Summer has arrived in the Houston area with a vengeance with highs approaching 100 degrees already. You ATD leadership team has been hard at work putting together some equally “hot” events. First, let me encourage everyone to put the ATD Houston Virtual Fall Conference on their calendars for October 13 through 14. This day and a half virtual conference is being geared to talk about how Talent Development impacts change as we move back to the basic skills using the ATD Capability Model. We are very excited to announce that our featured keynote speaker will be Sardek Love. Visit the conference home page HERE to read more about the conference.
Secondly, I want to encourage everyone to attend our July General Meeting on July 13 where Houston’s own technology guru and ATD Houston Past President, Debbie Richards will be presenting What’s New? Moving to Hybrid Meetings. As we all begin to move towards the reopening and move to our “new normal” this will inform you on some best practices.
Finally, as you may recall ATD Houston had planned on moving to hybrid meetings for July. In May I talked about that and about how ATD Houston, like many of you, struggled with 2020 and the first half of 2021 due to impacts on our revenues. The reality is that not every venue is open at this point. For example, the United Way of Greater Houston, where we have held most of our meetings over the past several years, may not reopen until January 2022. The programs team, led by our V.P. of Programs Harriett Pritchard looked for viable alternatives but were unable to find a location that enabled us to meet in an affordable manner for July. We are continuing to look and will keep everyone informed. At this point we are hoping to have an in-person meeting in September. We are also looking at having a Happy Hour Networking event at a local restraint/bar in August. More to come on that later.
I want to thank everyone for their resilience over the past year and a half as your ATD Chapter navigated the COVID crisis. It is our goal to continue to provide value for the greater Houston talent development community.
Talk soon.
Robert
