Tag Archives: federal spring conference 2020

Act quickly – you might be able to transfer your York hotel booking to next year

By Geoff Payne | Fri 13th March 2020 - 1:55 pm

No-one was more disappointed than we were that our Spring Conference was cancelled – although that it was undoubtedly the right thing to do. The reasons in full are here

The Conference Office has today sent a message out to everyone who registered setting out their options for their registration fee. The choices are:

1. Donate your fee to the Conference Fund for the Liberal Democrats. Please note that the event insurance that we had does not cover any of our costs for conference – contagious diseases are now a standard exemption from all event policies,
2. Obtain a complimentary four day (week pass) to Autumn Conference: 26-29 September 2020 in Brighton,
3. Obtain a full refund.

We have negotiated with LNER to secure refunds on train bookings for those who booked direct.

Importantly, we have also accelerated our contractual negotiations with regard to Spring 2021. That means that we can now announce that we will be in York again next March. The dates are 19th-21st March. We hope that announcing that now will allow people to transfer hotel bookings with minimal or no cost.

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Breaking: Spring Conference cancelled

By The Voice | Wed 11th March 2020 - 9:47 pm

The Party’s Federal Board has tonight decided to cancel the Spring Conference due to take place this weekend.

In a joint statement, Party President Mark Pack, Chief Executive Mike Dixon and Federal Conference Committee Chair Geoff Payne said:

Following careful consideration of the latest health advice and risks, the Federal Board has tonight decided to cancel our federal conference this weekend.

It’s not a decision that was taken lightly as conference plays a key role in our democratic party as well as being an important training and information exchange event. However, the health of our members and supporters, the staff who work on conference and the wider public is far more important.

We have noted today’s announcement from the WHO, treating this as a pandemic and calling for “urgent and aggressive action”, and also how other organisations have started cancelling events, such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists stopping all meetings with over 100 people. We have also paid close attention to the public health advice from the NHS, and note that some of the advice, such as around keeping distant from people who are ill, is in practice very hard to follow given the format of our conference involves large numbers of strangers sitting close to each other for extended periods of time.

We are aware that many people, particularly those in high-risk groups, have said in the last few days that they are not coming to conference. Conference operates on the principle of ‘one member, one vote’. We very much want to avoid a situation where people feel unable to particulate in our democratic decision-making because of fears over their health.

It’s a matter of regret that for many people coming to the conference it will not be possible to cancel travel and accommodation arrangements and recover the costs. The party itself will also have to incur significant costs and refunds. We hope though people will understand the priority being given to people’s health.

We will offer refunds on conference registration, though we hope that given the costs the party will have to pay anyway that members who can afford it will be willing to waive the refund and make it a donation to the party instead. Details of how to reclaim registration fees will follow in the next few days.