Dear members, friends and colleagues,
Hope all of you are well and safe wherever you are residing whilst most countries are in or moving towards the recovery phase following this pandemic. This is possibly a much more significant challenge than the pandemic phase in some ways ensuring no second peak, which will be disastrous whichever way one looks at it.
To take you therefore straight to the point of my mail and putting into context my introductory paragraph, the ESPU board have met and come to a decision regarding the Joint Meeting to be held in Lisbon in September 2020. We have had to take the painful decision to halt the proceedings for the time being while we see how the situation develops in coming weeks and the directives from authorities in respective countries and the recovery of hospitality industry.
Therefore, there will not be a Joint meeting in Lisbon this September, but alternate arrangements have not yet been finalised. We hope to be able to decide on alternative date or form of this meeting by end of June 2020 and will communicate to you all once the decision is made.
The scientific committee however have already met, and the abstract submissions have been evaluated and selected. The selected abstract authors have been informed. Those whose abstracts have not been selected will not have received an outcome letter yet, because some of the selected abstracts could be withdrawn at the discretion of the authors depending on alternate arrangements that will be put in place. In that scenario, we will select a few more abstracts as necessary to fit in to the program.
I hope to have informed you all sufficiently regarding the Joint meeting for now. Before I end this mail, I would like to reiterate the decision to not have the proposed meeting in Sept 2020 @ Lisbon has been one of the most challenging and painful decisions the board had to make but safety and health of our colleagues, friends and their families are paramount whilst also ensuring the society’s financial impact is mitigated to what we possibly can.
Best wishes and stay safe until the next update in few weeks,
Prof Ramnath Subramaniam
Secretary of ESPU
