I am sorry to report to you that we will not be conducting our planned 2021 national Open Bible convention in Florida. We have been working hard to make it happen and pursued that goal in good faith.
However, the national board of directors has concluded that it will be best for us to defer an on-location convention until 2023. We were endeavoring to make physical distancing part of the convention; however, a recent poll of ministers and other possible registrants indicated that we would perhaps have only half of our typically anticipated number of registrations. Remember that registrants come from many parts of the country and restrictions vary among those locations. With only half the normal number of registrants we would still be obligated for thousands of dollars in commitments to the hotel for which there would not be registrations to cover that loss. We always subsidize convention costs but what we were possibly facing this year in 2021 would seriously escalate that cost.
If we were to go ahead and plan to hold convention but discovered later that we had to cancel our hotel agreement we would have been hit with a penalty reaching more than $100,000. We could not afford to risk that possibility. The board concluded it would be best to face reality, no matter how painful, and cancel our Florida plans. All convention registration fees will be refunded and hotel reservations are being automatically cancelled by the hotel. If you still wish to keep a hotel reservation for those dates you will need to contact the hotel to re-reserve your room, at regular rates [Embassy Suites Orlando Lake Buena Vista South, 1-407-597-4000]. Convention room rates will no longer apply.
