First and foremost, I hope that this message finds everyone healthy and that their family and friends are feeling the same.
Second, everyone in this industry who is going to work every day and keeps commerce flowing and is frantically scaling up and getting ready for the inevitable onslaught of vaccine delivery and distribution - thank you. On behalf of a grateful nation - and really, grateful world - the people doing this for a living are doing so in plain sight but without the slightest awareness of the public how much they should be appreciated.
Here at the I.A.C.A.C., our board has been meeting regularly, but we've adopted a month-by-month approach to events on our calendar because, quite honestly, we're at the mercy of public health authorities and what just makes good safe sense for our members.
As a board, we carry officers & directors liability insurance, sure, but it doesn't mean we feel like testing the limits of that policy were someone to get sick - or worse - at an event we were holding.
For fans of the show Futurama, it's essentially putting Fry on ice for a few thousand years and coming back out, except in our case it's most likely going to be more like a year and a half (read: early next summer) before it is sufficiently safe to bring large numbers of people together.
Because of the fluidity, we want to bring you up to speed on the rest of 2020 and what we're looking for to 2021.
The scholarship needs YOUR help.
The IACAC Scholarship Fund is filled every year by our golf outing and holiday party. These two events, the money we raise from sponsorships and the generosity of our attendees in buying raffle tickets bring in thousands of dollars which we then award in scholarships.
This year, with no golf outing, we're asking people who usually attend and bring items to donate to just make a cash contribution instead.
The association has set up an entirely separate bank account and 501(c)(3) corporation to receive and disburse the donations as scholarships. If you would normally spend $50 or $100 (or more!) on raffle items, we ask that you consider donating us that amount in cash instead. We can accept payment via check or credit card and you'll be sent a copy of our IRS letter you can use to declare it a charitable donation on your corporate or personal income tax (speak to your tax preparer to confirm this for your individual filing needs).
IACAC Holiday Party: Stay tuned
We might as well let it out that this year, we were really excited to be changing venues to Cooper's Hawk Winery and Restaurant in Arlington Heights and had planned our Holiday Luncheon for Tuesday, December 8th. Conversations last week with the restaurant's event team highlighted that the current limit in the state of Illinois is 50 people - and we'd booked a room with 100 person capacity.
Beside the fact we'd be upside down on the event, we also don't know what the current level of openness will be based on COVID infection rates at the time. We're leaning to what people in the events sector are calling a "lift and shift" and moving it wholesale (with our deposit) into 2021. Stay tuned for communications on that.
Notional 2021 calendar
Pending the resumption of other in-person events which might conflict for our members (like CNS or other major trade shows), we have tentative planned the following schedule.
- January 12th - Educational event or webinar
- February 9th - Educational event or webinar
- March 9th - Educational event or webinar
- April 13th - Educational event or webinar
- May 11th - Educational event or webinar
- June 8th - Educational event or webinar
- July 13th - Educational event or webinar
- August 10th - ANNUAL IACAC GOLF OUTING
- September 14th - Educational event or webinar
- October 12th - Educational event or webinar
- November 9th - Elections
- December 14th - ANNUAL IACAC HOLIDAY LUNCHEON
We're extremely grateful of the support of our sponsors and members through 2020 and are looking forward to finding ways to deliver more member value and greater opportunities for our sponsors moving through the rest of this year and into 2021.