Dear President Obama:

PLEASE do cut or eliminate wasteful spending but DON’T eliminate meetings that help businesses thrive. It’s at the very meetings some leaders want to cancel that businesses meet with prospective customers, develop new ideas, and expose company leaders, managers, and staff to speakers that educate, train, and fire up their employees. In my view, your job is to lead our country back on the road to economic recovery, NOT block people from having productive events that contribute to a thriving economy. Yes, please cut waste but don’t eliminate necessary meetings!

I am one of many who are very discouraged by the broad brush being used by some of the negative media. I am also in disagreement with the legislation that Sen. Kerry has introduced that bans Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) recipients from hosting, sponsoring or paying for conferences, holiday parties and entertainment events. How are these organizations going to turn things around if they aren’t educated, motivated, and challenged to make changes in their businesses? How are employees going to be productive when all incentives for doing great work are taken away from them? When people meet, amazing things happen. Also, celebrations are a good and necessary component for improving employee morale as an unmotivated workforce makes more costly mistakes and results in higher turnover. How would Congress get things done if there were no meetings held in 2009? Why would you want to further cripple the economy by eliminating productive meetings and conferences? I understand and share the concern that taxpayer funds are being used for questionable items, but Sen. Kerry’s comments and actions are part of a disturbing trend that paints company travel and events as a picture of lavish, unnecessary parties. When in truth, the vast majority of meetings, conventions and conferences are cost efficient, well planned tools used by companies to drive business and provide an economic boost to cities that host the meetings.

So please, encourage effective meetings, don’t eliminate them. Brainstorm ways businesses can help each other, don’t hurt them. If there is ever a time where it’s important to meet, it’s now. Do your part to help breathe life back into our economy. Don’t stifle it. You can support meetings by being a keynote speaker or by holding a town hall meeting as part of a convention or conference. Having politicians speak for industry events could help attendance while providing better insight into what happens there. Please help turn things around, but don’t hinder us. Our very future is in your hands.

Sincerely,

Tim Richardson

NOTE:  You can have a letter sent or emailed to President Obama, John Kerry, and to your congress rep and senator by going to the National Business Travel Association website.

Inspirational speaker Tim Richardson speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, healthcare, and financial services. He is founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com