|
In the April 2020 edition of the affiliate newsletter, Virginia TESOL (VATESOL) shared how they planned to host the Southeast TESOL (SETESOL) Regional Conference. For those unfamiliar with SETESOL, it is a consortium of TESOL affiliates throughout the Southeast, including North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. We annually rotate hosting the regional conference, and 2020 was VATESOL's year. As a smaller affiliate, planning SETESOL was a massive undertaking. We had most of our organization's money invested in the event. Our leadership was acutely aware that if we did not pull conference attendees from the other affiliate states or outside, we would be in a precarious situation - a situation that could end in utter bankruptcy. Convincing people to travel to Richmond, Virginia, was our number one survival strategy. This did not seem too difficult as Richmond had just been named a destination city by the New York Times for 2020. Even though we were financially worried, it looked like 2020 would be a great conference year if all things fell into place.
And then COVID-19 hit, and a fast-paced series of discombobulating events ensued. TESOL International canceled Denver. Virginia schools shut down on March 13. Our stay at home orders were issued in late March, and the 2020 conference planning committee began to frantically text each other back and forth:'
"Do we have a force majeure clause in our contracts?"
"What’s a force majeure?"
"Yes, we have one--it lets us get out of the contract due to events we can’t control. But we would have to be under an executive order to cancel."
"You mean we can’t just cancel?"
"No, not unless we want to lose all we’ve paid in plus more."
"We barely have enough as it is."
"I know...I guess we have to wait."
"Aaaaghh, waiting is the worst."
What's an affiliate to do?
Since waiting is the worst, the first thing we did was get in touch with our venue, conference hotel, and our contacts at the Richmond Tourism Office. We scheduled Zoom meetings with all three for the first week in April. These early meetings were affirming. While no one had any answers, everyone we spoke with supported us and understood the potential challenges ahead. They all thought it was too early to make any decisions. The best advice we got was from Jason, our "conference coach" from the Richmond Tourism Office. He said, "Let's circle back in May. For now, just get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Don’t email exhibitors and pester potential attendees. No one wants to get tons of emails advertising an event that may or may not happen. The world is in a pandemic, and we all need space to breathe and heal."
At the same time, we also needed to connect with our SETESOL affiliates. Normally, the SETESOL affiliates only meet twice a year--once at the SETESOL conference and then at the big TESOL International Conference and Expo. However, with TESOL canceled, we still needed to connect to explain our potential challenges. Plus, we also thought it would be a good idea to connect as a group simply to see how other affiliates were supporting their members during COVID and what they were thinking about their own state conferences. We discussed moving conferences online and what that took. We discussed different initiatives in our organizations. For example, VATESOL began hosting virtual Town Hall meetings. Then Georgia TESOL and Carolina TESOL began to do the same. It was so engaging to share and collaborate that we decided to circle back and have another May meeting.
Rethinking Our Outreach and Commitments
While conference planning was ever on our minds, we also realized we needed to support our members and other teachers across the state in ways we had never done before. In late March, during an impromptu board meeting, we decided that ESOL teachers needed a space to discuss all the challenges related to the school closures and teaching online/remotely. On April 1, we hosted our first of ten weekly virtual Town Halls. Quickly, teachers and administrators from across the state, some members and some not began showing up every Wednesday at 3 pm to share their weekly worries, challenges, successes, and ideas. We kept these meetings informal and encouraged organic conversations. With the plethora of webinars surfacing from the endless depths of the internet, we felt that what teachers needed were colleagues - others who understood what was happening on the ground, others that understood the challenges our students faced concerning access to technology, internet, food, and instructional support.
As a board, we also realized that virtual Town Halls were transforming our commitment to our organization. Now that we were lying low on conference planning, as our conference coach had suggested, we had time to explore what our organization could look like without a conference. We discussed how our VATESOL had been so focused on conference planning over the years that we had forgotten about our organization's true mission - to support teachers. Moreover, as the pandemic progressed, schools and universities began to issue travel bans for the upcoming school years, and rumors of budget cuts indicated the money would not be allotted for conference travel. Looking at our conference budgets and our registration rates, carefully crafted to be just enough to cover everything without also being "too expensive," now seemed utterly unreasonable. We were acutely aware that most of our members would probably not be willing to pay out of pocket for our multi-day conference. And rightly so, we agreed with them.
May's Miracle
In May, emails, phone calls, and Zoom meetings filled our calendars. It was time to circle back with our conference stakeholders and our SETESOL affiliates. The first glimmer of a miracle came in early May with an email from our venue: "Would you be willing to postpone to 2021?" Postpone - before now, we had in passing discussed the idea, but we were more in favor of canceling and moving our conference online; however, with no extended executive orders, we knew we could not cancel unless the governor of Virginia said we could not meet, which also meant we would be waiting for many more months before a decision could be made. Thus, we began to take this offer very seriously. We reached out to Georgia TESOL, the affiliate hosting, in 2021. We asked if they were far along in their SETESOL conference planning. Unfortunately, they were, so we went back to our venue and explained the issue. Serendipitously, they respond: "Would you be willing to postpone to 2022?"
2022? We had never even thought that would be a possibility. Tennessee was set to host in 2022. With this offer on the table, we reached out to Susan Spezzini with AMTESOL, the fairy godmother of SETESOL, with vast affiliate knowledge. Quickly, on our behalf, Susan emailed the Tennessee TESOL leadership. Within hours, we had responses that they would vote on whether we could postpone. Miraculously, in less than a week, Tennessee voted to let us postpone to 2022, and by mid-May, we were moving to 2022.
The Silver Lining of COVID-19
Reflecting on this process and this past spring and now summer, COVID-19 made us a better affiliate. For one, we bonded with our conference venue and hotel in ways we never thought possible, building lasting professional relationships that will extend past SETESOL 2022. We also bonded with our SETESOL affiliate leaders, creating stronger relationships between our state affiliates. We will forever be grateful for Tennessee TESOL - they saved us. However, and most importantly, the true silver lining of COVID-19 was our recommitment to our members. Our weekly Town Halls reignited our commitment to supporting teachers. We are now contemplating what our organization will look like without focusing on conferences. What could we do if our energy was not consumed by proposals, exhibitors, and budgets? Who is served by the conference machine in the first place? Our members or the organization?
Thus, we are planning to have a conference-free fall to focus on other supports for our members. First, we plan to resume virtual Town Halls in August for the 2020-2021 school year. We are getting ready to announce our summer book club, something we are super excited to begin. We have three books picked out and book leaders ready to go! We are also developing a monthly webinar series, working with experts from across the state to provide professional development. Moreover, through the Town Halls, we are now visible in the state as our efforts drew the addition of the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) and other leaders across the state. For example, two of our board members were asked to give a webinar for the VDOE on online tools for working with English learners. Our president was asked to attend a special meeting with the Virginia Secretary of Education to discuss ESOL teachers' needs. Essentially, the challenges of COVID-19 transformed our organization from one that planned conferences to one that now supports teachers. |
