be represented in an exhibit hall. Key elements would include the following:
• Adequate space for worship and for exhibits.
• Adequate parking and uncongested road access to the meeting place.
•Reasonable access to motels and restaurants.
Recent Past Attendance
In recent years, Virginia Baptists have rotated annual meetings between four areas: Northern Virginia, Tidewater, Richmond, and the Roanoke Valley. Looking at attendance records from 1993, several things emerged:
• Overall attendance at our annual meetings has continued to decline from approximately 4,000 in 1993 to about 1,250 today.
• Attendance in the Roanoke Valley has consistently been the highest, and attendance in Northern Virginia has consistently been the lowest. Richmond and Tidewater tend to draw about the same number of messengers.
• Attendance for the last four years is as follows:
2005: Northern Virginia, 1,002
2006: Virginia Beach, 1,193
2007: Richmond, 1,224
2008: Roanoke Valley, 1, 281
Costs and Expenses for the Annual Meetings
• Dating back to 2000, costs have consistently exceeded budgeted expenses, sometimes by a lot.
• Costs of convention halls continues to go up.
• Costs of sound and video has gone up a lot.
• Overall costs are offset slightly by fees received from the various booths in the exhibit hall.
Exhibit Hall Space
• 2005 — Hylton Chapel in Woodbridge: There was no space for exhibits, so we pitched a tent outside to accommodate the exhibitors. The winds blew and many messengers had a horrible experience.
• 2006 — Virginia Beach Convention Center (37,500 sq. ft.): This venue provides plenty of space for all of our exhibits.
• 2007 — Richmond Convention Center (34,500 sq. ft.): We had plenty of space for the exhibits and enough space to bring in our disaster relief vehicles.
• 2008 — Roanoke Civic Center (14,400 sq. ft.): The space was very tight for exhibitors. Booth size was limited to 10X8 rather than 10X10. Side rooms for bookstore, capital development and stewardship services were hard to find.
• 2009 — Fredericksburg Conference Center (45,000 sq. ft.): This site will give us plenty of room and allow us to display again our disaster relief vehicles.
Churches That Could Accommodate Our State Convention
In considering which churches might be capable of accommodating our state meeting, we began with the “key elements” needed: (1) adequate space for worship and for exhibits, (2) adequate parking and uncongested road access to the meeting place, (3) reasonable access to motels and restaurants.
We’ve averaged 1,175 persons over the past four years at our state meetings. However, in considering seating capacity, we’d be wise to use the highest attendance rather than the average. And we should keep in mind that we’ll need more seats than people because some people like spaces between them, and we’ve never had a convention where every seat was taken. So the committee chose 1,350 seats as a base line for the minimum seats needed (at our current level of participation).
• Of our 1,400 churches, only St. Paul’s Baptist Church in Richmond could provide seating (3,000 seats). However, they have no space for an exhibit hall.
Conclusions and Recommendations
• Our committee concludes that there is no church that has all the key elements needed to provide for our annual state meeting, so we cannot recommend using even our larger churches as gathering places for our worship and business.
• With the rising costs of facilities, sound and video and other related expenses, we recommend the Mission Board explore ways to reduce costs and stay on budget.