Many of you already know this, but for those that don’t belong to one of the Yahoo listservs, the dates of the HPS Family Conference will be different than our usual weekend in 2008.
The conference will be held at the same hotel, the Long Island Uniondale Marriott, but the dates will be March 28-30.
We always try to hold the conference during the same dates for a number of reasons. We get the best hotel rates in the middle of February in New York. The airfares are the lowest that time of year as well. These are important factors since we often end up helping families attend the conference. The other reason is that all of the doctors that regularly attend always know the HPS conference is the second weekend in February, thus they avoid scheduling conflicts.
But this year the Long Island Marriott will be under renovation during the dates of our event and cannot accommodate us. Donna and her sister Sue investigated some other local hotel options, but none could match the Marriott’s rates, or couldn’t offer us places inside the hotel where HPS’ers could easily socialize.
Socializing is a big part of our conference. People get to be very close friends and they want to catch up. At home, so many of us feel isolated. The supportive relationships that get built over dinner, or hanging out in the hotel bar, or in the lobby, are hugely important to our conference experience. Thus, hotels without large lobbies or restaurants would not be a good match for us.
So, it was decided that we’d move the dates of the conference instead.
This means, however, that families won’t be able to wait until the last minute to decide to come to the conference. We always have a LOT of people that wait until the last minute to decide to come. Usually, we’ve been able to get the hotel to make additional rooms available at the conference rate even at the last minute. This year, however, that won’t be an option. The hotel tells us they are much busier this time of year than in February and they won’t have the same level of flexibility.
So, if you’re thinking of coming to the HPS conference, start thinking, planning and saving now. Grin!
I’ll post this fall when the room block opens and people can begin to make hotel reservations.
The conference will be held at the same hotel, the Long Island Uniondale Marriott, but the dates will be March 28-30.
We always try to hold the conference during the same dates for a number of reasons. We get the best hotel rates in the middle of February in New York. The airfares are the lowest that time of year as well. These are important factors since we often end up helping families attend the conference. The other reason is that all of the doctors that regularly attend always know the HPS conference is the second weekend in February, thus they avoid scheduling conflicts.
But this year the Long Island Marriott will be under renovation during the dates of our event and cannot accommodate us. Donna and her sister Sue investigated some other local hotel options, but none could match the Marriott’s rates, or couldn’t offer us places inside the hotel where HPS’ers could easily socialize.
Socializing is a big part of our conference. People get to be very close friends and they want to catch up. At home, so many of us feel isolated. The supportive relationships that get built over dinner, or hanging out in the hotel bar, or in the lobby, are hugely important to our conference experience. Thus, hotels without large lobbies or restaurants would not be a good match for us.
So, it was decided that we’d move the dates of the conference instead.
This means, however, that families won’t be able to wait until the last minute to decide to come to the conference. We always have a LOT of people that wait until the last minute to decide to come. Usually, we’ve been able to get the hotel to make additional rooms available at the conference rate even at the last minute. This year, however, that won’t be an option. The hotel tells us they are much busier this time of year than in February and they won’t have the same level of flexibility.
So, if you’re thinking of coming to the HPS conference, start thinking, planning and saving now. Grin!
I’ll post this fall when the room block opens and people can begin to make hotel reservations.
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