Posts tagged Conference 2020

Point 89: POC Scholarship Update

Comments Off on Point 89: POC Scholarship Update read Awards & Recognition, Issue 89

Keiana “Kookie” Lynn

With the support of 64 community members, we raised $4,555.53 to give 7 piercers the opportunity to attend the Association of Professional Piercers Conference. Eduardo Chavarria, Miro Hernandez, and myself are proud to support with continued education, along their piercing journeys.

  • Aaron May
  • Angie Ortiz
  • Anthony Lewis
  • Deron Carter
  • Frances Sesay
  • Jose Zuniga
  • Kay Warren

With the rise of COVID-19 and the cancellation of the upcoming Association of Professional Piercers Conference, we intend to continue supporting recipients by honoring 2020 scholarships in 2021. Conference admission tickets will remain booked, while rooms and flights will be re-booked, when possible. In the event that a recipient is no longer piercing in 2021, their resources will be forfeited to the next qualifying applicant.

For further questions or concerns, please email KonnichiwaKookie@gmail.com.

Point 89: Covid & APP Events

Comments Off on Point 89: Covid & APP Events read Camp, Conference, Events, Issue 89, News

APP CONFERENCE 2020 COVID-19 UPDATE

APRIL 30, 2020, 2:00PM PDT

25TH ANNUAL APP CONFERENCE (ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED JULY 5-10, 2020)

After a long and complicated process the APP has finally come to an agreement whereby we will not be penalized the $200,000+ for cancelling the 2020 Conference.

We have felt strongly that cancelling this year’s conference is the very best action for our association, our attendees, and for the industry, worldwide. Piercers, studio owners, jewelry/counter specialists, and manufacturers face numerous challenges from the impact of this health crisis. Not only is this in the interest of health and safety, but this will also allow all of us to focus on business and family at home and to make sure we are opening under safe protocols.

We will miss all of you and the positive energy we all get from our Annual Conference and Exposition. We appreciate that you have remained steadfast in face of uncertainty.

ATTENDEES
  • The APP has sent an email to those who have registered for the 2020 Conference. If you need a refund now, or did not receive the email we ask that you complete a very brief form to request a refund (in full or in part).
  • If you did not request a refund by May 15th we will roll over your payment to next year. Attendees who rollover their fees will need to register next year but will use a code to apply their credits at the time they register. If you rollover your registration fees, at any time between now and next year, May 1, 2021, you may request a full refund without penalty.
  • The annual Conference is the primary source of income for the Association. Should you be financially able to contribute any part of your fees towards this year’s APP operating expenses, we would greatly appreciate it. Please use the same form to designate your contribution amount.
VENDORS
  • The APP has sent an email to vendors who have registered for the 2020 Conference. If you need a refund we ask that you respond to the email and request the refund (in full or in part). If you didn’t receive the email, please contact the office at info@safepiercing.org
  • If you did not respond to this email by May 15th we will roll over your payment to nextyear. Vendors who rollover their fees will need to register next year but will use a code to apply their credits at the time they register. If you do a rollover, and at any time between now and next year, May 1st of 2021, decide you need a refund, the APP will honor that.
  • For those companies who contributed to the Al D. Scholarship fund we ask that if you are able, to leave those funds with the APP. The APP has informed the scholars that their scholarships will rollover to next year. These scholars will fill our slots—if all scholars are able to make it next year—we will not take on additional scholars for 2021.
  • The annual Conference is the primary source of income for the association. Should you be financially able to contribute a portion of your fees for this year to the APP, we would greatly appreciate it.

Regardless of your decision know that we are all a part of a really awesome community and we will get through this.

HOTEL ROOM BLOCK

Planet Hollywood will automatically cancel any room reservation booked in the Association’s room block, which will trigger the refund of any deposit/payment. It will usually take 7-10 business days before you see the credit in your account. You will get an email confirmation from Planet Hollywood.

2020 APP MEMBERS’ RETREAT/CAMP APP & IN-PERSON MEETINGS

In addition, we have cancelled the 2020 APP Members’ Retreat / Camp APP and all in-person APP gatherings including board meetings and committee workgroup meetings. For questions regarding Camp cancellation, please contact Marina at mpecorino@safepiercing.org.

Please stay healthy and financially well as the world moves forward through this crisis.

We look forward to seeing you June 6-11, 2021 at Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas for Conference and the APP Members’ Retreat in 2021!

  THE NEXT SCHEDULED APP IN-PERSON EVENTS:                                           

2021

  • Annual Conference & Exposition
  • Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas — June 6 11.
  • APP Members’ Retreat
  • Atlanta, Georgia — Dates to be determined.

2022

  • Annual Conference & Exposition
  • Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas — June 12 17.
  • APP Members’ Retreat
  • Atlanta, Georgia — Dates to be determined.

2023

  • Annual Conference & Exposition
  • Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas — June 11 16.
  • APP Members’ Retreat
  • Atlanta, Georgia — Dates to be determined.

Point 89: The President’s Corner

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Cody Vaughn

 A lot has changed since I initially wrote this article. Originally I had written about how excited we should all be for our upcoming Conference, and how 2020 was going to be a great year for our piercing community. Little did I know…

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on everybody, and our piercing community is no exception. I understand and sympathize that we are all facing incredible challenges, and the closure of our businesses has been a massive blow to us all.

The Board immediately began working on appropriate responses to the pandemic and how it affects our community. We issued our statement early in March recommending we all discontinue piercing services due to the high risk it could present to our staff and clients, prior to most states issuing mandatory closures. It  was a necessary recommendation, but the economic impact of closures did make it a tough pill to swallow. Each response we have issued regarding COVID-19 has required multiple updates because of how quickly information has been changing, on a near daily basis.

A big question from our community has been whether or not our Conference would still happen this year. The health and safety of our conference attendees, volunteers, speakers and vendors has been our top priority while looking at Conference. The Board put in a lot of work creating protocols and plans for how a scaled back Conference could look given the current situation, and every avenue was investigated as to how we could safely make it happen. Initially there were no Federal guidelines for us to follow and everybody was in a bit of a holding pattern. Information continues to become available about COVID-19; the White House and CDC have begun making suggestions for each state outlining phases to determine when businesses can safely start to reopen. These developments made it clear to the Board that with the current state of affairs our 2020 Conference should not happen.

Prematurely canceling our Conference wasn’t a simple option. Contract negotiations are a sensitive and complicated process and the fiscal impact we could have created by prematurely canceling would have been a heavy financial burden for our organization; a $200,000+ penalty in addition to losing our biggest source of annual revenue.

On a national level, nobody knew how long these forced closure measures would last. A couple of weeks? A month? Our host hotel was initially only willing to discuss options when we were thirty days out from our Conference. But thanks to our Board Members’ decisiveness, and a lot of scheduled meetings, we successfully came to a favorable negotiation earlier than that with our host hotel, which allowed us to cancel our 2020 Conference AND avoid penalties.

We thank you all for your patience and trust while we’ve worked on this. From the outside I can understand how people would think, “You should just cancel it,” and my goodness how we all had hoped it could have been that quick and simple! As Board Members we have a responsibility to be stewards of the organization, and to look out for its well being. That includes upholding our mission statement of health and safety, and looking out for the financial health of the organization.

I am incredibly proud of all of the tireless work our Board Members, Officers, APP staff and volunteers have been putting in to best address all these issues. Like everybody else, we all have our own family, financial responsibilities, and work/studios to worry about. Even with all that, everybody has truly risen to this challenge and continues to do so.

It isn’t to say we are anywhere close to being out of the woods yet, as there is still a lot of work to be done and planning ahead. How this pandemic will affect our community long-term is not yet known. But I know the APP’s Board, employees, and volunteers will all continue to do the absolute best job we possibly can. I implore all of us in the piercing community to be kind and encouraging to each other in these difficult days ahead. We are a large extended family and now is the time for us to come together and show our support for one another.

I hope all of you reading this stay healthy, stay safe, and hang in there. It will be especially sweet when we are all able to safely meet each other again, and come together with our shared passion for safe piercing.