With the recent declaration of a state of emergency in the state of Oregon, we believe it to be in the best interest of our attendees, colleagues, students and members to cancel our 2020 Annual Meeting in Portland. The decision to cancel our much-anticipated meeting was not an easy one to make, but our first priority lies with the health and safety of our colleagues around the globe.

As we already had a positive relationship with the Hilton Portland Downtown Hotel, they have invited us to be their guest with our 2021 annual meeting. Therefore, we hope that you will plan to attend on March 13-16, 2021 as we come together to expand our knowledge and training in team-based learning through interactive workshops, oral research presentations and poster sessions.

Due to the cancellation fees imposed upon the TBLC by the hotel ($112,000) and the lack of communicable disease coverage in standard professional event insurance, the Executive Committee had a very difficult decision to make regarding both the registration fees and the financial viability of our organization.

Pre-conference Workshop Registrations
We will fully refund all pre-conference registration fees. For many of our pre-conference workshop registrants, this was one of the first times you would be formally learning about TBL. In alignment with our organizational mission, our goal is to be able to offer the core workshops for the fundamentals certificate in an online venue over the next year.

Annual Conference Registrations
Through multiple discussions among the Executive Committee, our association manager, and our accountant, we identified that our organization would not be able to continue if we refunded annual conference registration fees. In place of registration refunds, we hope you accept our offer to provide each annual conference registrant with a 5-year TBLC membership. While we recognize this is not a replacement for the registration fee, we hope you understand the difficult decision that needed to be made to be able to sustain the organization.

Please remember to contact the hotel to cancel your reservation.

Our bylaws require that we conduct an annual business meeting for the general membership, which typically occurs during the annual conference. In order to be compliant with our bylaws, we will organize an online business meeting for all members to participate in. In addition to our normal business matters, we will also discuss the items that led the Executive committee to cancel the conference and the financial implications related to the conference cancellation. We will send additional information regarding this event soon.

We appreciate your understanding and would like to thank all who have been engaged with us throughout the life of the organization. We are grateful that TBLC leadership have been good stewards of our finances over the years so that we are able to absorb this setback and remain a viable organization serving our membership going forward. This was a very difficult situation and we feel we have reached the best possible decision to ensure the health of our members and the stability of the organization. If you have any questions please email support@tblcadmin.org.

Sincerely,

TBLC Executive Committee
Michelle Farland, President
Julie Estis, President-Elect
Michael Nelson, Past President
Chris Burns, Treasurer
Sarah Lerchenfeldt, 2020 Program Chair