8:00 AM - Check in & Complimentary Continental Breakfast
Head downstairs to the conference room to pick up your badge and then get yourself settled and enjoy some pastries, coffee, and tea. 

8:30 AM - Welcome & Summit Kickoff

8:45 AM - Session 1: Employee Retention and Recruitment
A collaborative session focused on dealing with the current employment environment. How do local governments recruit and retain employees? This session will talk about housing, non-salary benefits, work from home potential, internal training and promotion, recruiting younger people into the field, and learning from the successes and failures of private companies and how that might translate to municipal government. Please prepare by being ready to talk about your successes and failures with retention and recruitment and your ideas and strategies for the future.

10:00 AM - Break

10:15 AM - Session 2: Local Business Panel
In this panel session, owners of local businesses join us to discuss what it takes to be successful in a community. This is a unique opportunity for us to engage with four unique businesses in the Woodstock area. The focus will be on economic development, businesses existing in the community, struggles with planning and zoning, straddling the tourist vs resident divide, and how they think a municipality can better support local businesses. This session will be a moderated panel followed by Q&A and discussion. You'll walk away from this panel with insights and ideas for smart economic development. 

11:30 AM - Braindates
The purpose of this summit is to use the general knowledge and experience of everyone attending. Let's not have it go to waste. These braindates are an opportunity for you to connect with another town manager (or a group) on a topic you're passionate about. Head to one of the many comfortable seating areas within the Inn or venture out to a coffee shop in the Village and dive deep on the topic of your choice.

12:15 - 2:00 PM - Lunch Break
Grab lunch with your colleagues at the Inn or in Woodstock (Lunch is not provided on Day 1).

2:00 PM - Session 3: Shared Services & Regionalization
Hosted by Upper Valley town managers who have successfully regionalized planning and zoning services, this session will focus on current examples of shared services in the room; why shared shared services and regionalization has failed in the past; resistance to shared services and how to win the argument; what are future and/or unexplored opportunities in this area; and what does the future of municipal government look like (e.g. is regionalization and shared services inevitable).

3:15 PM - Break

3:30 PM - Session 4: Congratulations! You're a Town Manager! Now What?
We couldn't afford a group therapist, so let's see how we can help each other. How can we "win" the day? How can we manage our employees better? What do we do with a too eager board or a too passive board or a too intrusive board? In short, how do you foster a strong relationship with your board in these political times? How do we avoid burnout from a lack of resources and time but increased demands? We all know all too well that the expectation of doing more with less is unsustainable, so let's share and brainstorm what a more sustainable future in small town municipal government looks like. 

4:30 PM - Day Recap

5:00 PM - 6:30 PM - Cocktail Hour