The convention program was kicked into high gear yesterday with an end of the day joint presentation on stage of the Beef Board and NCBA.
Several presenters gave reports on the state of the industry and how the organizations are working to address various issues like trade and consumer preferences and perceptions. Beef Board Chairman Jay O’Brien was on hand to welcome everyone.
Here’ s a sound bite from Jay’s comments:
cic-07-3-obrien.mp3Throughout the Cattle Industry Convention I’ll be posting new photos to an online photo album. If you’d like to see them please feel free to check it out. New photos will be added each day.
Use the following link:
Cindy brought to my attention that RFD-TV is opening up a theatre in Branson, MO. It looks like it’s supposed to be ready in March.
It’s official! Branson, Missouri will become the new home-base for RFD-TV to expand and improve its entertainment programming to better serve its fans of traditional music and family-oriented entertainment! We invite you to join us in Branson, Missouri in 2007 to experience RFD-TV The Theatre.
Jay O’Brien is the chairman of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board and one of his duties today was speaking at the new appointees orientation lunch.
Jay started off talking about the need to look professional and that means wearing a nice bow tie. So he showed everyone how easy it is to quickly tie your tie.
Before the lunch got started I had a chance to interview Jay. Jay talks about some of the key things that producers should know. For example, he talks about end of last year USDA producer survey and how closely the results matched the producer survey results that was conducted by the Beef Board of a smaller sample size. He also talks about the retirement of Monte Reese and the process the Board will go through to find a replacement.
Listen to my interview with Jay:
cic-07-3-obrien.mp3
The National Association of Farm Broadcasters has a new print ad. This ad will run in Agrimarketing magazine.
According to the latest e-Chats newsletter the ad helps further communicate the fact that member’s broadcasts are heard by the rural audience in addition to a traditional farm audience.
The ad highlights that NAFB member networks and stations enjoy significant listenership in rural households on 3-plus acres — a key demographic of the rural lifestyle segment. NAFB’s 2006 national study established there are 27 million rural households with an estimated population of 69 million, with many household incomes above $75,000 annual. The ad further reinforces reach among larger producers generating at least $100,000 income across NAFB coverage geography.
Here’s the Cattle Industry Convention Media Room welcoming committee. It’s Grace and Joe. Joe says Grace is the official Yard-O-Beef spokesmodel.
I think the plan is to slice that baby up later today as a news room snack.
The media room is getting busier as the day wears on. I was hoping we would have some mild weather here but no . . . It was 13 degrees this morning and they’re predicting a couple inches of snow by tomorrow.
The Media room is sponsored once again this year by Merial and they’re also hosting a reception for us tomorrow evening.
Are you one of those people who wishes they had an iPod? Not a NAMA member yet either? Then now’s the time to join because NAMA is launching a winter membership promotion.
New members who join NAMA between January 1 and April 6, 2007 will be entered into a drawing for a 30 GB Video iPod. In addition, existing NAMA members who recruit these new members will also be entered into the drawing. Just make sure when you recruit a member that they put your name in the “referred by” space on the membership application. The drawing for the iPod will take place at the Trade Show Closing Reception on Thursday, April 12 in Dallas, but you need not be present to win.
I did a walk through of the Opryland hotel this evening to get my bearings and am glad they have directions spread around.
This is just a massive complex.
Tomorrow I’ll be setting up shop in the media room and conducting interviews and taking pictures as the opportunity presents. One of the first committee meetings is the CBB Admin Subcommittee which has oversight for the CBB blog. I’ll be there to answer questions and see what they think of the investment into having a blog which provides them a new communications channel while also promoting transparency.
When I wandered in to the Opryland Hotel the first person I ran into was Diane Henderson, Cattlemen’s Beef Board (right). She’s my boss here since I’m posting onto the Beef Board Meeting.com blog.
Here she is giving directions to CBB board member Charles Miller and his wife Judy. This Opryland complex is immense and a tour guide is very welcome. I’ve already spoken with 2 people who said they got lost.
It’s not warm here in Nashville but at least it wasn’t snowing like it was in Cleveland which I connected through getting here. After checking in to my hotel across the street from the Opryland Hotel I took a nice brisk walk over to see what was going on and to get my bearings for the next several days of activities.
I came back to my hotel which has an Applebees in it and had an Angus Quesadilla. If you have a chance to try it I highly recommend it. That is a good hamburger.
There were some cowboys seated near me. The first thing I overheard them talking about was computers. One of them said that he was more familiar with mobile devices and used them more than his home PC. I just thought that was interesting and thought I’d pass it along.
