October was too hectic for me with mostly NaCCRA business. I had two board meetings, a member meeting, and three days of staffing the NaCCRA booth at the LeadingAge Annual Meeting and Expo.
I did lots of prep work to prepare for the meetings which required long hours of computer work. I don’t want to have to work that hard in the future.
The train trip to Philadelphia for the meeting was an easy trip with Lyft rides at both ends. The Embassy Suites hotel was a long walk from the Pennsylvania Convention Center so I used Lyft to get back and forth.
The hotel had been a condo years ago so the rooms were very large with a separate bedroom. It has been renovated over the years so the furnishings and finishes were very nice. I did enjoy my quiet time in the room. Breakfast was provided in the TGIF restaurant on the second floor. The hotel also offered happy hour in the evening with free drinks and nibbles. The meeting rate was $269 plus tax. It seemed like a rip off because I could book a room for $165 later.
The opening session started with the LeadingAge awards and speeches the keynote speaker came on, Dr. Francis Frei. former SVP for Uber Leadership and Strategy. Here is her bio from Wikipedia.
Frances X. Frei is an American academic. She is the UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management and the Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education at the Harvard Business School, and she was the senior vice-president for leadership and strategy at Uber.
She is very down home and talked about trust. I took notes. I found out she did a TED talk on How to build and rebuild trust this spring. The TED talk covers the key points in her speech.
I had to deal with many issues related to NaCCRA over the next few days that will not be rehashed here. Needless to say, I was relieved to get home on Halloween. I felt every bit of my age after the meeting.