SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS) will observe 60 seconds of silence to remember convenience-store icon John MacDougall at the start of its 29th annual Trade Show on May 14, 2015, at the Oncenter in Syracuse N.Y.
MacDougall passed away on June 21, 2014. It will be the first NYACS Trade Show since the passing of the president and CEO of Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes, who co-founded NYACS in 1986 and was instrumental in its development and success.
The “MacDougall Memorial Minute” will take place at 11:00 a.m., just as the exhibits are about to open.
“Tools of the Trade” is the theme for this year’s trade show. Free to all interested member and non-member retailers, it is open from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. There will be more than 150 exhibits by the Northeast’s leading convenience-store suppliers, equipment dealers and service providers.
All retail attendees will be entered in periodic random drawings for cash prizes as high as $500. There also will be a raffle for tickets to the “Belgium Comes to Cooperstown” beer festival, the QuickChek New Jersey Balloon Festival, a performance of “The Book of Mormon” in Buffalo, a concert by blues legend Buddy Guy in Ithaca, a GoPro Hero4 video camera and other prizes.
The pre-trade show golf tournament and Welcome Party are May 13.
The morning of May 14, prior to the trade show, NYACS is offering five concurrent educational workshops for retailers, free of charge:
- “Achieving Top Tier Results: Why the Best are Better,” with Casey McKenzie, senior principal consultant at Impact 21 Group.
- “Recipe for C-Store Food Service Success,” with Michael Davis, vice president of member services for the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).
- “Tools for Assembling a C-Store A-Team,” with Linda McKenna of Convenience Store Coaches Inc.
- “How Do I Know What My C-Store Business is Worth?”, with Terry Monroe, president of American Business Brokers.
- “EMV Chip Migration: Mapping Out Your Strategy,” with James Hervey, director of product management for Americas petroleum solutions at VeriFone.
The trade show will be followed by the traditional Chairman’s Banquet, featuring New York Convenience Store Hall of Fame inductions.
Now in its 29th year, the New York Association of Convenience Stores is a member-driven organization that leads, safeguards, and forges a favorable environment for New York State's diverse, dynamic community of neighborhood convenience stores.
MacDougall is remembered for a business he built from the ground up, and for a chain that embraced foodservice long before many others in our industry did. But he’s most fondly remembered for his generous, larger-than-life personality and spirit, which was on full display when CSP Business Media honored him as 2013 Retail Leader of the Year.
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