Gentry W. Trotter – former NAACP national board member – got a series of emergency calls last week from the national NAACP leadership, who were desperately seeking enough affordable meeting space and rooms for its annual October national board and committee meetings and its Special Contribution Trustees Board gathering. The national NAACP board hasn’t met in St. Louis since 1977, when executive director Roy Wilkins retired at the annual convention.
Looks like October is a big corporate biz month for area hotels. Trotter had two frantic days to vet previous CVC proposals, look at new ones and re-negotiate with one area property, fully understanding the NAACP’s culture and appreciating many of his former colleagues’ business and pocket-book tastes.
By the end of business on Friday, Roslyn Brock, national vice chair of the NAACP board and chair of the convention and planning committee, and other senior NAACP staff had dispatched Trotter’s St. Louis County selection with recommendations to its chair, Julian Bond.
Several branches in the area are hoping to bid on the 2011 national NAACP convention. The board meeting could be a prelude to a successful bid, if the branches get their collective act together. Get it done, people.