How I spent my summer vacation…. In Taipei.

This summer I was given the opportunity to travel to Taipei, Taiwan to work on the Soroptimist International of the Americas 40th Biennial Convention. I worked with Soroptimist Meetings Manager, Eva Matyskiela, CMP last summer completing my junior internship working on the Soroptimist Professional Development Seminar and was invited back in March 2008 to begin work on the upcoming convention.

The 40th Biennial convention was made up of 1,800 women from the United States, Canada, Latin and South America, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. The convention spanned four days and was preceded by three days of leadership meetings and took place between three different locations.

My main responsibilities prior to leaving for Taiwan included organizing registration forms, creating confirmation and visa letters, updating hotel rooming lists, flight information and banquet event orders, creating VIP seating and speaking charts, and creating VIP name tents.

When I started back at Soroptimist in March, I was excited for Taiwan, but it still seemed so far away. But as time passed and that July 11th departure date grew closer and closer, my excitement grew higher and higher. Seventeen members of the headquarters staff would travel to Taipei and I was the only intern out of four to go.

The flight was long. Five hours to the west coast then thirteen hours to Taipei. This was the first time I had ever left the continent, but I was comforted in San Francisco when I saw Soroptimists who recognized me from the previous year’s conference. We landed in Taipei Saturday night and had less than 24 hours until the first event took place. And so it began…

The first three days were consumed with leadership meetings at the Shangri-La Far Eastern Plaza Hotel, a hotel brand that is not yet in the United States. During this time, my responsibilities included registration, checking room sets, tent card placement, and any other errands or jobs that the Executive Director or my boss needed me to do. One crazy adventure ensued when Patricia Chang, the Taiwan Region Secretary and I had to travel to several banks to get as much NT$ (new Taiwan dollar) in the smallest size bills and coins to use for change at the convention.

We then moved to the Grand Hyatt Taipei, our convention hotel and the Taipei International Convention Center for the four days of convention. The convention itself was comprised of two dinners (each with more than one seating), four general sessions, and three sets of six educational sessions. My main responsibilities included checking room sets, placement of signage and VIP seating tent cards, coordinating interpretation equipment and emerging leader’s information, but primarily keeping my boss from losing her mind.

Through this experience I was able to not only learn how a convention is created and implemented, but also different international practices and etiquette. While we did work with people in Taiwan who hold the same positions in the convention industry as we have here in the United States, there are great differences in how business is taken care of. Also, I was able to interact with and learn from women from over 13 countries. This was an amazing learning experience that I was given the chance to take part in and while it was a lot of work, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Astrid Schrier
Temple University