Business Professionals of America-Michigan Association
State Leadership ConferenceFrequently Asked Questions
In order to help save your valuable time, we have provided this list of frequently asked questions. We will update this list of questions on a regular basis. Before contacting the state office via telephone or e-mail, you may want to search for your answer here. The list of questions is grouped by topics. Click the topic for the list of questions that relate to that particular area.
Conference Registration
Q. What is my password to the BPA Scheduler Web site?A. Your password to access the BPA Scheduler Web site is your six-digit chapter number. The number starts with "04-XXXX." The dash (hyphen) must be included when entering your password. If you do not know this number, please logon to the membership registration system at http://www.registermychapter.com/bpamem/.
Q. Our advisors' names did not appear on the BPA Scheduler Web site when registering for the SLC, how should they be added?
A. Advisors' names were uninentionally left off the automatic importing for the BPA Scheduler SLC registration Web site. You can manually add all advisors' names by following step #2 of the conference instructions on the BPA Scheduler Web site.
Q. Where is the Payment Summary Form?
A. The payment summary form no longer exists. (See next question)
Q. The numbers aren't appearing on the payment summary section at the top of the student listing of the BPA Scheduler. What do I do?
A. Although the hotel reservation deposit calculation is computed automatically via the BPA Scheduler Hotel Reservating Listing, the conference registration computation is completed maually. Therefore, write (in pen) your calculations on the top of hte BPA Student Listing page as necessary once you have printed the page.
Q. We are sharing rooms with another school, how do we submit this reservation?
A. When individuals from two schools are sharing a hotel room, follow these steps below. Only ONE school should submit the reservation for the shared room.
1. The school submitting the reservation for the shared room should indicate in the Comments section of the general hotel information section of the online reservation form that an individual from another school (providing the individual's name and school) is sharing that hotel room.
2. The school that is NOT submitting the reservation should select the Event/Contest called "Hotel: Sharing with another school" when building the list of competitions that the students are in. In addition, this school should put a note in the Comments section of the general hotel information section of their own online reservation form that an individual from their school (providing the individual's name) is sharing with another school (providing that school's name).
Q. I forgot to print my tax exempt form before submitting it. What do I do?
A. You do not need to send a copy of your tax exempt form. As long as the information was submitted online on the BPA Scheduler Web site, the hotel will print a copy of your tax exempt form. If you forgot to complete the tax exempt information and have already submitted your hotel information, please contact Samantha Blackburn at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel so she can reset your hotel reservation so you can submit your tax exempt form.
Q. How do I pay for our conference registration by credit card?
A. Michigan BPA accepts MasterCard and VISA. Submit a completed Credit Card Authorization Form which you may download by clicking here.
Q. If I only have one student attending, do I need to bring other students to serve as voting delegates?
A. NO. You do not have to bring any students above the number that you wish to bring or that qualified to attend the conference by winning a regional competition.
Q. Can I bring extra students to the conference that did not qualify to attend?
A. A chapter may bring up to two (2) additional members who did not qualify to attend as a regional winner, statesman torch award recipient, or state officer candidate.
Q. What do chaperones receive for their registration fee and can they see any of the events?
A. Chaperones receive everything that advisors and students receive EXCEPT the conference souvenir. They can attend the opening session, awards ceremony, dinner session, legacy launcher workshops, and other events. Like everyone else, they are NOT allowed to sit in on any competitions.
Q. I was just notified by my regional advisor that a student is eligible to attend and compete in an event OR an additional event at the state conference. How do I register him for the conference OR add this event to his list of competitions?
A. If the student is already registered for the conference, send an e-mail message to the state director requesting that the additional contest be added to the student's schedule. Provide the name of the additional contest in the message. This information will be verified by the regional advisor. If the student is not registered for the conference and your chapter's registration has been submitted, download the SLC Delegate Addendum Form by clicking here.
Q. My student qualified to compete in Desktop Publishing at the state conference. When will we receive his/her test?
A. The Desktop Publishing test is located on a password-protected Web site. Detailed instructions on how to access this Web site was sent to all chapter advisors via e-mail on January 15, 2010.
Q. When are the pre-submitted events due?
A. All pre-submitted events must be submitted online and/or postmarked to the state office on or before February 1, 2010.
Q. Will I be able to login to the BPA Scheduler Web site to upload our pre-submitted contest materials after I have pressed the submit button to submit our conference registration or hotel reservations? Will we be locked out of the file upload system?
A. You will still be able to use the file upload system on the BPA Scheduler Web site after you have pressed the submit button for your conference registration and/or hotel reservations online.
Q. What should I send in when I submit our pre-submitted events to the state office?
A. All events with pre-submitted materials EXCEPT Computer Animation Team and Graphic Design Promotion will submit their contest materials online via the BPA Scheduler Web site. For instructions, download the document entitled "Pre-submitted Event Materials to be Submitted."
Since the Computer Animation Team and Graphic Design Promotion events will not be submitted electronically, download instructions for sending those events by downloading the memos from the documents page of our SLC Web site.Q. How do I send our pre-submitted events via the BPA Scheduler Web site?
A. Click here to download the instructions for uploading your PDF files using the BPA Scheduler Web site.
Q. How do we name our PDF file which will be uploaded on the BPA Scheduler site if it is a team event?
A. For team events, use your six-digit chapter ID number. Example: a project submitted for Global Marketing Team would be GMT_04_0072.
Q. Can we mail all our pre-submitted events in one package to the state office?
A. Absolutely YES. For Computer Animation Team, Graphic Design Promotion, and Video Production Team, please mail all these entries in one package. The state office prefers to receive all your mail-in events for your chapter in one box. This reduces the amount of mail we must open.
Q. Can I change team members from the group of team members that competed at the regional conference?
A. YES. As long as at least one original team member remains on the team, you may add or remove other team members as needed.
Q. How do I submit team member changes?
A. Send a list of ALL team members to the state director via e-mail.
Q. If a team member drops off the team from the regional level, do I have to substitute that student if I still have the minimum number of team members that are required for the event?
A. NO. As long as you have the minimum number of team members for the event, you do not have to substitute a team member for a new team member. You must let the state office know that a member who is registered for the team will no longer be attending the conference. We must be notifed of such fact by Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 9 p.m.
Q. When will we receive our student's contestant time schedules and appointment times?
A. School reports with all student time schedules, appointment times, etc. will be sent to the chapter advisors via U.S. mail during the week of March 1st.
Q. What are voting delegates?
A. Each chapter is allowed to have two students serve as voting delegates. These students are the voice for your chapter in terms of electing state officers and voting on important decisions for the association. Voting delegates must attend the annual business meeting on Friday evening and the campaign rally on Saturday afternoon.
Q. Does my chapter have to have voting delegates?
A. Although it is not required that a chapter has voting delegates, it is strongly encouraged that you register two students to serve as voting delegates. This gives students an opportunity to represent their chapter in terms of electing our state officers and deciding other important business for the association such as bylaw amendments.
Q. Who are considered "delegates" from my chapter?
A. The term delegate refers to any BPA student member, advisor, or alumni. Any non-BPA member who registers as a chaperone, guest, exhibitor, judge, etc. is simply considered a conference attendee.
Q. What time will the awards session end on Sunday, March 21, 2010?
A. Traditionally, the awards session has ended between 11:00-11:30 a.m. There is no set ending time because it is all based upon the traffic flow of students going onto and exiting the stage to receive their awards.
Q. Why didn't I receive notification of whether or not our chapter's resumes were approved? How do I find that out?
A. BPA now uses an entirely online torch awards system. Resumes are submitted online, and are reviewed online by our office. It is the individual students' and/or chapter advisor's responsibility to visit that site and check for their chapter's results in time to submit any corrections that may be necessary. Results are not emailed or sent to you by any other method.
Q. Once I submit my chapter's resumes, how long will it take to find out whether or not the students' resumes were approved?
A. Results are provided to chapters through the online system (see above) in the same order in which they are received by Michigan BPA. Each chapter's results are posted to the site individually, immediately after the resumes are evaluated. For the 2010 Statesman Award, all local chapter results will be posted no later than February 18. Again, most will be posted well before this date, but this is the absolute last date that the final ones will be made available.
Q. My school had a weather-related closing on the day of the deadline. For this (or any other) reason, can we have an extension to the deadline for our chapter's resumes?
A. Unfortunately, extensions to any torch awards program deadlines cannot be given for any reason. This way, we can keep he program requirements and rules uniform for all Michigan chapters. We apologize for the inflexibility of this rule, and encourage you to submit your chapter's resumes early. Doing so will allow us to evaluate your resumes, and subsequently provide your results, much sooner.