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Dear OMEA Members, This is an extremely busy time for music educators! I want to thank you for taking time away from all of your responsibilities to read these short but important messages. Choosing a Site to Attend Entering Performers Vocal All List and Searching for Performers Summary of Events Form Registering on a Phone! I recommend that you take care of your housing needs for the conference prior to Christmas break. The Hilton and Drury hotels are now sold-out. I recommend the Marriott and Westin as the next best choices. Mail-in registration closes on January 11. Remember that the central office for most school systems is closed during the holidays. Submitting your request for payment right before Christmas break is not advisable. Note that the Conference is one week earlier this year. Online registration closes on January 18! Lastly, once again we are finding that members may be receiving email advertisement about the conference from third party providers. These may be housing “deals” or simply advertisement from exhibitors. Please rest assured that OMEA is not releasing your information! Companies are using “robot scrubbers” to trawl school district websites searching for key words such as “music teacher”. Since these sites are available to the public, this allows them to capture names and work emails (private emails if teacher provided) and then market these as a “list of attendees” at the OMEA Conference. While some of the names they capture are in fact attendees, many are not and often many are not even OMEA members. The email address you provided to OMEA is only housed in the website and through the security of your login credentials, your information is not available to the public and cannot be leveraged by these companies. Lastly, I wish you a Happy Holiday Season and look forward to seeing many of you in Cleveland January 31 – February 2. Complete information about the conference including registration and housing links is located at www.omeapdc.com Best wishes, Roger A. Hall |
