Business Mail

I am meeting at UVM with an influential donor who has never been to Burlington.  Call him “Robert Smith.”  You are to write Mr. Smith a letter detailing the itinerary of his visit.

Our meeting is going to be at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 21, in the Kalkin Conference Room (Kalkin 225).  The meeting will last about 2 hours.  A light lunch will be offered.  You can refer to the meeting simply as “your meeting with Professor Gronlund.”

Mr. Smith will be flying up from the New York City area on Monday, February 20.  A round-trip flight from JFK International Airport has been booked for Mr. Smith.  The return flight should be scheduled for Tuesday the 21st, sometime in the late afternoon or early evening.  [You could check actual flight schedules to do establish flights and times, but you don’t have to; you can just make up a flight schedule.]

Please assume that Mr. Smith will have to fly to Burlington on Monday afternoon or evening.  You, my student assistant, will meet Mr. Smith at the airport and assure that he gets to the Courtyard Marriott Hotel on Battery Street in Burlington.  You will also pick him up at the hotel the next morning to bring him to campus for the meeting.  Because there will be a few hours between the meeting’s end and Mr. Smith’s return flight, please come up with something for him to do until he has to leave to catch his flight.   You will take him to the airport.

Mr. Smith is preregistered at the hotel, and his room and miscellaneous hotel expenses will be paid by UVM directly.  He is on his own for dinner on Monday night and breakfast on Tuesday morning, but the cost of those meals will, of course, be reimbursed to him.

Your letter should describe what he can expect.  Please don’t leave him wondering about any of the necessary details.  In this regard, think about what information would be important to you if you were the traveler.  (I think, at a minimum, you would want to know airline, flight numbers, and departure and arrival times.)  Organize the information so it is presented as clearly as possible.  Strike a pleasant, courteous tone, but stay far short of coming across as a fawning sycophant.  In short, I don’t want Mr. Smith to have any doubts about how he will get here and back, what he will be doing while in Burlington, or how he will get around while here.  It would be a shame if Mr. Smith is left thinking we run a shabby operation.