If you’ve hosted Thanksgiving before, you know that being tasked with cooking THE turkey can be stressful.  Not only is cooking it important, but carving the turkey is just as vital.  Have you ever found yourself struggling as you bang into that annoying wishbone when you’re carving the turkey?  Here’s a tip: take out the wishbone before you roast the turkey.

Cutting out the wishbone prior to cooking will allow you to smoothly cut neat, thick slices of turkey – making you look like a pro! 

Here’s how:  lift the neck skin, and then cut around the outside of the wishbone.  Once you get the sides out, grab the wishbone and gently twist it to get the tip to detach.  After cooking, you’ll see that carving parallel to the breastbone is simple and easy when you don’t have the wishbone creating resistance.

Try it out!  We’ve uploaded a video of me demonstrating this technique. 

Click here to view the video on our YouTube channel.   

Now some of you may already be picturing the uproar you will create if the annual wishbone-snapping contest does not take place, but don’t worry you can simply leave the wishbone in the pan to roast right alongside the turkey. 

We’re not done yet!  The day after Thanksgiving oftentimes leaves us 5 pounds heavier and with so much leftover turkey that we have not a clue what to do with it all.  So as you lie around enjoying a college football game, use your yummy leftovers to make this delicious salad -      Turkey and Wild Rice Salad with Dried Tart Cherry Vinaigrette. 

 Click here for a down-loadable PDF of the recipe.   

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at Q Center!

In today’s world, meeting planners are busier than ever. You are constantly balancing more than the usual share of projects, short-term travel and different event venues. 

As a result, you must often rely on the facility’s conference planning manager. This helps you stay ahead of key deadlines, identify creative solutions for new concepts, manage continuous changes and prevent any situations that may impact your meeting in a negative way.

A checklist is as important to a conference planning manager as a favorite recipe is to a chef. Having the right tools to stay organized and keep on task with the numerous steps needed to plan a meeting is essential to the success of any event.

Here are some examples of key areas commonly found on a conference planning manager’s checklist: 

• Obtain rooming list at cut-off date (3 weeks out).
• Process the order for theme décor and rental equipment (2 weeks out). 
• Confirm that meeting room sets match your attendee count (2 weeks out). 
• Select A/V equipment to best serve the type of events and room locations (2 weeks out).
• Provide Banquet Event Orders (BEOs) outlining all arrangements (10 days out).
• Identify the food and beverage guarantee and communicate to the culinary team (5 days out).  

However, when it comes to meeting planning, the checklist is rarely completed without any deviation. What happens when the rooming list is not completed by the cut-off date? What happens when more guest rooms or food and beverage are needed than expected due to increased attendee counts?  What happens when the assigned meeting room no longer suits the needs of the facilitator?

When things don’t go as planned, an experienced conference planning manager uses quick and sound judgment to identify the best options available to meet your goals. The checklist sets the foundation for what needs to be accomplished. However, there is no substitute for the expertise of a good conference planning manager who knows when to be flexible and what needs to be done to find success.

How have you responded in a positive way to unplanned changes? Leave a comment and let us know.

On Thursday, October 13, we kicked off our annual United Way campaign with two events.

Lunches for the Homeless

This is the second year we have made lunches for the local homeless shelter, Lazarus House.

Staff members contributed various lunch ingredients like bread, cheese and lunch meat.  On Thursday morning, several people teamed up to build forty lunches that were delivered to the shelter later that morning.  Each lunch included a sandwich, a piece of fruit, some chips, a beverage and a cookie. We’ll do another lunch-building project in November, also for Lazarus House.

Kickoff Event

We held a kickoff event on Thursday afternoon, complete with fall-themed refreshments like caramel apples and homestyle hot chocolate. As in past years, we invited guest speakers to talk about the ways United Way funding helps our community. Our first speaker this year was Traci Eggleston from Elderday Center, a local senior day center. Traci talked about how United Way enables Elderday to provide daily activities and socialization for seniors in our area. Paula Yensen, Executive Director of our local United Way, was the second speaker. Among other things, Paula told us about how our contributions have enabled them to meet her organization’s commitments to agencies like Elderday Center.

A kickoff event like this one marks the beginning of our fundraising efforts every year. In addition to encouraging employees to make their own contribution through payroll deduction, we hold raffles and contests for prizes like a free day off or VIP parking for a month.  Later this month we’ll have a jeans-day fundraiser and a crock-pot cook off.

If you’d like to see more photos of the first day of our 2011 United Way campaign, click here to visit our flickr photostream.

You know those milk commercials where famous people have a left-behind milk moustache? That moustache is the by-product of a natural process – drinking a great glass of milk a little too fast.

A beautiful pond can have a similar by-product of its natural processes. All ponds – whether created by nature or by man – go through a natural life cycle transforming them from pond to swamp to marsh and finally to prairie. This process begins when organic debris like branches, leaves, weeds and other products from nature are blown or dropped into the water. The naturally occurring bacteria in the shallow areas are able to decompose this material quickly. But the anaerobic bacteria in the deeper areas are not able to keep up with all that’s deposited there.

Over time that decomposing matter at the bottom becomes a nutrient-rich bio mass called MUCK. Muck builds up in the bottom of the pond, creating ideal conditions for the massive algae and weed growth that will turn a beautiful pond into an ugly eyesore. Treating the pond with herbicides and other chemicals works at first. So do aerators. But eventually the biomass at the bottom will win out, and the pond will fill with muck. Ultimately the muck will turn the pond into a marsh, crowding out fish and other aquatic wildlife.

So, how do you get rid of that “muck-stache” and restore your pond to its original state? The traditional solution involves draining the pond and allowing the muck to dry out completely. Then bulldozers and draglines are brought in to mechanically remove the remaining organic material. Of course, this means you either have to find a way to temporarily relocate the pond’s eco-system or risk destroying it completely.

When we were faced with this situation for our pond at Q Center, we went in search of a more environmentally-friendly approach. And we’re pleased to say we found one!

Debris from the stream bed

Divers clearing debris from our stream bed

Richard Kohutko is the president and founder of Organic Sediment Removal (OSR) Systems, an environmentally-friendly pond cleaning company located in Necedah, Wisconsin. Several years ago, Mr. Kohutko developed an eco-friendly system for cleaning ponds. The OSR system involves highly-trained divers who begin by manually removing weeds and other debris from the pond bottom. Then they use hydraulic pumps to remove the muck into a nearby porous bag. Once dried, the nutrient-rich silt that remains can be used to fertilize landscape beds.

Drying bag of muck

Porous fabric close-up

Not only is the environmental impact minimzed, but you get a usable by-product so there’s no waste!

Our pond restoration project began in September when OSR came to Q Center to clean the stream that feeds our pond. You can see a few photos here on the blog and more here on our flickr stream. We’ll keep you updated next year as the project resumes.

What are your green landscaping challenges? Speak your mind by leaving a comment below. We may have a solution!

Business videoconferencing

Skype deserves a lot of credit for being a quick, cool option for face time with your daughter who’s off at college or your grandma in Scottsdale.

But if you’re looking for a business-class solution, you might want to consider High Definition or TelePresence videoconferencing. While pricey, these systems are quickly becoming main-stream because they help eliminate expensive air travel. The increased detail in both the video and audio (think Blu-Ray) is stunning. People say they actually feel like they can reach across the table and hand something to the attendees on the other end!

Here are a few videoconferencing tips from our resident Q Center experts. And, yes, some of them are even helpful for Skyping with grandma.

Wear this

Don't wear this

• Wear solid, neutral colors. Complicated patterns and stripes can create distracting optical illusions. Bright colors – and even white – can have a halo effect that makes the garment appear to glow.
• Let the sun shine. If at all possible, use a room with a window and open the curtains. Natural light will render neutral colors and skin tone best across the data stream. Many purpose-built videoconference rooms are actually equipped with specially-designed fixtures that reflect light off tabletops and onto faces. This helps prevent that scary stalker-movie shadow that can come from overhead lighting.
• Bandwidth rules! Make sure the system you’re using has sufficient network bandwidth. (GEEK TALK ALERT!) Old-school, lower resolution ISDN (384 kbps) systems run on a telephone line. Newer high-def videoconference systems need a high-speed IP connection running at 1.5-2.0 Mbps for 720p, all the way up to 6.0 Mbps for 1080p. This bandwidth needs to be guaranteed and exclusive to the videoconference; otherwise the video quality will suffer. Translation: The higher the def, the wider the pipe you’ll need to stream the data. And you’ll need to have that pipe all to yourself.
• Meet your match. So what happens if you’re at a conference center that has an awesome HD videoconferencing system, but your office only has a lower resolution phone-based system? Enter the bridging service. This service enables systems of varying qualities to talk to one another and optimizes the video quality for each participant.

Got any other suggestions? Speak your mind by leaving a comment.

Why not give it some personality with some themed decorations!

The Holiday Season is rapidly approaching and sooner or later we will all be hosting a Holiday Party.  A great way to make the party unforgettable is to decorate it with a unique theme.  Simple items that you can find in your own home, your own backyard, or at a flea market can really help make the theme come to life. 

Here are some of our theme ideas…

Winter Wonderland:  Whites highlight this theme.

• Snip twigs from your very own backyard  (all trees can use a little pruning) and spray-paint them white or silver to add an elegant touch. Place them in glass or white vessels at your entrance to set the tone.
• Cover your tables in white linens, and add touches of silver to make it shine– silver vases or silver pieces filled with the white or silver twigs or even white feathers will help bring the theme to life.
• Napkins can be tied with silver-star garland to add an extra sparkle.
• White silky linens from your local fabric store can be scrunched up on tabletops in your home, and small tealight candles can be tucked into them to make the fabric shimmer.  Tuck-in tealight candles to make the fabric shimmer. Glass mirrors or clear glass blocks can be used atop your buffets for elevations.

Natural Woodlands:  This theme will give you a rustic and earthy feel. 

• Decorate your entrance way (inside and outside) with vases or terra cotta pots filled with freshly cut boughs from your backyard or local green house.
• Fill bowls, baskets, and vases with fresh cranberries and pinecones, and place them throughout your home.
• For the centerpiece, place twigs in glass vases or purchase small Norfolk pines (6” pots or smaller) and wrap the pots in burlap and tie with a simple ribbon of raffia.
• Napkins can be tied with faux leather lacing and a small evergreen twig.
• To add a little color here and there, purchase small decorative cardinals and place them on the boughs, atop the pine cones or on the twig centerpieces.  These little spots of red color will add a great dimension and help bring the outdoors in.

Blue Elegance:  The silver and blue in this theme are great together and help the season feel ‘cool’.

• Simple linens from the fabric store come in all shades of blue and elegant whites– the silky/satin type are the best.  Blue vases (or save your blue water bottles) filled with pussy-willows add a soft touch. 
• Your table can be dressed in either blue or silver and as a centerpiece, fill silver or clear bowls with an assortment silver or blue holiday balls of different sizes. Napkins can we tied with elegant ribbon to add the final touch.
• Fill extra wine glasses halfway with glass marbles and set a small tealight inside. The marbles will twinkle with soft light and candlelight adds a warm touch.

These simple accents can make your event something special. Whether you add just a couple of touches to your table or go all-out and theme your entire home, your event will be one your guests will remember.

It’s your job to keep meeting costs in check, right? And your IT department just got a great portable LCD projector for the sales team to use on the road. So why not take that LCD to your next meeting and reduce your hotel A/V charges?

The answer is: It depends. A projector that’s perfect in a conference room might not fare as well at your meeting.

Here are some questions to consider before deciding to use your own projector:

• How bright is bright enough? Having a bright, clear image makes it easier for everyone to see the content on the screen. It also makes it easier to hold the group’s attention. If you have to dim the lights for attendees to see the images clearly, it makes it note-taking difficult. Worse yet, it makes it easier for attendees to doze off! The brightness and clarity of the image are directly related to the quality of the projector, lens and bulb. We recommend a XGA LCD digital projector with a minimum brightness of 3500 ANSI lumens for normally lit meeting rooms with windows.
• Does your projector have intuitive controls for adjusting lens zoom, focus, shift and keystone? Some of the more affortable projectors aren’t equipped with user-friendly controls for image adjustments. As a result, you and your presenters my not be able to figure out how to optimize the projector setup once you’re in the meeting room. If you bring your own projector, most properties will not provide tech support to help you get it right. So, get a lesson on making image adjustments before you leave the office. 
• How much “throw” is required for the screen size? Simply put, how far from the screen will the projector need to be to make the image to fill the screen? In some cases, the room layout or the size of the room won’t enable you to place the projector far enough away. There are short-throw projectors on the market. However we have found that most short-throw projectors aren’t bright enough to be used in meeting rooms with windows.

Our experienced Q Center tech team spends a great deal of time researching new projectors before making a purchase. Because we have 118 meeting rooms in a variety of sizes, we can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. In addition to the considerations mentioned above, we’re looking for the perfect balance of price and performance.  If you book a meeting at Q, consider using our in-house projectors. You’ll notice the difference in image quality and performance that our gear brings to the (projector) table.

Have you been carrying your own A/V around? Is it worth the money you save? Leave a comment and speak your mind!

Who can resist the drama of one hand behind your back and the other hovering above a buzzer just waiting to be smacked? The bells, the whistles, the “ZONK!” sound effect that comes up when the big red “X” indicates a wrong answer… it’s all so much more engaging than listening to a monotone presenter click through yet another PowerPoint slide.

Most corporate event participants are NOT your typical sit at home and watch GSN (Game Show Network) types! However, a little friendly competition is well-received when it’s offered in the middle of a training session or work-required event.

But how do you find the right game show for the right audience at the right time in the meeting? And what does the rest of the audience do while the select few play the game?

Our event and media production team, Q Creative, has a lot of experience customizing game shows to succeed with any audience.

For example, Q Creative adapted a popular one-player game, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and made it work for a plenary of two-hundred and fifty participants. Our “Power Play” allows two teams of eight players to represent different sides of the audience. Teams place their player in the power seat one at a time, just like the original show. However, when it comes time to ask a friend, Power Play allows the player to “poll the audience” using audience response keypads to let the other participants weigh in on the correct answer. This keeps the entire audience engaged and part of the action, even when they aren’t on stage. One participant liked this offering so much while playing it in St. Charles, she had us design a portable traveling version that she and her boss could tour with to teach their key content to their offices across Europe!

“Test Your Knowledge” was invented when one of our clients with not much budget but a lot of desire to make dry content interesting had us design a game around their complicated technical training. One talented graphic artist, some upbeat music tracks, and a great live announcer voice added to the mix, and we had another winner.

We also have a variety of game shows in house that are “ready to play.” Clients give us a set of questions, we plug them into our template, and voila, it’s a brand new game. One of them is a dead ringer for “Family Feud,” called “What’s Up with That?” The light-enhanced, retro-style set complete with stand-off podiums and gooseneck microphones make it a great team building, bonding experience with a lot of laughs.

We’re currently working on a “Q” version of “Minute to Win It” and a scavenger hunt, which debut in November 2011. We’ll let you know how they go!

Tell us your methods for jazzing up meetings with game shows by leaving a comment below. We’d love to hear your ideas… and you might just win a prize if you write us. After all, what good is a game show without a prize at the end?

…plus basil, tomatoes, eggplant… and maybe some pumpkins.

A garden is a wonderful thing. It can provide food for your table (and sometimes for local wildlife), beauty for your landscape, an educational and fun activity for your family and support for the ecosystem.

Planting herbs is a great way to get started gardening. Most of them are not finicky and need nothing more from you than a plot of dirt in a sunny spot and a little water during dry spells. Even city-folk can grow herbs in a container on a porch or rooftop that gets enough sun.

We started a perennial herb garden at Q Center several years ago. Our first plot included purple sage, thyme and mint. Sage and thyme are good candidates for your first herb garden, since they require minimal maintenance and will flavor your dishes year after year. Mint can spread out of control if not watched carefully, so if you like it, plant it in its own pot.(Since we’re not a licensed grower, we can’t serve our harvest to guests, but we can use it for decoration around serving pieces or in vases.)

In our area, annual herbs like basil, parsley and cilantro die off after a hard frost. But that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to enjoy them through the winter. You can transplant your herbs in medium-sized pots. Keep them near a window that gets at least six hours of sun each day and harvest as needed for your recipes.

You can also harvest and dry herb cuttings. Just cut sprigs or whole branches in the morning before the sun gets too hot. Rinse lightly with cool water. Tie them loosely together in bunches, hang in a dry, airy spot with dim light and check on their progress every couple of days for a week or so. Once the herbs are dried, store them in an airtight container and use them until next year’s crop comes in.

A couple years’ success in the herb garden will probably lead you where it did us. This year we branched out (pun intended) into vegetables by planting peppers, tomatoes and eggplant. We posted some photos of the garden on our flickr stream.

We’re thinking about pumpkins for 2012. What do you think?

How did you start your garden and how did it grow?

Leave a comment and let us know…

At the risk of being shamelessly self-promotional, we gotta say that we’ve been busy this summer!

In June our favorite photographer, Scott Thompson, spent two days capturing the fun available outdoors at Q Center. If you’ve ever been on a photo shoot with Scott, you know we had two fun-filled (emphasize FILLED) days! The end result was over 8,000 images of our wide variety of sports facilities and outdoor event venues. If you’re interested in some behind-the-scenes photos, take a look at our flickr photostream.

Early in July, we had a BBQ for our guests in the Courtyard. It was a great early summer day – blue skies, white fluffy clouds and a light breeze with the perfect temperature for a picnic. Diners were treated to fresh-grilled hamburgers and chicken breast, sweet corn and all the fixings. What a great way to kick off summer while taking a break from an intense day of meetings!

Also this summer, we began transforming our Q Tower lobby area into a more inviting and exciting area for guests to connect and relax. It started in June with the installation of outlets and cabling for two large-screen HD TVs. By mid-July we had groupings of comfortable furniture and new lighting in place. Finishing touches are still in-progress, but guests are already finding new and better ways to use this space at the hub of Q Center. We also opened Tower Bar in that area, where guests can meet for a cocktail, beer or wine and enjoy a sporting event or just chat. We posted a few photos of the changes on flickr, with more to come soon.