This Tuesday Tipster is for Postsecondary chapters only.

UPCOMING DEADLINES
February 1: Dues payment deadline
February 1: State Leadership Conference registration deadline
February 6: Conference registration payment RECEIVED at state office

UPCOMING EVENTS
February 11: State Leadership Conference (Northwood University-Midland, Michigan)

CTE MONTH
February is Career/Technical Education Month. What is your chapter doing to promote business education throughout your school and in your community? I strongly encourage you to plan some sort of activity or multiple activities to promote business education. Make sure your school administrators, students' parents, school counselors, and legislators are aware of the positive impact business education and career/technical education has on student development. Although we aren't part of "traditional" academics, we play an important role in establishing a foundation for success in ALL careers. Visit http://www.ffbe.org/ps1.html for promotional strategies for your program. Click on each business educator's name to read his/her idea.

BPA WEEK: FEBRUARY 12-18
BPA week is next week…February 12-18 and it is the best time for your chapter to promote your chapter and conduct fundraising projects. Visit http://www.bpa.org to see the opportunities and which days hold certain events.

SLC REGISTRATION CONFIRMATION NOTICES
Confirmation notices including a final information memo and a copy of your contestant list will be sent to you via e-mail on or before Tuesday, February 7. Please keep a look out for this information.

DRESS CODE
Don't forget to remind your students about the Michigan BPA dress code. Please follow these guidelines as published in the pre-conference registration booklet.

***IMPORTANT*** WSAP GUIDELINES FOR STATE COMPETITION
The WSAP Guidelines and ancillary documents have been updated quite a bit this year. In order to make sure everyone is on the same page for state competition, the official version that will be used for the SLC is posted online at http://www.michiganbpa.org/documents. This is the version you should provide to your students as they prepare for competition. (See note below regarding "Competitive Event Documentation Forms.")

SLC REGISTRATION PROCESSING CHANGES
Since the payment section of the BPA Scheduler Web site is now set up in such a way that you can enter and save your registration dollar amounts, you no longer need to mail anything to the state office UNTIL you are ready to submit a check for payment. Once your check is ready, please mail the SLC Registration Payment Summary/Student Listing printout and your check or money order to the State Office.

If you are paying via credit card, you do NOT need to mail any sort of hard copy documentation of your SLC Registration Payment Summary/Student Listing printout. All you will need to do is submit your conference registration via BPA Scheduler and then submit credit card payment online at www.michiganbpa.org/credit.

STOP: Please read this section again so you can make sure you understand if you do or do not need to mail anything to the state office in terms of SLC registration.

PRE-SUBMITTED EVENTS
Some of the events are listed in the guidelines requiring pre-submission of their entries. For the Postsecondary SLC, we do not require students to submit their entries to us in advance. They will drop off all their entries when they arrive on site at the conference.

SLC SOFTWARE
Northwood University is using Office 2007 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Publisher).

For the Computerized Accounting event, the only software available is South-Western Automated Accounting 8.0. If your student would like to use different software for the Computerized Accounting event, he/she must bring laptops and portable printers to be able to use alternative software.

EQUIPMENT STUDENTS MUST PROVIDE
Please pay close attention to the events, especially in the I.T. area, in which students must provide their own laptop in order to complete the work. The programming events require the students to have their own equipment.

PROJECTORS FOR JUDGED EVENTS
Contestants will be able to use the projectors and whiteboards in the classrooms at Northwood University for their presentations. Northwood University's classrooms are configured with projectors and whiteboards in all classrooms and computer labs. Students may also bring their presentations and use the teacher station in the classroom if you are using software in the Microsoft Office 2007 suite (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Publisher). If you are using some other software, bring your laptop and you can very easily connect your laptop to the projection system.