Organising a Meeting

Introduction

 The Midlands Thoracic Society holds two clinical meetings in the spring and autumn of each year. These are organised by different consultants and their colleagues throughout the West Midlands region so that the venue changes for every meeting. Historically these meetings have usually been held at hospital postgraduate centres, but as the membership of the MTS has grown in size such venues are often not large enough to accommodate all the delegates, and members have used independent venues. Holding a successful MTS meeting can be most rewarding but the key is organisation. This document provides hot tips for potential organisers.

Early planning of the date and venue

 It is essential that the date of the meeting is planned well in advance (at least 4 to 6 months) to allow sufficient time for organisation and to enable the delegates to commit the date to their diaries. The Spring meeting is usually held at the end of March or the beginning of April. It is important to ensure that this does not clash with any other national or international meetings, e.g. the ATS. The MTS meetings are held all day on a Friday.

The Spring Meeting

 The Spring meeting must incorporate the session for two bursary prizes. The Annual General Meeting of the MTS takes place at the end of the Spring meeting, and when booking the venue, an extra hour should be allocated to enable this meeting to take place.

The Autumn Meeting

 The Autumn meeting is held in October, avoiding the European Respiratory Society meeting. The organisers should book a small room for approx 90 mins to enable a meeting of the MTS Council to take place at the end of the meeting.

Choosing the venue

 Even if the postgraduate centre is large enough to be able to accommodate the number of delegates, it is important to ensure that there is also adequate provision for protected parking (there may be over 100 delegates). If this is not possible then choose a suitable venue with conference facilities and adequate parking. It is important to book the venue between 4-6 months in advance.

Accessibility

 If an off site venue is used it is important to choose somewhere that is geographically easily accessible.

Speakers

 It is important to invite speakers at least six months in advance, particularly if you intend inviting speakers with an international reputation. Try to ensure agreement in writing for a particular date. Additional funding may be available from the MTS for speakers travelling from abroad (see below).

 It is appropriate that speakers are given feedback on their talk and due appreciation is given to them for having supported the meeting. An early letter is essential after the meeting.

 It may take some time to gather funds together after the meeting to be able to pay the speaker, and it is important therefore to send an initial letter to them thanking them for their presentation.

 Disasters do happen and speakers may cancel at the last minute. It would always be worthwhile, therefore, to have one or two possible speakers in the wings in case of such an event. This could be a local health professional.

Database of Members

 It is important to obtain the database of members (currently available as an Excel file) from the Secretary of the MTS early on (currently Richard Lewis Richard.Lewis@worcsacute.wmids.nhs.uk ), and to advise them of the date of the meeting. An up to the minute database of the SpRs should also be obtained since these doctors’ contact addresses change quite rapidly. This makes it possible for the organisers to address envelopes, but also to send out correspondence and reminders to most members by email. The 6 monthly meetings are often the best time to revise the database. Therefore it is important that the organisers take note of those addresses and email addresses which are no longer functional, the contact names, addresses and email addresses of any additional delegates, and confirmation of all contact details of all those who reply and attend. The MTS secretary should be informed of any additional information after the meeting. There are reduced fees available for members. However may delegates may feel that they are members even if they have not paid their membership fees for the current year. Membership fee reduction is only to be allowed for fully paid up members as confirmed on the database.

 It is the responsibility of the organiser to send out the dates and programmes in good time. The MTS Webmaster should also be sent a copy of the programme for inclusion on the MTS website as soon as possible.

Structure of the programme

 The meetings are largely clinically based. The Spring meeting incorporates the Travelling Bursary presentations and posters as outlined above as well as the Annual General Meeting. It would be helpful if the Annual General Meeting were allocated the last session before lunch to which all are invited to enable more of the MTS membership to take part in this aspect of the society, and not to leave the AGM for the last session of the day to which a few of the more senior members of the Society attend.

 The meetings take place over a whole day. Often the afternoon session is split, with one parallel session being targeted more towards physicians, and an alternative session accommodating specific interests of nurses and allied health professionals. This session should be organised with the help of local nurse and allied health professional colleagues, but additional help may be sought from one of the appropriate nursing/PAM members of the Council. It is important therefore to ensure that the plenary sessions to which all the delegates attend should be of more general interest, leaving those sessions more appropriate to physicians to the afternoon split sessions.

 Refreshments should be organised with tea and coffee breaks at the beginning before the meeting starts and at suitable times in the morning and afternoon. Talks should be for a maximum of 30 mins leaving 10 mins for questions and then allowing time to catch up if there is any delay in between. Thus 45 mins are allocated for talk and questions. Interactive group sessions are of particular value but are inevitably more difficult to organise.

Travelling fellowship sessions

 The Spring meeting incorporates a session where members are invited to submit abstracts in advance of the meeting. The organiser should consider requesting submission of abstracts for these prizes at the time of the initial mailing to the membership. The Harold Thomas Travelling Fellowship is a £500 bursary for doctors to facilitate travel to an international respiratory meeting or other educational event of the winner’s choice. The MTS Travelling Fellowship for Nurse/Healthcare Scientists and allied health professionals also has a value of £500. Doctors are required to undertake verbal presentations (strictly timed 10 mins leaving 5 mins for discussion). No overrun is allowed and they should use PowerPoint. Four talks should be short listed out of those submitted for the bursary.  . A poster session is recommended for nurses (possibly with a very brief verbal session with bullet points lasting approx. 2-3  minutes per poster). Six posters should be short listed out of those submitted. It is important to send out details of the Spring meeting early and invite submissions and instructions for these prizes in the first mailing. Submissions in the form of an A4 summary should be sent to the meeting organiser, who should in turn choose a small representative committee to select the short listed candidates and to choose the winner on the day.

 Poster boards and space in the programme for poster viewing will need to be arranged by the organiser. The hiring of poster boards can be very expensive, particularly if held at a conference centre or hotel. This is something that needs to be anticipated well in advance.

Printing the programme

 The programme can be designed using desk top publishing and does not need to be produced professionally. Appropriate software such as Map Quest is available. An electronic version of the MTS logo is available from the MTS Secretary. The Programme needs to incorporate a good map and a brief description of how to get to the venue.

 It would also be appropriate to give thanks in the programme to the companies supporting the meeting.

 The programme will need to include a reply slip, asking for cheques to be made payable to a designated meeting fund. It is useful if the organisers allocate a separate fund for this.  

Audio visual facilities

 It is important to have all audio visual facilities, including PowerPoint, slides, overheads etc. available. There needs to be an individual present at all times to troubleshoot any problems that arise. It such a person is not available at the venue then there are professional audiovisual organisers who can be employed (e.g. Geoff Sheard, Sheard@ntlworld.cim). An advantage of using such individuals is that they are prepared to work with a mix of different computers and audiovisuals and will provide whatever equipment is not available to the local organiser. Costs can run from £350 to £900. More and more speakers are now bringing their full range of talks and videos on CD Rom or USB mass storage device (memory stick). It is helpful to consider that members may wish to have handouts of the presentation, or to be able to access certain tables or information from the presentation in an electronic form. Therefore it may be useful to put all talks onto the Desktop and to consider saving appropriate parts as a CD Rom for later access with the permission of the speaker. The MTS Secretary may then organise appropriate dissemination to the membership on request.

MTS AGM

 The AGM is held during the Spring meeting and should preferably be held as the last session before lunch to encourage MTS members to attend, but to enable non-members to visit the pharmaceutical stands in the meantime. 45 minutes should be allocated to this meeting.

Funding

 Approximately 8 companies may need to be asked to sponsor the meeting each providing £600. This can be broken down into monies for the stand and to support the speakers or lumped together as a single fee.

 The majority of funding for the MTS meeting is raised through sponsorship from the pharmaceutical companies. It is important that sponsors have adequate access on the day of the meeting and that the distribution of base position is reasonably fair for their display boards, etc. Having the sponsors in the same room as the lunch and coffee break facilities is a good way to encourage delegates to mingle around the stands. In the past sponsorship has been obtained from Alk Abello, Actelion, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer, Cephalon, Glaxo Smith Kline, IVAX, MSD, Napp, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, as well as some specialised companies such as Profile Therapeutics, Radiologic, and ResMed.

 The costs of holding meetings are considerable. Speakers’ fees vary depending on whether local or coming from a distance and may run up to £300. However also consider that travelling expenses can add between £100 and £250 to the cost of having even a UK speaker.

 There is often a problem in knowing exactly how many delegates are going to attend as, inevitably, some delegates turn up on the day. Depending on the venue, the meeting may run to £3000 to £5000 but it is essential that the organisers identify enough funding from sponsors plus income from delegates to ensure that costs can be met.

 Delegates fees should be (as of 2004) £25 for all doctors and £10 for all others who are members of the MTS  with an additional £5 payable by non-members (ie £30 for doctors and £15 for others).

 The MTS has a budget that can be accessed for meetings but there is inevitably a limit to the money that is available. IT is essential that the organiser keeps in close contact with the MTS Treasurer (currently Dr Christine O’Brien, The George Eliot Hospital, College Street, Nuneaton CV10 7DJ,  cob27@doctors.org.uk.

 A separate meeting fund account will enable local organisers to accept delegates’ fees and sponsorship money and pay speakers’ expenses. Accounts and receipts should be kept and submitted to the MTS Treasurer along with any profits made from the meeting or request for additional help from MTS funds to cover unmet expenses. Any profit should be paid over to the MTS account to help defray other MTS expenses or support meetings which are not able to make a profit. It is not acceptable for the organisers to keep profits for themselves.

Meeting people on the day

 Thought should be given as to how the delegates will be met and greeted with arrangements for provision of identification badges/labels and spare / updated copies of the programme, and additional badges, delegate packs, and programmes for those booking on the day.

 It is hoped that this document will be of help to organisers of the MTS events in the future. If you identify any additional points which may be of benefit to future organisers, or points which are not longer applicable, please let the Secretary know.

Initial document written by Jonathan Mann December 2001

Revised by Richard Lewis October 2004

Current secretary of the MTS.

Richard.Lewis@worcsacute.wmids.nhs.uk

Direct dial 01905 760237

Worcestershire Royal Hospital

Aconbury East

Charles Hastings Way

Worcester WR5 1DD

Copyright © 2003-2005 Midland Thoracic Society