The second Now Childless Conference is in the planning stages for April 20-22, 2007, at The Inn at Pima in Scottsdale, AZ.

To encourage those of you still needing to make a decision as to whether you will attend the
Conference, I want to give you some additional information that may help in that decision-making.

Many have already sent in registration forms. There are people from all over the United States coming. We have registered both couples and singles. Cost of the conference is $50 per person or $90, if a couple. Rooms at the Inn at Pima are $99 a night if you do not live in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area.

We are a group of parents who have lost their only child or all their children for many reasons including: accidents, suicides, illnesses, miscarriages, overdoses and murders. At the last conference we even had one mother who had lost all three of her children. To go to a conference such as this is special. We do not have to listen to anyone talk about surviving children; we have a special bond; and we can talk freely about our situations. This is what we found out at our first conference in December 2004. It was a comfort zone nothing else could match. And now we are meeting again. Many of you are newly bereaved; others are in different stages and still others are very far along, as many as 25+ years. We all enjoy being together no matter how long it has been and believe we can help and comfort each other.

As chairperson of this event, I can tell you that we will have many interesting speakers. You will get a chance to hear as many as eight different speakers at this conference during different time slots, along with special sharing sessions in the afternoon and evenings. Some of our sessions will include: legal issues for childless parents, hope for the bereaved, getting through holidays/anniversaries; what to do with belongings; impact of your child?s death on others, and exercising to stay healthy. Others are still in the works. In each time slot there will only be two sessions to choose from and a few will be repeated due to popularity. This way you won?t miss one that you really want to attend.

In addition to workshops we will have a few keynote speakers, two of whom so far are Kay Bevington, founder of Alive Alone, and Diana Cunningham, former executive director of Compassionate Friends. We are still working on a third speaker for the last morning.

In the evenings we will have sharing sessions in which we sit in a circle and everyone has the chance to express any feelings, talk about their child, and ask any questions that arise.

We will again have grief books for sale, a butterfly table with wonderful items on it for you to purchase, a trip to Tucson as an afternoon activity on the second day, and a very special ceremony dedicated to our children on the last day of the conference.

It is my hope that this conference will give you renewed hope and courage to face the future through meeting new people and hearing their stories and words of encouragement. I hope you can arrange your schedule to attend and look forward to seeing many of you there.

If you have any questions or want registration materials, contact Sandy Fox at sfoxaz@hotmail.com or call 480-595-1503.