Please note the updated information below regarding our upcoming 2010 International Convention in San Antonio.  More hotel rooms are being added to the block - if you have reserved a hotel room that is part of the block of rooms gathered for us by GSO then you are assured shuttle service to and from the Convention Center and the Alamodome for the big meetings on Friday and Saturday nights.

If I can answer any questions specifically or you have concerns please contact me.  Thanks to all of you for your service to the Northeast Texas Area and your respective home groups and districts!!

Jimmy
Delegate Panel 59 Area 65

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Dear Friends,

I wanted to give you a brief update on the International Convention.  It’s been very busy since my September 4 update.  Over 20,000 people registered for the International Convention already.   However, this does not necessarily mean a larger attendance, just that folks are registering early.  As I mentioned in my email to you earlier this month, tying hotels to registration on a first-come, first-served basis really got us off to a busy start. 

Hotel Reservations

For this Convention, we anticipated that providing rooms to registered attendees on a first-come, first-served basis would affect the number of people who registered and reserved housing early.  The expectation was that we might see a slight increase from the number of early registrants who participated in the hotel lottery for previous Conventions.  Personally, I expected that we would see half again as many, at most.  For the 2005 International Convention in Toronto, only 3,000 rooms had been requested when they began assigning roomsin November of 2004.  So we felt confident that we were in good shape for the opening of registration and housing. 

However, after registration for San Antonio opened on September 1, our initial block of hotel rooms virtually sold out in less than two weeks.  Most of the downtown core hotel rooms had been reserved within one week. These numbers are unprecedented.  While we were able to respond to the demand and almost immediately add rooms and some new properties downtown, these rooms also sold out right away.  This total number of rooms, over 8,000, is not historically reserved until the February before the Convention. 

Housing Still Available

We continue to expand the selection of rooms in the outlying areas.  There are rooms available through the Convention Housing Bureau, and new rooms are added to the reservation system as they come online.  We do not expect to have additional rooms downtown available in our block. 

Shuttle Service

We will provide shuttle service at no charge to registered Convention attendees.  All of the housing booked through the Convention Housing Bureau will be included in the shuttle service. 

I hope this information is helpful to you, as you attend assemblies and conferences this fall.  We are in the process of updating our Web site with this information.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can provide more info about next year’s Convention.  Excitement’s rising, and we’re looking forward to a wonderful Convention! 

In fellowship,
Rick Walker
2010 International Convention Coordinator