Wow. A lot has happened since my last entry. I received dose number 2, and side effects aside, I feel much better about so many things on the other side of that needle prick. The CDC came out and said fully vaccinated people can ditch the mask outdoors, and then earlier this week added indoors as well to their recommendation. I will temper the rest of my message with this – we aren’t out of the woods yet (especially looking around the globe), but the light at the end of the tunnel is a bright as it has ever been. Lets all do our part in getting us all the way back to normal.
As for ISA St. Louis, May is traditionally the end of our Program year. We still work on great events throughout the summer, but the month to month Program routine gets a little bit of a break here. While we are planning to continue to utilize tools like Zoom as much as possible, we have had a couple planned speakers recently tell us they are comfortable presenting in person if we are ready for in person events. This is a good sign that normal appears to be returning.
How do we shift gears back to normal? My hope is getting back in person will be a little bit like riding a bike. I truly feel that we now get to go back to what we do best – in person events, plant tours, and continuing education seminars for our professional community. We put up a poll on LinkedIn last month, and all though the sample size was small, everyone was at the very least somewhat comfortable going back to in person events. It seems like everyone is ready to get back to normal.
Rest assured we will follow all local protocols and recommendations from the CDC and local health authorities to ensure we are presenting our programs and events in a safe manner. If you have any concerns or questions before you come to an event, let us know. We want to make sure everyone is as comfortable as possible attending our events and programs.
Our programming team of Kevin and Andre’ are hard at work finding those in person events that meet the high expectations of this group. In the near term we are planning a low-key welcome back event at a local park, which will allow us to socially distance in the open air. You will also see info soon on our Annual Golf Outing with our friends at MBAA-St. Louis in September. We also have a couple really good updates in the works on some cutting edge technologies being used in industrial automation. If you know of someone that might be interested in hosting an event or speaking – let us know that too!
Looking forward to seeing you all soon!
Cory N. Kniepp
ISA St. Louis Section, President