Springfield | Significant vandalism to the elevators and sprinkler system forced the temporary closure of the Wyndham Springfield City Centre March 28, which was scheduled to host the IBSA annual women’s conference, Priority April 25-26. The Wyndham cancelled all its events for the month. IBSA Leadership Director Carmen Halsey-Menghini and her team shifted into high gear to find a new location.
Tabernacle Baptist Church in Decatur agreed to house the event, and Priority moved ahead as planned. “God is having us deliver this year’s conference in a different wineskin, but the content hasn’t changed, and we’re excited to see what he is doing,” Halsey-Menghini said. Previously she had said how excited the planning group was to bring an all-Illinois teaching team to the platform this year, evidence of the growing discipleship and competence of the women leaders in our state.
Tabernacle has hosted Priority before, and previous attenders will have fond memories of food trucks on the church’s parking lot and the gymnasium and wide hallways serving as exhibit space. Priority has attracted as many as 700 people in that location.
The one-day pre-conference event, which is a smaller discipleship intensive, was relocated to the IBSA Building, which can accommodate about 250 people.
Women were encouraged to continue to register and to invite their friends to attend. “Your presence and participation is vital,” Halsey-Menghini said. “We’re confident that God is up to something, and we will look back on this as a milestone moment.”
The Wyndham, formerly known as the Springfield Hilton, is the tallest building on the city skyline. The downtown facility has served as the site for the IBSA Annual Meeting on several occasions, prior to the more recent engagement of the Crowne Plaza adjacent to I-55 and just a few blocks from the IBSA Building.
The Wyndham hotel has been subject to prolonged debates over redevelopment as a residential apartment or condo complex, with competing developers pitching plans to the City Council. City planners and some council members are concerned about the loss of hotel rooms and large meeting spaces downtown near its own BOS Convention Center.
At press time, IBSA staff and Priority leadership volunteers were ready to open the doors on a promising women’s event focusing on the theme “Together: Unity, not Uniformity.”
Look for coverage of Priority at IllinoisBaptist.org and in the next issue of the Illinois Baptist.