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