The APDT Chronicle of the Dog Summer 2020 | Page 10
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
�Contact me at [email protected]
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
Despite switch from in-person to virtual, conference will offer exciting
sessions and speakers while keeping members safe
All along, we focused on the main priority for our conference:
ensuring everyone is safe. In frequent consultations with the
convention center and hotel’s leadership, we were impressed
by their protocols to ensure the safety of our attendees and
staff. While we were comfortable with their efforts to ensure
our safety, we couldn’t vouch for attendees flying to the event,
ground transportation and other interactions that could expose
our guests to the virus that were outside of our control. With
the conference being held in October, we had no idea (and still
don’t today) what the situation with the pandemic will be later
this fall. However, we chose not to take any risks and decided
to work with the convention center and hotels to cancel the
conference. It was the right thing to do.
IIt sure is interesting times that we’re living in and making
all of us look at things differently. When we decided
to close our office and begin to work from home, we
knew that our approach to the services that we offer to our
members would shift focus. Just before the office closed, we
had made huge strides in planning our conference, including
confirming all of the speakers, securing sponsors, opening
online registration and working on new and exciting initiatives
for our attendees to experience. While we worked diligently
on preparing for the in-person conference in Covington,
Kentucky, we knew that we had to look at the potential that
the conference would not take place.
I’ve said it since the day our office closed due to the pandemic:
“The timing of the pandemic and its effect on the start of the
October conference has both advantages and disadvantages.”
As we watched conferences and expositions in and outside
of our industry start to cancel, we knew that we, too, may
be faced with such an important decision. I sincerely feel for
those organizations that had people flying to or already in
the city where the conference was to be held, only to have the
conference cancelled due to the lockdown in their state.
Working with other organizations in my past, I had to manage
our Board and attendees who were deciding whether to fly to
St. Pete Beach in Florida during 1998’s Hurricane Georges and
whether to postpose a conference on Hilton Head Island days
after 9/11. You learn a great deal during disasters that provided
each of us with the experience to view the impacts of the
pandemic and to make decisions based on facts.
We then focused our efforts entirely on developing a virtual
conference that everyone could attend without incurring the
expense of travel and risking one’s safety. The transition from the
in-person program to the virtual program went into full swing
with re-confirming speakers and sponsors, establishing a new
registration program and marketing the new program. After
reviewing demo after demo of virtual conference platforms, we
will be using a program that checks all the boxes for speakers,
shorts, CEUs, Q/A, exhibitors, sponsors, and posters. You’ll want
to check-out https://apdt.com/apdt-conference-2020/ for a copy
of the program, information on scholarships and to register for
the virtual conference, October 21-22.
David Feldner, CAE
Executive Director
8 Building Better Trainers Through Education