ESC IBS Consortium Minutes 072319

ESC IBS Consortium Minutes from July 23, 2019 Meeting was called to order at 2:03 pm Eastern Time Attendance: Patty Potvin Columbia Gas Chris Stripplehoff Municipal Gas Assn of GA Marti Sawyer National Fuel Corey Minshew Southern Co Melissa Farrar Washington Gas Steve Cook UGI Utilities Kiosk Vendors: Barb started the meeting by mentioning that of the 11 kiosk vendors that had exhibited in 2019 only 2 had opted out of exhibiting in 2020. As a result, a memo was sent to ESC affiliate members and three have stepped forward as wanting to exhibit in 2020; two are in for 2020! So, we are up to 11 vendors with 2 of the 11 taking additional space, equating to 13 vendors. The booth designers felt that we would most likely not to want to add anymore vendors at this point as we want to ensure a smooth traffic flow though out the booth. Budget: Barb shared that she and David Weiss have been working on developing a budget for the 2020 show. AGA has been gracious to share the actual bills that were incurred for the 2019 show. There was some confusion with past AGA budgets due to how expenses were labeled and classified. While we are constantly learning as we go through this process, Barb felt that we would not have a good handle on expenses until we have gone through an entire year. Hopefully, at that point, we will be able to identify areas where we can trim expenses. One item that was disturbing to ESC was that one of the vendors for the Vegas show submitted actual expenses that were almost double what AGA had budgeted. The booth supervisor (works for the company that designs the booth) noted that there were no obvious errors with the bill. We will have to work closely with the supervisor to determine if there are things we can do to prevent this from happening in the future. Since we seem to be maxed out with kiosk vendors for 2020 we always have the option of securing additional revenue for the IBS Consortium by bringing on additional utility members. If you know of any company that is contemplating joining, please let me know and I will send some compelling info to them as to why they should join! Open Discussion: Chris Stripplehoff mentioned that he had attended a meeting with APGARF and the IBS Consortium was discussed at this meeting. He did note that members appreciated the opportunity to work on getting builders to visit the booth to look at everything that natural gas has to offer. He also noted that members would like to be able to capture the names of the visitors to the booth. We do capture this information at the show and we will be prepared to share that info with the members of the consortium (via Excel spreadsheet). On a side note, Chris brought up the recent ruling by the city of Berkley,California and their ban of new natural gas installations in new homes and businesses starting in 2020. The opinion was that items like this make it more important for the natural gas industry to have a presence at the IBS. Barb also reminded members that ESC/AGA will be holding as webinar on July 25th entitled “Electrification of Residential Customer: What the NIST Study Says as a Counterpoint”. The webinar will be conducted by Ted Williams, Senior Director of Codes and Standards for AGA. If you cannot participate in the webinar, a recording will be posted on the ESC site. With no further items to discuss the meeting was adjourned at 2:40 pm.