The Philomath Scout Lodge is located in Lakeside Industrial Park, and was initially established by 161 scouters for the community. The lodge consists of three grand rooms, three classrooms and two recreation rooms so that multiple groups can have activities at the same time. The place is perfect for meetings, retreats, reunions, weddings and more similar events.

Outside building there are spacious places for group picnic, working out and outdoor funs. Guests can do hiking, camping, forestry interactive activities under the help of scout experts there. It’s also a good place to learn about wild animals such as western pond turtles, bull frogs, beavers and killdeers.

If you would like arrange a memorable meeting for your guest, please check Philomath Scout Lodge’s website and find out more information from the experts.

John hope-johnstone, the Executive Director of Corvallis Tourism, and Lin Zuo

Hi dear friends, it has been very pleasant to write posts for the Corvallis Meetings & Events blog. During the days of working for Corvallis Tourism, I learned a lot about Corvallis meeting facilities and got to talk with many brilliant and talented people who work for meeting services in Corvallis. 

They include Drew Weber, Carl Berg, and Luke Buchanan, student employees at OSU Conference Services; Tina Green-Price, Facility and Event Manger of OSU Conference Services; Donna Williams, Conference Management Director of OSU Conference Services; Chris Nusbaum, Sales Director of Salbasgeon Suites; and Mary Bentley, President of Valley Catering. These wonderful people provided a lot valuable information about the meeting services in Corvallis, and their professions and passions also leave a very deep impression. I have to say that the reason why Corvallis is a one of the best meeting destinations is because of the dedication and creativity of these people.

I will leave Corvallis Tourism in a couple of days, which means I have to say goodbye to you, but there are more writers who will continue to contribute to our blog. Please keep checking this wonderful blog because it provides so much useful and exciting information about the meeting services you may need.

In the end, I will especially thank Michelle Marie, Group Sales Assistant of Corvallis Tourism, for encouraging me to post blogs in the first place. She helped me with blog ideas and a lot of corrections for English grammar and sentences. Without her help, my blog would not appear as nice as right now.

I am also very grateful to John Hope-Johnstone, Executive Director of Corvallis Tourism. It was he who brought me to Corvallis Tourism and let me have a chance to contribute to this blog. He is a very intelligent, experienced, and open-minded tourism communication expert. Corvallis Tourism would not have today’s achievements without his talents and efforts.

So, goodbye my friends! Please continue to support tourism and meeting industries in Corvallis! I may also see you sometime in the future!

Photo by Kacy Kizer

10-minute driving to the northern Corvallis, rested in the beautiful Adair valley, is a pretty meeting place named Adair Clubhouse. It offers a garden-view meeting room, leisure patio parties and delicious food for meeting customers.

Good for conferences, retreats, parties, club meetings and weddings, the Clubhouse has a comfortable interior and a lovely patio. The main dining room can seat up to 150 guests, and the whole club can also serve as many as 250 if the patio, lounge and dining room are used together. The Clubhouse was said to be perfect for off-site dinners and leisure meetings. It’s a good place to temporarily escape from busy urban lives and embrace the fresh air and green mountains. The upcoming events include College of Business Retreat, Kiwanis Club of Corvallis Fall Dinner and Crazy Glitterati Party, and more.

The Clubhouse has a beautiful meeting/dinner environment. Through the broad French windows of the main meeting/dinner room, participants can view the pretty patio garden full of colorful flowers and green plants. The patio is an ideal place for the leisure parties, outside lunches, barbecues, or social activities. The atmospheric garden, the fancy lanterns and the candlelight at night will make the event a memorable experience for your clients. There is also a full food bar to serve you with tasty food and fancy cocktails.

Photo by Kacy Kizer

Valley Catering in the Adair Clubhouse is one of the best catering companies serving the highest quality of foods at reasonable prices. They offer a vast variety of delicious gourmet food ranging from party-time food, hot breakfast and brunch to fabulous faire buffet, distinctive holiday buffet and northwest gourmet faire. They can help customers to select from existing menus or customize a menu to meet their needs. The Valley Catering also provides catering services for a variety of off-site events at other meeting places.

Wines, gourmet foods, candlelight parties at the garden, Adair Clubhouse is designed for you to have a good time. As a customer commented, “Adair Clubhouse is a good place to go! We really enjoy the atmosphere, the privacy and the food services here!”

Despite a time-honored tradition - dating back to 1937 - of promoting the US to overseas travelers, official tourism promotion has been allowed to lag in recent decades. If passed, the TPA will help turn the tide by pumping millions of dollars into the national economy, creating thousands of jobs, and reducing the federal deficit … all as a result of tourism.

Funded by a small fee collected from visitors not already paying for a visa, the Act costs taxpayers nothing but provides significant returns. A non-profit Corporation created by the TPA would work primarily on the following key areas:

• Communicating US entry policies more clearly than has perhaps been done in the past
•  Correcting misperceptions about US entry policies
• Promoting travel to the US
• Promoting all areas of the US evenly, including areas not typically visited by tourists from overseas.
• Focusing marketing efforts on demographic groups most likely to visit the US.

For more information, check out the Democratic Policy Committee’s summary and this US Travel Association press release.

Portland, Oregon-based Meeting Strategies Worldwide can help! The Summer 2009 edition of Northwest Meetings & Events Magazine offers a green venue site inspection checklist based on the Meeting Strategies Worldwide MeetGreen Toolbox. Below, I’ve paraphrased a few basic questions to ask of convention centers, hotels, and caterers:

• Are paper products made of at least 20% recycled materials? Corvallis Tourism has recently committed to implement this change in our office and Visitor Center.
• Are glass, aluminum, paper, cardboard, plastic, and grease recycled?
• Are water-conserving fixtures installed in bathrooms and kitchens?
• Is energy purchased from sustainable sources?

Specifically food-related questions:

• Are locally grown and/or organic foods and products purchased whenever possible?
• Are condiments and beverages served in bulk, rather than in individual servings? Simply serving water in pitchers, as the LaSells Stewart Center has been doing for years, rather than in plastic bottles, reduces waste significantly.
• Is leftover food donated to an appropriate charitable organization?
• Is food waste composted?

The checklist gives you a simple way to record whether a property has a given practice currently in place, does not make it available and doesn’t plan to add it in the future, or will commit to implementation in time for your event.

We’re in the process of completing the verification process to have Corvallis included in the Best Places to MeetGreen database! Stay tuned for updates as we move through the process.

Happy green meeting!

Guests enjoy their time at a conference

Whether for small meetings of five people or 1, 200+ person national or international conventions, the OSU Conference Center in Corvallis is a top host for you to work with. With over 80,000 square feet of meeting space, the OSU Conference Center is one of the largest conference settings in the state of Oregon.

The OSU Conference Center consists of the LaSells Stewart Center, the CH2M HILL Alumni Center, and the Hilton Garden Inn. Combined, these facilities offer a 1,200-seat auditorium, 500-seat ballroom, three boardrooms, over 15 breakout rooms, 14,000 square feet of exhibit space, and 153 sleeping rooms. The LaSells Stewart Center and the CH2M HiLL Alumni Center are joined by a covered walkway, and the Hilton Garden Inn is just across the street. Together, they provide seamless, one-stop-shop services for all meeting planners.

As a high-end conference center, the OSU Conference Center offers a complete range of meeting services. Clients only need to propose their requirements, and the Conference Services staff will offer solutions and have everything ready. They arrange appropriate meeting rooms, order food/beverage, contract for sleeping rooms at the adjacent Hilton Garden Inn or other hotels in Corvallis, and arrange any necessary transportation for off-site outings.

OSU Conference Services also provide a wide range of additional detailed conference services not typically provided by a conference center. These services include everything from customized online registration, payment processing, airport transportation and on-site coordination to conference materials production and conference marketing.

The 1,200-seat Austin Auditorium is an ideal setting for lectures, presentations, and the performing arts

OSU Conference Center always considers outstanding customer service as a major advantage to choosing their facilites. A great example is how they serve the unique needs of international guests. Each year, the OSU Conference Center hosts international conference with guests from over 60 different countries. Due to the difference between nations, international guests sometimes encounter unpredictable inconveniences and difficulties abroad, especially in transportation and at mealtimes.

To provide the ultimate in convenience for international guests who are not familiar with the local transit system, Conference Services staff will go so far as to personally drive guests from point to point when necessary. As for meals, different cultures have different tabus about food. Some are forbidden to eat pork or beef, and some even don’t eat garlic or ginger. Facing this situation, Conference Management Director Donna Williams and her coworkers came up with some very creative ideas. “We place a tag on every plate to illustrate what ingredients in the dish so that the guests can choose which one they can eat themselves,”
explains Donna.

OSU Conference Center has one of the most extensive meeting facilities in the Willamette Valley, but what they are most proud of is their outstanding customer service. As Donna concluded, “The facility is important, but customer service is more important. It is the way you treat your customers that makes yourself memorable!”

Need inspiration? Check out the Stellar Tip archives to explore a wealth of expert planners’ past submissions.

Our suggestion, of course, is to hold your meeting in beautiful Corvallis, Oregon – although we might be a wee bit biased. In our defense – we can’t help it! We know the food is great, the meeting space is world-class, the hotels are delightful, and the overall low costs will blow you away.

Contact us at sales@visitcorvallis.com or 800-334-8118 for details!

Looking for an easy way to avoid creating a mountain of landfill-bound disposable tableware at your next event? Corn- or cane-based compostable dishware is a great substitute for standard disposables. Both cane and corn are crops that can be grown and harvested annually, unlike trees.

To safely remove travel dust and fingerprints from your tradeshow booth materials, tuck a bottle of non-toxic cleaner and recycled paper towels in your travel kit.

Toast award winners, event planning staff, and industry executives with these drinking glasses fashioned from wine bottles.

For those program materials that just must be printed on paper, consider non-tree papers, such as hemp. For an extra-thoughtful touch that’s totally Corvallis, send post-event thank you cards which, after they’re read, can be planted to produce wildflowers! (The Maven’s address is 553 NW Harrison Boulevard, Corvallis, OR 97330 … )

For a luxurious touch, have a crisp white bamboo – yes, bamboo! – robe waiting in VIP hotel rooms. (Shown with a recycled barn plank Adirondack chair.) Select a towel, a soy candles, and a bottle of wine, and your VIP gift basket is all set! Better yet, include a colorful cloth bag to carry everything home.

The Earth Smart Store is physically located at 160 NW Jackson Ave – next to the Corvallis classic Sibling Revelry. Contact via phone at 541-207-2461 or send a quick email.

Sales Director Chris Nusbaum and General Manager Doreen Cowan in front of the fireplace of Salbasgeon Suites

Salbasgeon Suites and Conference Center is a family-owned hotel and conference service center located in the heart of Corvallis. As a conference center, it offers comprehensive meeting or conference packages that include sleeping rooms, meeting space, catering, audio-visual equipment and great food services. Meeting planners don’t need to bother dealing with different properties when holding their meetings with one set facilities here.

Salbasgeon was established in 1998. The name Salbasgeon comes from the three major fish – salmon, bass, and sturgeon - of the Umpqua River where the first Salbasgeon Inn was built. Besides being a big fan of fishing and water activities, the owner of the Salbasgeon is also a skillful carpenter. He made all the woodwork in the Salbasgeon Suites, including the gorgeous fireplace, lobby pillars and window frames. This creates a home-like atmosphere customers really enjoy.

Besides strong conference coordination abilities, Salbasgeon is also quite experienced at meeting customers’ specific needs. “We have plentiful meetings of performing celebrities, sports teams and associations every year. They sometimes require unique food, separated personal space and different sleeping schedules. We always manage to design a special meeting and living package for them,” says Chris Nusbaum, the Sales Director.

Three types of meeting rooms are offered for different meeting needs in Salbasgeon. Umpqua Board Room offers a quiet space for meetings and work groups. The pretty wood conference table allows 12 people sit in the comfortable rolling arm chairs. The Columbia Conference Center is able to accommodate 50 people. Its tasteful colors and traditional wood accents provide the perfect setting for formal dinners or receptions. The McKenzie Center is the largest meeting room in Salbasgeon. It provides a modern and sophisticated space that offers indirect lighting, crown moldings, marble fixtures and rich colors and artwork. It is large enough to hold 200 people for a training session, lecture, presentation or family union. These meeting rooms all offer screens, phone lines, data port, and audio-visual devices for meeting convenience. Salbasgeon also provides assistance to help meeting planners design and set up the rooms in accordance with different meeting needs.

Meeting customers in Salbasgeon enjoy the best amenities during their staying. Salbasgeon has the largest sleeping rooms, fitness room and indoor swimming pool in the Corvallis area. In sleeping rooms, the bed area is always separated from the living area, and there is also in-room jetted spa tubs offering comfort and fun. “We are always thinking how to make Salbasgeon a better place to stay. Making customers feel at home is the final goal we are pursuing,” Chris concluded.

Curated by Tina Green-Price, the Giustina Gallery offers a different set of Northwest art each month. This month’s invitational show includes pieces by Howard Bruner, Joan Darling, Linda Edwards, and Carol Selberg. The Murdock wing of the gallery features Savory Images, photographs depicting the origins of food.

In addition to showcasing high-quality artwork, the gallery is a beautiful and functional space that meets registration, reception, and exhibition needs – in addition to being available for special events. Check out this 360-degree virtual tour to be inspired!

Opening onto the gallery are several meeting rooms, from the 1200-seat Austin Auditorium to the intimate 14-seat Weyerhaeuser Boardroom. Just next door is the CH2M HILL Alumni Center, with 45,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space.

If you are in Corvallis next week, you’re invited to join the artists for a free, open-to-the public reception on August 13 from 6:30-8:30 pm!