Okay, guys. Here's the deal.
I called the hotel to see if they can't reconsider and let the posters call in their reservations. They can't start doing that until late tomorrow at the absolute earliest.
So I think the best route is to use the online form we had originally planned. We can't, however, in good conscience have anyone filling out the forms until they are secured. That will take until at least Friday when the only guy who can do this for us returns to work.
I feel really bad about this! Totally my fault - I hadn't anticipated that the hotel might not want to take resos directly and so wasn't prepared in advance with an alternative. The secured form was very last second but unfortunately not as efficient a solution as we'd hoped.
If everyone can wait until Friday (will be at least the afternoon, if not later) then we can start taking reservations then.
Again, my deepest apologies.