Recycle Your Clothes and Reduce Your Waste:  SMA Continues and Expands its Social Responsibility Initiatives!

Last year, SMA launched its Social Responsibility Committee and organized its first business clothing drive. Based on the number of donations and feedback from conference attendees, the clothing drive was a great success—so much so that we’re doing it again this year! We ask that all members attending the conference in October go through their closets and identify no-longer-used suits, shirts, blouses, dresses, ties, skirts or shoes and bring them to the meetings.  There will be a collection container at Registration which you can use to deposit your contributions.  All contributions will go to Goodwill-Suncoast.  Once again, you can clean out your closet and do a good deed all at the same time!  Receipts for your donations will be available at Registration.

In addition to the clothing drive, we’re also introducing initiatives to help you reduce and recycle your conference related waste. This year, when registering for the conference you will be able to choose whether you’d like to receive a printed version of the program. Opting out of the printed program will be an ideal choice for those of you who hate lugging around a bulky program and who usually throw it away before heading home. In conjunction with this initiative, the SMA website also will offer a customizable, online version of the conference program. This feature will allow you to search the program and create a personalized version. Significantly less paper will be used when you print only those sessions which you plan to attend.

Finally, we are pleased to report that the conference hotel—the Trade Winds Island Resort—has earned a “two palms” designation by the Florida Green Lodging Program. This rating indicates the property has taken steps to be mindful of its carbon footprint. Specifically, the Trade Winds Island Resort (1) encourages reuse of linens to conserve water and energy and to reduce the use of detergents and (2) recycles aluminum, glass, plastic, cardboard, and paper. Rob Hyypio, our conference contact at the property, has agreed to haverecycling bins available for materials such as office paper and plastic water bottles in some of the more prominent conference locations (e.g., registration area). Please look for these bins before throwing recyclable materials into the garbage.