To All Legislative Directors:
I have been discussing the room registration issues with the Convention Committee. We have been struggling for days, negotiating with the hotel, since we found ourselves in an overwhelming position needing 100 plus rooms to accommodate the members and sponsors who were unable to obtain rooms.
In reviewing the registrations, we see that several member units have booked more than five rooms. At this time, we must advise you that all rooms in excess of 5 will be moved out of our room block, because we currently have 29 Directors who were unable to obtain a room at our group rate. It is unfair to allow any member unit to have more than five rooms while 29 member units have none.
Historically, for 20 years we have been able to accommodate all the members who wish to attend the convention utilizing the current room block numbers. Apparently, because this event has become so popular for its unmatched value, what has happened is that several member units have decided to book more and more rooms, leaving the leaders of other NYSPEC member units with no available block rooms.
We will be notifying the hotel staff to move rooms you have booked in excess of five out of our room block. Those rooms will now be subject to the current rate the hotel is charging for rooms not in our block. That rate has been anywhere from $450.00 and higher with a 45.00 resort fee per night. In fairness to all member units, we simply need to free up block rooms for those leaders who were unable to book within the block.
Those units that have booked more than five rooms are still within the time frame of the cancellation policy should it be decided to cancel some of the excess rooms, with the return of the room deposits. We hope you understand that we cannot have units booking more than five rooms while 29 units have none. The convention committee will be implementing new policies for room reservations so that this never happens again, and this will be discussed at our convention.
We must reinforce that the Annual Meeting / Convention’s main purpose is the formulation of NYSPEC’s Legislative Agenda for the upcoming year. At a minimum, the Directors, Legislative Directors, and/or key personnel should have the opportunity to book first. NYSPEC simply cannot sustain the cost of this convention if we allow member units to book as many rooms as they want at the extremely generous block rate. Not only do we have leaders with no rooms, we also have sponsors who were unable to obtain rooms. Remember, it is the sponsors that pay for the events at the convention. The fewer sponsors in attendance simply means fewer events.
As a reminder to anyone who booked multiple rooms under one name and has not yet sent me the names and titles of those who will be occupying those rooms please do so as soon as possible.
We are trying to resolve this as expeditiously as possible and ask for your patience and understanding.
In Unity,
Peter D. Meringolo
NYSPEC
Chairman
