Message from our Board Chair
Welcome to Summer! This is the time of year when I truly appreciate our PTOs the most - the beginning of my active travel season. I demand the best for my club members, and our PTOs deliver the best. This allows me to relax on tour, focus on my club members and leave the details to the professionals. The peace of mind and personal service received from our wonderful group of PTOs is priceless.
The advisory board met in early May in La Vista, Nebraska for our planning sessions for next year's conference. These meetings also renewed my appreciation for our PTOs and partners; their dedication to HCI and to its members is boundless. They are the reason we have a qualify conference and Fam at an affordable price that is packed with education, information and fun!
Please take the time to thank our PTOs and partners by using them for your club's travel program. And please try to join us next March in La Vista so you can thank them in person!
We are also excited about the Fall Forum Training content that we're working on for you. Make plans now to attend this club director training on November 2 in Dubuque, Iowa. There will be more information in next month's newsletter.
If you are not yet a member, don't wait to join. You're missing out on some great bank club education and partnerships. Learn more and join today by contacting Tina Goeske at 952-835-6543.
Val Kelsey, CBCD
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What do you think?
During Peer Group there is an opportunity to relax and visit with one another in a hotel suite at the end of the day. We have been calling this time the "Hospitality Suite" for a few years now. We would like to freshen up the name, and are soliciting ideas for the new name from you, our members.
Please send your idea(s) for a new name to Tina. We will announce the name of the person who submitted the winning entry later this summer.
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HCI Welcomes 5 New Members in May
Hollie Fielder - O'Bannon Bank - Buffalo, MO
The Premier Club is over 25 years old, but she became the club director in 2018.
Linda Harris - Hawthorn Bank - Jefferson City, MO
She became the coordinator of the Elite Advantage Club in 2016. The club started in 2011.
Delilah Johnson - The Seymour Bank - Seymour, MO
She worked as a club director for a large bank in Springfield for 6 years before returning to her hometown local bank and started the Seniority Club in 2013.
Sheila Sturdefant- The Seymour Bank - Seymour, MO
She worked as a US Postal employee for 29 years. Upon retirement, she started helping as an assistant in the new Seniority Club in 2014.
Margie Zieber - Farmers State Bank - Cameron, MO
She has been the director since the FSB Travel Club started in May 2014
We look forward to getting to know these club directors better in coming issues of the newsletter and at HCI events.
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Member Spotlight: Tammy Browning
Central Bank
Spirit Lake, IA
Tammy Browning has been the club director of the Emerald Club in Spirit Lake, Iowa for the past year and a half.
She spent 25 years prior to that in another career. You can probably guess by her perfectly coiffed hair that she was a hairdresser before joining the bank. She and her husband were both self-employed when there came a need for one of them to get a job with insurance benefits, so she started
taking business classes in anticipation of leaving her salon. It was actually one of her salon clients who led her to Central Bank where she became the receptionist. She soon became certified as an insurance agent in order to be able to help out in that side of the bank's business. She took the club director position a year after she started without really knowing what it was. She has enjoyed working as the receptionist and the club director for the past year and a half.
Tammy and her co-directors have been tasked with revamping the Emerald Club and have been working hard to increase the excitement for it. She has surveyed her members and found that they desire to be better connected with her and the other members, so she has recently started scheduling "coffees" a few times a month to help attendees build relationships with each other. Sometimes they have a speaker, and sometimes they just visit with one another. This is just one step that Tammy has taken to meet her goal of building greater participation from her current membership. She is also working to have more local events, more often. As she learned from her experience in the salon: building relationships is key to engagement, which leads to loyalty.
Her member-survey also revealed that her customers want more travel. A history of having to cancel trips has made her members wary of signing up for trips, so she doesn't have a strong base of travelers right now. While the Central Bank club directors work to reinvent the club, they are partnering with other peer banks in their area to offer travel to their members who are interested in tours. The relationship with their peer banks is special because even though they are in close proximity, they are not competitors for customers. It is Tammy's hope that as her customers have more positive travel experiences with the club, they will participate more eagerly and will build engagement to the point that she can fill a trip on her own.
While attending Peer Group for the first time this year, she learned how important PTOs are to HCI. "It seems wrong to not support those who are supporting HCI which provides us with so much education. I will not work with non-partners again!" She is excited to be planning a trip with Mayflower for this Fall. When asked about her experience at Peer Group, she said, "I loved Peer Group because it's not every day that you get an opportunity to have someone take such incredibly good care of you and make you feel so special. I felt like I was being thrown a parade."
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Partner Profile: Graceland/The Guesthouse at Graceland
Elvis' legendary mansion, Graceland®, located in Memphis, Tennessee, became his refuge from the limelight and has become a place of pilgrimage for music lovers everywhere. Countless musicians have visited Graceland as inspiration and as a place to channel the King of Rock 'n' Roll. Graceland opened to the public on June 7, 1982. In March of 2017, the Graceland campus underwent its largest expansion ever and opened an entertainment and exhibit complex,
Elvis Presley's Memphis™, along with the AAA Four Diamond luxury hotel property, The
Guest House at Graceland™.
Elvis Presley's Memphis is a 40-acre exhibit and entertainment complex displaying thousands of Elvis Presley artifacts enabling music fans, pop culture enthusiasts, and Memphis visitors to learn about Elvis' career, surround themselves with the things that he loved, and experience the sights and sounds of the city that inspired him. Guests can fully immerse themselves in his life and career like never before. Graceland Archives currently maintains over 1.5 million artifacts related to Elvis. Graceland strives to continue to tell the compelling story of Elvis' career and personal life at the home he treasured so much. Elvis Presley's Memphis features multiple exhibition spaces which currently includes Presley Motors, Presley Cycles, ICONS: The Influence of Elvis Presley, Fashion King, Private Presley: Elvis in the Army, Elvis' Tupelo, Hollywood Backlot, The Country Road to Rock, and Mystery Train: The Sam Phillips Exhibit. In addition, on permanent display are two of Elvis' personal airplanes at Presley Airways.
The Guest House at Graceland is a AAA Four Diamond, 450-room resort hotel including 430 luxurious guest rooms and 20 themed suites featuring design and décor supervised by Priscilla Presley. The resort hotel is located just steps away from Graceland Mansion and is approximately 10 minutes from Memphis International Airport.
Inspired by Elvis' iconic home, every aspect of The Guest House reflects Elvis' personal style and the unique character of his famous Memphis mansion. D
ining options ranging from fine dining to grab and go include Delta's Kitchen, E.P.'s Bar & Grill, The Lobby Lounge, and Shake, Rattle & Go, all serving southern fare based on the culinary history of the Tennessee and Mississippi River Delta.
There is always something to see and do at Elvis Presley's Graceland. The iconic Mansion remains the jewel of the complex, fans can immerse themselves in events year-round at Elvis Presley's Memphis and The Guest House at Graceland. From concerts to new exhibits, Elvis Presley's Graceland is for music lovers and Elvis fans alike. Some upcoming events include:
- "Hillbilly Rock" Exhibit featuring Items from The Marty Stuart Collection
- Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives Live in Concert Featuring Special Guests The Wandering Hearts and Legendary Sun Records Drummer, W.S. Holland
- Graceland Performing Arts Camp
- Elvis Week 2018
Shirley Davis Conner would love to assist you with planning your Graceland tour. She looks forward to
participating in Peer Group each year because it offers a great
opportunity to network with and build relationships with the HCI bankers.
"We appreciate the groups that HCI bankers have sent our way through the years. I've found that HCI bankers are fiercely loyal to the member suppliers and tour operator partners that attend Peer Group, and they make us feel appreciated for attending and work hard to include us in their travel itineraries.
HCI bankers are very professional and work hard to find the best itineraries for their club members. Now, with our new Elvis Presley's Memphis expansion that we opened last year, there's even more for their members to see when they come to Memphis and Graceland!"
Images Courtesy of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.
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STAY CONNECTED with HCI
Phone 877-881-0229
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