TAPS 2006 Was a Huge Success!
Ellen Lockwood, ACP, RP – Chair, TAPS 2006 Planning Committee
The Texas Advanced Paralegal
Seminar (TAPS) 2006 was the
best ever! This event was held
at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Addison, TX
on September 20-22, 2006. We had the
highest number of registrants of any TAPS.
One major change that went very
smoothly is the TAPS Planning Committee
elected to do away with speaker material
notebooks and provided each registrant
with a CD Rom diskette that included all
of the speaker papers from the seminar.
The CD Rom was sponsored by a vendor
who also provided a website where the
papers were uploaded. On the Monday
immediately prior to TAPS, each registrant
was emailed the web address and password.
The registrants then had the opportunity
to print the papers and bring them
to the seminar. This made for a much
smoother registration process. Nan
Gibson did a great job organizing everything
and scheduling enough volunteers to
cover registration. For those who have
never taken on this job, it is more demanding
than you would imagine. Thanks, Nan!
The Division awarded two TAPS educational
scholarships to members of the
Paralegal Division: Monty Mayes (District
3) and Leigh Steinberg (District 2). The
scholarship covers the member’s registration
fee for the TAPS seminar.
TAPS 2006 had more than 50 speakers
and two of the speakers each gave twohour
presentations. The speakers covered
a wide range of topics and most were rated
as very good speakers with good content by
the attendees. Our keynote speaker for the
luncheon was Joe Shannon, Assistant DA
in Tarrant County. He presented an interesting
and somewhat disturbing full hour
of CLE regarding identity theft. The attendees
appreciated the valuable information
he provided.
The speaker committee and the cochairs,
Star Moore and Shirley Ross, did a
wonderful job of getting all the speakers
confirmed by the deadline for inclusion in
the brochure and worked hard to get all
the speaker papers in. Great job, ladies!
Our vendors are a huge part of helping
make TAPS possible, by giving their support.
It is a tribute to how valuable our
vendors find the event that many return
year after year. The vendors were
impressed with the organization of the
event. The vendors who attended the
Thursday night social all appeared to enjoy
themselves. The vendor committee,
Jennifer Barnes and Rhonda Brashears,
spent many hours calling and emailing
vendors to tell them about TAPS and to
answer their questions. Of course, we
couldn’t put on TAPS and keep the registration
fee reasonable without our vendors.
Kudos, ladies!
If you missed the Wednesday night
social, the Division’s last 25th Anniversary
event, you missed the most wonderful, elegant
event the Division has ever held. It
was held at the Delaney Winery and
Vineyards in Grapevine. The attendees
traveled by bus to the winery and dressed
for the occasion in black and silver attire!
Some of our gents even donned their tuxes
to mark this special occasion. The food
was fabulous – delicious and beautifully
presented. Everyone had a great time touring
the winery and visiting with friends old
and new, and being entertained by piano
players.
However, in my opinion, the best part
of the event was the decorations. Talk
about setting a mood! The room was
aglow with many candles, and their flames
were reflected in the lovely mint julep cups
with the 25th anniversary seal, each filled
with an arrangement of white flowers. As
the attendees entered, they were all surprised
by how beautiful everything was.
The evening ended with several door prizes
and awards for Most Elegant, Most
Creative, and Most Theme Appropriate
attire. It was definitely a marvelous ending
celebration of the Division’s 25th anniversary.
Thursday night’s social was much more
relaxed. The comedy team from ComedySportz did a great job and even
included a few audience members. The
evening included a 25th anniversary cake
with the past presidents and charter members
in attendance blowing out the candles.
We had a lot of our vendors stay and join
us for this social, and as always, everyone
had a great time. Many vendors gave away
their door prizes that evening, and there
were tons of other door prizes. Thank you
to Javan Johnson, President of the Paralegal
Division, for all of her talent in organizing
and decorating the social events; she truly
outdid herself this year. Congratulations
on two wonderful events!
We had many wonderful door prizes
this year. Many were from vendors who
participated in TAPS and others from other
vendors and supporters of the Division.
Debbie Guerra, door prize chair, spent a
great deal of time contacting vendors and
others for door prizes. Debbie’s idea for
the grand prize resulted in one of the most
popular grand prizes ever. Debbie was
able to get five companies to each donate
$500. Those companies were listed in the
TAPS brochure and on other signage during
TAPS. This allowed us to offer a grand
prize of $2500.00 cash without using any of
the TAPS budget. The winner, drawn from
the correctly completed vendor cards, was Charie Turner, CLA of Houston.
Wonderful work, Debbie!
We would not have had so many registrants
if not for the efforts of Tish Martin,
marketing chair. Tish blanketed Texas
with information about TAPS, including
law firms, TAPA associations, and particularly
the DFW area. I am happy to report
that half of the registrants (275) were from
the DFW area. It is important that a large
percentage of our attendees come from the
metropolitan areas where the current year’s
event is held to confirm the local paralegals
are aware and taking advantage of this fantastic
CLE opportunity.
Plans for TAPS 2007 are already underway,
so stay tuned for where and when our
next great event will be held.
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