More than 70 marketing researchers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area met in March to celebrate spring and plant the seeds for the Minnesota/Upper Midwest Chapter of the national Marketing Research Association.

While at press time in late April, spring hasn’t sprung here in the Twin Cities (who have we angered and how can we appease them?), interest in getting the local MRA chapter off the ground seems to be growing. Organizers report an enthusiastic response to the idea of a locally-based MRA chapter and many offers of help in organizing it.

The meeting was held at the Dayton’s store department store in downtown Minneapolis in conjunction with the store’s spring flower show. Ed Bergo of West Group Marketing Research and a representative of the national MRA was on hand, as were principals of several local research firms and client companies.

The next gathering will ben breakfast meeting on May 22 at 7 a.m. at Hotel Sofitel in Bloomington, Minn. The guest speaker will be Maureen Hooley-Bausch, director of marketing, Mall of America.

By the way, if your research-related organization (national, regional or otherwise) is having a meeting, let me know and we’ll try to include it in the research calendar. More than 70 participants attended the meeting to kickoff the Minnesota/Upper Midwest Chapter of the Marketing Research Association. As Carolyn Ruble of Carolyn Ruble & Associates awards Fingerhut’s Dennis McGuire his prize, national Marketing Research Association representative Ed Bergo of WestGroup Marketing Research prepares to draw another winner. (found on the first page of the Product & Service Update section in each issue of QMRR).