44CON and Coronavirus
To avoid unnecessary anxiety, we’ve punctuated this post with emergency puppers.
It’s been a wild few years in the UK but 2020 has really put things up a notch. Attendee and crew safety has been our number one priority in everything we do. Unfortunately Coronavirus is unlikely to respect our house rule and we’re unable to evict it, as much as we’d love to. While we expect the British government to do the right thing after exhausting all other options, it falls on us to take action to protect our attendees now.
To that end, we’ve cancelled our 44CONnect March meeting. Everyone who RSVP’d has been emailed to let them know. The training has gone ahead as we recognised that at this stage the risk of infection in a large classroom with smaller numbers is far less than in a busy venue.
We intend to run training in June, but are in the process of testing and rolling out an online training capability for those who can’t, shouldn’t or won’t make it. We’re monitoring the situation and will switch the training to online only to protect the wellbeing of our attendees should the situation worsen throughout March and April. We’re working on boosting online opportunities for sponsors, although we haven’t updated our sponsor pack yet.
Currently, we aim to run the September event on-site, but are evaluating options for online access with a view to testing them via an online 44CONnect in June. Our expectation is that most people will have recovered from the virus when September comes around for us to run the event, although we fully expect the immunocompromised, at-risk and those who come into contact with them to use the online option.
We’re in contact with other UK and international events with a view to supporting them as much as possible. We’re holding off on the CFP for now as we don’t want to put people in an uncomfortable situation should things take a turn for the worse. It’s too early to say how Coronavirus will change 44CON but we’re taking every step we can to ensure your safety. Tickets are still available in the shop. We’ll notify ticket holders of any changes as soon as possible.
To reiterate our comments on twitter: The only bugs we want to expose our attendees to are digital.
