We’ve received a number of inquiries regarding our fall meeting so I wanted to share with you what we’re currently thinking so you can plan accordingly; we expect to share more details in mid-September. Our hope is to hold an in-person gathering in Washington, DC this December, but of course uncertainties abound, as those of you in the process of starting a fall term at your institutions well know.
For the Fall 2021 Membership Meeting, at this time, we expect to hold BOTH a virtual meeting and an in-person event, each independently of one another, and designed to complement each other: - The virtual meeting will take place during the afternoons, Eastern time, on Dec. 6-9. It will include the Executive Roundtable (Dec. 6 and, if necessary, Dec. 9), selected plenary, panel, and project briefing sessions (mostly on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8), and pre-recorded presentations. I think we can safely say this meeting will take place as planned.
- The current plan is to hold the in-person meeting the following week, on Dec. 13-14, at the JW Marriott Hotel in Washington, DC, as originally scheduled. This event will be re-designed to maximize time for gathering and connecting, with longer breaks, fewer concurrent sessions than we’ve traditionally had at our in-person meetings, and organized discussion opportunities. Per usual, we’ll have a first-time-attendees welcome on the morning of the first day, and my opening plenary will begin around 1:00 PM Eastern. The meeting will adjourn on Dec. 14 around 3:30 PM Eastern. Our guess is that this meeting will have fewer attendees than a usual CNI fall member meeting for various reasons. We intend to record essentially all presentations from this meeting and make them rapidly available.
- Our contingency plan, if we cannot hold the in-person meeting Dec. 13-14, will be to move at least most of those sessions to a virtual meeting on Dec. 13-14, perhaps extending to December 15 if needed; these would take place during afternoon hours, Eastern time.
All member representatives will be invited to register for either or both the virtual or in-person meetings, and we will ask you to indicate your intention on the registration form for our planning purposes. We do understand, however, that plans can change, especially in the current environment.
Hopefully the rough outline shared here will help answer some of your basic questions about how we plan to proceed in December. Until then, please feel free to contact me ( cliff@cni.org) or Diane Goldenberg-Hart ( diane@cni.org) with any questions or concerns you may have. I hope to see many of you in the days and weeks ahead.
Clifford Lynch Executive Director, CNI
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