The National Conference Committee of the ACPE has just been alerted to the fact that our annual meeting to be held in Indianapolis during May 15-18, 2013 has been regrettably scheduled during the Holy period of Shavuot. It is with great sadness that this has occurred.
Year in and year out we work with multiple dates and multiple schedules of hotel availability all the while doing our best to avoid sacred dates and other holidays. We then field bids from the hotels before deciding on a site. This particular conflict during the 2013 meeting slipped by us. The sincerest apology to our community is not enough. We hope to learn from this unintended mishap and be better persons and planners going forward.
While we cannot at this time change our mistake, we are hopeful that we can draw positive attention to this particular religious holy day and to accentuate other holy days when they come into close proximity to our meetings. Religious traditions are the roots of our movement. We enjoy the rich blessings of growth and support because of the courage of others to bring holy living into our cultures. For this particular time of Shavuot we are thankful for the revelation of the Torah and the Moses Sinai experience. We are also grateful for the rich lessons afforded to us at the readings about Ruth and the reciting of the Ten Commandments.
For this upcoming meeting and going forward the National Conference Committee will redouble our efforts to make religious traditions a critical center of our activity and where we can, we will become even more sensitive to the needs of our community in relationship to religious schedules.
