2019 Midwest Regional Dairy Challenge Volunteer Registration

15th Midwest Regional Dairy Challenge

Hosted by University of Illinois

At Highland Community College in Freeport, IL

Wednesday, February 13 – Friday, February 15, 2019

On behalf of the Midwest Regional committee of the North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge, it is our privilege to invite you to participate in the 15th Annual Midwest Regional Dairy Challenge. The event will be held February 13-15, 2018 and hosted this year by the University of Illinois. We thank you for your continued support of the Midwest Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge.

Sponsor Participation: We are building our list of volunteers to help with the event on Wednesday evening thru Friday afternoon. Being involved and working directly with the students gives you a firsthand view of the students in action, plus a large volunteer pool helps the contest run smoothly.

Schedule: A listing of the scheduled events for this year’s contest will be posted on the Midwest Dairy Challenge web page at http://www.dairychallenge.org/mw_event.php Most events will be held at Highland Community College, 2998 W Pearl City Rd, Freeport, IL 61032. Go to https://highland.edu/ for more information about the campus and facilities. A map of the campus is posted at https://highland.edu/campus/campus-map/

Sponsor Volunteer Registration: Please submit information for each volunteer from your company using this online form. Forms are due Thursday, February 1, 2019, but will continue to be accepted on an as needed basis.

Hotel: This year’s event will have two hotel options for volunteers and mentors. The first option is the Country Inn and Suites in Freeport, IL. Individuals are requested to call the Hotel directly at is 815-233-3300 to make a guest room reservation as part of the 2019 Midwest Dairy Challenge Block. The reservation cut-off date is January 13th, 2019. The other option is the Baymont Inn & Suites just outside of Freeport, IL. Individuals are requested to call the Hotel directly at 815-599-8510 to make a guest room reservation as part of the 2019 Midwest Dairy Challenge Block. The reservation cut-off date is January 13th, 2019. See the MW Regional web site for detailed travel information.

Country Inn and Suites, 1710 S Dirck Dr, Freeport, IL 61032: Double Queen $105/night

Baymont Inn & Suites, 1060 N Riverside Dr, Freeport, IL 61032: Double Bed $80/night

Meals: Meals will be provided for sponsor volunteers.

Sponsor Display: On Friday you are invited to set up a booth in our Innovation Fair at Highland Community College. Booths will be open between 8:30 am and 2:15 pm. Indicate your desire to reserve a booth using the online registration form. There is no charge for booth. Electricity will be available, but you will need to supply your own electrical cords. All sponsors are encouraged to interact with students and University coaches and view student presentations on Friday. Remember because of the number of teams, presentations will be going simultaneously.

Mentors: We are seeking a large number of volunteers to serve as Team Mentors. This is an important role as Mentors work side by side with the teams to guide them through the farm analysis process. With enough volunteers, we hope to assign 2 mentors to each team. If you are interested in serving as a Mentor, indicate as such when registering. Please note:

• Mentors must be available starting with the Mentor Meeting at 4:00 PM Wednesday thru lunch on Thursday at a minimum. Based on mentor comments last year, we are seeking one mentor per team to stay throughout the entire event (through Friday presentation) to allow for even more interaction with your team and to provide cohesiveness for the team. They will assist the team by being in the prep room on Friday, to be their team guide to the presentation, be present during the presentation and then be their guide to debriefing. There are also other areas where assistance is needed Thursday and Friday: Thursday: Resource Room, Hall Monitors, Manager Interviews; Friday: presentation room volunteers. Please indicate your plans on the volunteer registration form.
• Mentors must have a camera or camera-capable phone to take pictures for their groups and be willing/able to download the pictures.

We kindly ask each volunteer from your company register separately using the online volunteer registration form. Forms are due back Thursday, February 1, 2019, but will continue to be accepted on an as needed basis

On behalf of the steering committee, we thank you for your time, energy and commitment to the Dairy Challenge.

If you have questions about volunteering your company’s time at the event, please communicate with Volunteer Coordinator, Tom Vander Heiden 952-378-0518, tvanderheiden@phytoncorp.com

VOLUNTEER INFORMATION

Many of you have volunteered the time and energy of colleagues and yourselves. Thank you! As we enter the final stages of planning, we are able to identify the areas where assistance is needed. Those areas are: (if you have a volunteer duty preference please complete the information on the form and every opportunity will be made to assign you those responsibilities)

Mentors: We need volunteers on Wednesday Evening thru the farm visit on Thursday morning to Mentor the student groups and to work with them on the host farms. You will work with your group on Wednesday evening as they start to look through information and prepare for the farm tour. You will then escort this group of students while on the farm tour on Thursday morning. It is critical all volunteers who do want to sign up for this duty are available all of Wednesday evening thru lunch on Thursday. Based on comments we received from Mentors last year, we are hoping to keep at least one Mentor from each team with the students through the end of the event on Friday. If you can stay with your assigned team through 3:00 PM Friday, please indicate that on your registration form.

Farm Volunteers: We need people on Thursday morning to help get the students on buses and keep them moving on the host farms.

Support Help: Individuals are needed for Thursday afternoon to assist teams in getting support from IT, questions answered, and to assist with farm manager meetings.

Resource Room: Individuals are needed for Thursday afternoon to assist teams in providing answers to technical questions for their presentations.

Room Monitors: We need 6-12 room monitors for Friday’s presentations. These 6-12 volunteers are needed to share the coverage of the three presentation rooms from 7:00 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. on Friday.

Team Guides: We need 3 volunteers to assist getting students to visit with sponsors and to the industry presentations.

Debrief Team: We need 6 individuals to visit with teams following their presentation for 10-minute debriefing sessions on their experience.

Thank you in advance for your support of the Midwest Dairy Challenge.

Tom Vander Heiden

tvanderheiden@phytoncorp.com

Cell: 952-378-0518