LimmudNY Followup: Dude, Where’s My Stuff?

As you may have heard, I had a really disappointing time at the LimmudNY conference this past weekend. Although I was excited about the weekend’s slate of activities, the whole thing ultimately went bust, and my coworker and I ended up heading home several hours after arriving to the venue because the hotel lacked heat and didn’t have enough rooms to go around. In that same post, I included a statement from a Limmud staffer about whether they were going to issue refunds: "I would hope that no one would do that to Limmud, which is a fundraising organization."

So, Limmud expects me – and a lot of other people whose weekends were ruined and who had to either share a single room with four other people or break Shabbat in order to leave and go home – to eat the cost of the conference simply because they’re "a fundraising organization"? No way. But we can get to that later. There’s one other problem that’s even more pressing.

My coworker, Hayley, and I were attending Limmud in part so that we could participate in the "Shuk," an onsite space in the hotel where we could sell Jewcy merchandise to conference attendees. We were each charged $50 for the privilege. Because there were a lot of items we wanted to sell and not a lot of space in our suitcases, we arranged to have all of our products shipped to the Nevele a few days before Limmud started. However, we have been entirely unsuccessful having our stuff sent back to us, even though we’ve offered to pay the cost of shipping ourselves (you see, we’re a fundraising organization here at Jewcy, and one way we raise those funds is by selling the T-shirts that are now lost in the Nevele netherworld). No one at the Nevele claims to know anything about where our stuff is, even though they confirmed the boxes’ arrival last week. And it’s next to impossible to get in touch with anyone from Limmud, as the mostly volunteer organization is in the process of moving their office from the Nevele back to their Manhattan headquarters. 

Today, an email entitled "Thank You for Being Part of Limmud 2009" appeared in my inbox. Here’s a particularly interesting excerpt:

Of course, that’s not to say that we would have chosen the challenges that the Nevele’s boiler breakdown presented for all of the cold, crowded participants, and for the conference volunteers who had to revise plans for rooming, programming, and other affected areas. Please know that the health and safety of our participants were our paramount consideration. We are grateful to the dozens of volunteers who worked around the clock, to address the physical plant issues and resulting problems, as well as to the overwhelming numbers of you who also pitched in – in true Limmud spirit – offering to share your extra sweaters, and even your hotel rooms, with total strangers. To those LimmudNYks who did not come to the conference, or chose to leave early, we understand and share your frustration and disappointment. We are now in the process of identifying the recourse we have against the hotel for failing to provide the accommodations, facilities, and services we contracted for. 

This is such a non-apology apology. I’m glad they admitted the boiler/heating issues caused a lot of problems for people, but I don’t really think anyone was offering to share their hotel rooms so much as being forced to.  However, getting the Nevele to reimburse attendees’ money is a good start but certainly not the only course of action. The $750 that I paid to attend the conference covered a lot more than the price of a hotel room. And because of the lack of accommodations, I wasn’t able to eat any of the food, attend any of the seminars, or participate in the Shuk – all things I paid for. A partial reimbursement from the hotel is a nice start. But it’s not enough.

We can talk about full refunds later. For the time being, though, Limmud, I’d like my stuff back. Or at least an actual human being on the phone who can tell me where it is and what I can do about it.