Our Journey, Our Community

Reflections by a Long-time HFA Meeting Planner. By Pat Brown, CMP, HFA’s Vice President of Meetings, DEI & Services

The theme of this year’s conference—Our Journey, Our Community—was fitting because it has been quite a journey over the past 30 years of HFA. As always, this year’s Symposium was all about the HFA community and how resilient we are. 

HFA’s Symposium is an annual event designed to offer our community a chance to learn, network and be with others who experience similar life challenges and accomplishments. More than 700 people came together in April in Indianapolis, Indiana, for what turned out to be a wonderful event full of informative educational sessions, reconnecting with old friends and new ones, and learning about existing and emerging therapies in our exhibit hall and during the industry updates. 

This was my 13th Symposium and to me, this year felt like a reset. Many participants came up to me to express gratitude and to say what a great experience they were having. This seasoned (and sometimes jaded) meeting planner went to my room each night exhausted but feeling a sense of accomplishment. That’s not to say that everything went perfectly but the key is to find solutions and move on. That’s what we did and after all—meeting planning is about adaptability, changing, adjusting, and then adapting some more. 

I think that sums up our Symposium, but it also sums up our community. And I have never seen “community” on display more than I did at this Symposium. It was so wonderful to see blood brothers, blood sisters, dads, moms, caregivers and others that I met years ago, some at my first Symposium in Santa Clara or in Frisco, Texas, and St. Louis. It may sound corny to some, but Symposium really does feel like a big family reunion and Indianapolis did not disappoint.  

As a planner, I have never been able to just sit and enjoy sessions because there is always something that needs my attention, but I was able to sit for parts of sessions and I learned a lot, even though I’ve been with HFA for more than 12 years. There is always more to learn. 

I lost count of the number of people who stopped me to talk about the “From Survival to Thrival in These Interesting Times” session by Lois Hall. They were
even able to repeat parts of her presentation verbatim. I was only able to hear the introduction before I was called away (the life of a meeting planner), but I will say it left me wanting more. (Read more about Lois on page 22.) I was, however, able to watch the Believe Limited movie premiere of On the Shoulder of Giants.

I was in awe of the men and women represented in the movie. I was thrilled to see some familiar faces in the movie and the producers did an amazing job. The icing on the cake was having some of those featured in the movie attend Symposium.  

We offered sessions in Spanish again this year and we also had interpreters who translated sessions from English to Spanish. One of my most memorable moments of the week was when one of our Spanish-speaking participants brought an interpreter over to me and expressed her gratitude that HFA offered sessions in Spanish. She gave me a big hug and kiss and had tears in her eyes. By the end of our conversation, so did I. 

Yes, I would say Our Journey, Our Community was an appropriate theme this year. The journey is far from over and this is a strong which was evident at our 2024 Symposium.