Hello Superstars,


Many of you have been asking about the status of our 2020 Annual Conference. I know this is a highlight for our organization every year, as we come together to learn, bond, and celebrate the prior year’s business successes.

Sadly, I must say that due to the growing concerns and evolving developments concerning the spread of COVID-19, the CF 2020 Annual Conference in May is being canceled. Although I’m sure this is coming as no surprise to anyone, it is still with a heavy heart that I make this announcement.

I believe there is power in coming together and I do believe we will have much to celebrate on the other side of this pandemic. For those reasons, we are having conversations on the possibility of having some form of a gathering later in the year. We are brainstorming potential options but perhaps it would be something like a Fall Fun Day event, where we still get the chance to see each other, recognize all of the 2019 wins, and have some casual fun outdoors. We will continue to think of ways to creatively join our teams together once we are past the current global situation.

Additionally, we are happy to say that we are finalizing the dates for our 2021 conference to be held at the same location and general time of year (early May). Since we have put so much time and preparation into the theme of the conference, and we were literally down to the wire on execution, we are excited to push all of those plans and theming into 2021. So now, you know what the theme of the 2021 conference will be, a whole year and two months in advance! Just think of the time you have to prepare your elaborate costumes!

The safety of you and our attendees is of upmost importance to us during this time, so I appreciate everyone’s understanding of this change. Additionally, we are thankful for all of the sponsors who so generously gave this year to ensure we had the best conference yet. Many of those sponsors have travel bans in place through May so the conference cancellation will support their schedules. We look forward to working with those same sponsors to ensure that the 2021 conference lives up to the same high expectations!

As we prepare to unwind the preparations for the conference behind the scenes, here are a few FAQs to help you on next steps;


Registration

  • Your registration online for the conference will automatically be canceled so there is nothing to do any further here.


Travel

  • Hotel: Your hotel reservation will already be canceled automatically so there is nothing you need to do for this.
  • Air: Please call the airline to cancel your flight. United, American, Delta and Southwest have extended their offers and are currently stating that all flights booked through May 31 can be canceled without a change fee and the credit of those flights will be held for you to take at a future time. The future date may be the Fall event spoken of earlier, but it will be important for you to hold that credit in your airline account. It is not to be used for personal travel. If for some reason a company event is not able to be coordinated for the fall, we will follow up with directive on how to use the credit. Once you cancel your flight please email your Name, Property, Airline Name, and Value of the Credit to annualconference@cfres.com. We will keep track and log these credits for future use.
  • Car: If you had a car rented to drive to the conference, or for use during the conference, then simply call and cancel this reservation and there should be no penalties unless you did a prepay. Please communicate such scenarios with your RPM or RVP as these may be rare.
  • Other: If you had any other specific travel reservations or items not covered above please address with your RPM and/or RVP.

Thank you so much to each of you for all of your hard work during these unique times. We waited until absolutely necessary to communicate this news, in hopes the outcome would be different, but we appreciate everyone’s understanding and support. We will continue to find ways for us to virtually bond during the next few months and look forward to the time in the future when we can all see each other face-to-face.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or to your supervisors if there is anything we can do or if there are any questions that need answered that I may have missed.


All my best,

Sharon Hatfield