Keeping Everyone Safe and Healthy at the Conference
After so many months of Zoom meetings and home offices, we’re incredibly excited to get together in person this fall at historic Stuart’s Opera House. The sense of community and energy that comes from being together is so powerful, and we can’t wait to see you all! But as recent news on the Delta variant is making clear, we all have a shared responsibility to ensure that everyone is safe, healthy, and comfortable.
Our COVID-19 protocols have two parts: the first is what we as organizers and hosts are doing to help create a healthy, safe environment for everyone. The second part is what all our attendees are expected to do so that everyone can have a safe, enjoyable, and generally awesome Athens Area Women’s Summit.
Big picture – we are working diligently to ensure the health and safety of all attendees, speakers, and staff/team members at the event. We are monitoring and tracking both the community spread of the virus, and updates in COVID-19 protocols. If guidelines change, we will modify our health and safety protocols accordingly.
What We’re Doing as Organizers
Providing Ample Space: We are intentionally leaving lots of extra capacity in all our sessions and spaces. Additionally, we are limiting the number of folks onsite to 130 total, including staff, volunteers, and speakers.
Ample Notice of Any Changes: Things are fluid right now, and we’re watching both regional and national trends and guidance closely. Health and safety are of the utmost importance. If anything major changes, we will let everyone know ASAP, and will do everything in our power to ensure we’re keeping everyone safe.
Frequent Sanitizing: We’re working with our partners at Stuart’s Opera House to make sure that all high-touch surfaces are frequently sanitized, and that the whole place gets cleaned and wiped down on the regular.
Flexibility: Offering this event in a hybrid format offers the most flexibility and reassurance that attendees can access this valuable conference even if they aren’t able to attend in-person. In addition to live-streaming each session, moderators will monitor the chat sessions on all live-stream videos to allow virtual attendees to participate in the fun.
Easy Ways to Communicate Your Social Distancing Needs: We’ll be making it easy to show how big your bubble needs to be and help avoid awkward moments like the infamous “fist bump + handshake combo.”
Attendee Expectations
Community health takes a communal effort, and we respectfully require all our attendees to meet the following expectations in order to take part in the 5th Annual Athens Area Women’s Summit.
Arrive Fully Vaccinated or With Negative Results: We are requiring proof of full vaccination or COVID negative results within 72 hours prior to event. Accepted forms include paper or photo of vaccination card or results on valid results portal. For specific questions, please contact Dani.
Don’t Attend If You’re Sick: Obviously, COVID is the thing we’re all most worried about, but conference crud was a thing long before COVID came along. If you’re not feeling well, please do not attend the conference and put others at risk, because even a cold can make us feel anxious these days.
Bring Your Masks: We’ll have masks and hand sanitizer available, but at this point, most people have (hopefully) figured out what masks fit them well and feel good. We are requiring all folks at the venue to wear a mask at all times with the exception of active consumption of food and drinks.
Respect: others‘ social distancing needs, without judgement (and be respectful of others just in general).
Thank You!
We are so excited to see you soon, and we really appreciate you being so understanding and respectful of these rules while you’re at the Athens Area Women’s Summit. If you have any questions, or if you’ve seen other great practices/protocols you think we should be following, please email our committee chair, Dani Underhill at dani@athenschamber.com.