We've gotten more calendar questions this week than any other kind, which makes sense — right now a webinar link is a sure thing and a plane ticket is not. The one we can answer specifically involves our late-May goat-and-sheep-milk workshop, currently scheduled for late May and, as of today, still listed as an in-person session at its original venue.
We're not moving it online preemptively, and we're not pretending the decision is simple. Several members registered for this one specifically because hands-on vat work over video only teaches you so much — you can watch someone check a curd's break on a screen, but you can't feel it. At the same time, a room full of people from several regions is exactly the gathering public health guidance keeps telling us to avoid, and several members registered from areas with tighter restrictions than the venue's own region.
What we're watching before we decide
Trade shows and industry gatherings across the country have spent March and April cancelling or postponing in waves, and late May sits right at the edge of where a lot of organizers are still guessing rather than knowing. We're watching three things specifically: whether the venue's local restrictions still permit a gathering of our expected size, whether our instructor and a reasonable share of registrants can travel to it at all, and whether the guidance in our own region has moved meaningfully in either direction by the two-week mark before the date. We'll make the in-person-or-postponed call with enough runway for anyone who needs to change travel plans, and we'll email registrants directly rather than making them check back here.
If it does go forward, capacity will likely be lower than originally planned, with space held for members who can travel locally rather than filled by early national registration. If it doesn't, everyone registered rolls forward to the next offering at no cost — we're not asking anyone to eat a cancellation fee for a call this far out of their control.
This isn't the only date on our calendar facing the same question, but it's the nearest one, which is why it's getting the most detailed answer right now. Several summer workshops and one of our webinars are far enough out that we're holding off on any announcement at all — there's no useful information to give members eight or ten weeks ahead of a date when guidance itself is changing week to week. We'd rather tell you "we don't know yet, check back closer to the date" than manufacture a decision before there's anything solid to base it on.
In the meantime
If you were on the fence about registering because of the timing, hold off rather than committing and hoping — we'd rather answer the "will this happen" question honestly than take a registration we might have to unwind. And if a workshop like this one matters to your operation regardless of format, tell the Events Committee directly; it's shaping how much of this year's calendar gets rebuilt as virtual sessions versus held for whenever in-person gathering makes sense again.
We also know that "wait and see" is a frustrating answer when you're trying to plan a trip, arrange coverage at your own creamery, or decide whether to hold a spot in your own calendar for a hands-on session versus writing the week off entirely. We don't have a way to make that uncertainty smaller than it actually is right now, but we can at least keep it from being a surprise — which is the whole reason for this post instead of silence until the date arrives.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.