Much of our time in the last couple of weeks has been occupied trying to verbalize a policy for an in-person conference in the time of COVID. We are not there yet. For every member 
Our paper submission system opened last week and we are happy to say the abstracts have started to be submitted. We would love to see your ideas in an abstract. We are looking for traditional paper/presentations, but also SAS games, panels and discussions.
DeDe mentioned her cute son as a distraction. But he is also an inspiration for some of what we want to do for SESUG 2022 as family is very important to us. I mentioned in my earlier posting that we wanted to develop something for these little ones. We are creating a page with pictures of identifiable places at the conference hotel as a scavenger hunt game for any little ones that our attendees are bringing to Mobile. The prizes have not yet been determined, but there will be prizes.
SESUG 2022 is hosting some brand new offerings this year and are making Saturday a valuable part of the conference. We know that in the current work environment, our attendees often need familiarity with other tools besides SAS. And we at SESUG want to increase our value to our users. On Saturday, we will host “A Day of Python and R” with intro sessions for both solutions as stand-alone options.
Also, on Saturday we are hosting two “Getting Started with SAS” sessions taught by a SAS Institute instructor for your co-workers that are new to SAS and new to SESUG. There will be a registration fee for the Python and R training as no conference registration is required, but the SAS training will be free with a conference registration. Additionally, for these ‘new to SAS’ attendees, we will highlight introductory sessions throughout the conference. Our last Saturday offering isn’t something new, but something that should also be exciting to our attendees. Jane Eslinger from SAS will present a tutorial on Proc Report.
We are in the process of selecting our conference app. Since we have a contract for a registration system, we do not need to pay for that part of an app. It is amazing how many of the choices refuse to unbundle that. We also need an app that will work for us if we end up with a hybrid conference. We are close to a selection and I hope to share that with you next month.
I am headed this week to Mobile to finally visit our conference hotel, look at the space, the community, the waterfront and everything they have to offer. Our Executive Council will have our winter meeting there, with those that cannot attend included virtually in everything, including the tours. We will have much more to report after this meeting.
