HEA's 2010 Conference
This year's conference will be held in San Antonio, Texas, on Columbus Day weekend (Saturday-Monday, October 9-11, 2010). There'll be lots of support, new people to meet, old friends to visit with, stories, sharing, laughter and a few tears, plus real Texas barbeque! The signup form will be online soon.

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The July Newsletter will be posted online very soon.

 

 

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2010 HEA Conference and Retreat

Columbus Day Weekend
(Saturday-Monday, October 9-11, 2010)

The Menger Hotel and Doug Jasper's House
San Antonio, Texas

 

Healing . . . Empowering . . . Advocating

 

Registration

Go here for information about Registration.

 

General Conference Information

Our ninth annual HEA Conference will emphasize support, healing and sharing. No lectures. Rather, we're establishing a safe place for people to share their experience and wisdom with one another. Attendees will include men and women who have been dealing with their hypospadias or epispadias for many years, people who are just starting to learn about their condition, parents with all levels of experience, and health professionals willing to both teach and learn.

This conference is designed to be a relaxed, casual environment where we can learn new things, spend some time healing ourselves, and support one another. Shorts and t-shirts are good with us—we want everyone to be comfortable!

Workshops

Loosely-structured workshops will be held at the Menger Hotel on Saturday (10/9) and Sunday (10/10) from 9:00 am – 2:00 pm; lunch will be “on your own” from 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm on those days. On Monday (10/11), sessions will be held from 9:00 am – 12:00 noon. 

We are planning each workshop to be approximately 20 minutes of presented material with the remainder of the hour open for Q&A with the presenter and further discussion with each other. The list of guest speakers and the workshop itinerary is currently in the process of being developed and will be posted shortly.

The workshops will end promptly at 2:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday. This will allow each of us about 2 hours to either network with others, decompress, have some 1:1 conversations, or just plain sight-see!

Dinner at Doug's

HEA’s mission for this conference is to make it less “clinical” and more “healing.” Our intent is to make this as relaxed and informal as possible. And what’s more relaxed than a down-home big ol’ Texas BBQ?

Between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm on both Saturday and Sunday, we will arrange for group transportation to take us from the Menger Hotel to HEA Board member Doug Jasper’s house (approximately 25 miles away). Group transportation will also be available for our return to the Menger Hotel.

Once there, we will enjoy the gen-u-ine Texas Hoe-Down and BBQ! After we’ve shared a savory meal, we’ll get together for some informal small groups around the campfire! This will allow us some additional access to our experts, as well as time for our own personal healing and supporting others.

Accommodations

The Menger Hotel (http://mengerhotel.com/) is an elegant hotel located in beautiful downtown San Antonio, TX — only 1 block away from the historic Alamo (http://thealamo.org/) and the relaxing Riverwalk (http://www.sanantonioriverwalk.com/photo.html)! 

HEA has negotiated a low rate of $100/night+tax (single, double, or 1 bedroom suite) and has a block of rooms set aside for the HEA Conference; there is a $20 charge for a rollaway bed. Rooms need to be booked by 9/23 in order to be guaranteed.

Some of the amenities at the Menger include the following:

  • An in-house spa, fitness facility, and heated outdoor pool
  • The Colonial Room restaurant and the Famous Menger bar
  • Free coffee in the lobby from 6:00 am – 9:00 am
  • Free high speed internet 

Camping - Doug has a large enough piece of land to host all of this and has offered up the option to camp out (literally). If you would like information regarding camping out at Doug’s, please contact him ASAP at DougJasper@HEAinfo.org.

Travel

Please use the Orbitz or Hotwire links below to book your flight to San Antonio International Airport.

The Menger is less than 10 miles away from the San Antonio International Airport. There are a variety of ways to get back and forth between the airport and the Menger (http://www.sanantonio.gov/Aviation/groundtransportation.asp).

You can book a shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel ($18 one way or $32 round trip); these buses leave every 15 minutes.

If you choose to rent a vehicle, the Menger offers valet parking for $25/day+tax; there are also city parking facilities nearby that offer rates from $6-18/day.

Further Information

HEA will be sending out an additional information packet to all registrants in mid-September. This packet will include additional details, maps, directions, etc.