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 Mommy, Are We There Yet?
By Lila Adair, President-Elect and Program Chair
July 16, 2007
How many times have you heard those awful words on a long trip? Did they make you want to scream or pull your hair out? I hear a slightly different version of that question every day as, “Lila, do we have everything ready for the summer meeting yet?” In less than two short weeks, we will finally be there, at the end of our long journey to Greensboro. Have you ever wondered how a national AAPT meeting is set up, who plans it, how the location is chosen, who makes out the schedule or a dozen other questions? Sit back and relax while I tell you how it all comes together.
First we need a location. Years in advance, a city or a university makes a proposal to invite AAPT to their location for a specific summer or winter meeting. Reasons vary, but all proposals are welcomed. For example, the University of Utah invited us and housed us in the new Olympics 2002 dorms, and the University of Alberta invited us for their 100th year celebration. New Orleans invited us to a hotel right outside the French Quarter, while Orlando invited us to a new hotel near Disney World. Some sites provide excellent opportunities for attendance by spouses and families as a special bonus and even provide field trips to local attractions.
Once we receive the proposal, it goes to the new AAPT Meetings Committee to check that the site meets all of the criteria. Then a small team from the programs and meetings staff in the College Park office and members of the Meetings Committee visit the site with their check list (How to Host a Summer Meeting). If the site qualifies, it is added to a list of potential hosts. The location host and the AAPT staff put together a formal proposal with potential costs of housing and transportation, facilities available, proximity to airports and other transportation hubs, special attractions, and any other items that might make their site attractive to AAPT. The proposal is then presented to the AAPT Council, made up of the Section Representatives and the Executive Board, who vote on the site for the meeting.
Once the site is selected, the program chair and AAPT staff return for another site-visit to meet with the host and local arrangements committee. The active participation of the local host is critical to the success of a meeting. A theme is selected, a list of guest and plenary speakers is developed, and negotiations begin with university conference center staff, physics department members, dorm services, food services, and the conference staff of the host hotel. Financial arrangements are made for sleeping rooms, meeting rooms, food services, and local transportation as needed. This process continues over many months until a final contract is signed and the dates of the meeting are confirmed and listed on the AAPT website (Future Meetings).
One year before the meeting, chairs of all areas committees are asked to work with their committees and constituency groups to submit proposals for sessions and workshops (How to Organize a Session or Workshop). Each committee has an allotment for workshops and sessions based on their previous five-year history of workshops and sessions offered and attendance at those. That allotment is updated from time to time. After acceptance by the national program chair (Vice President for winter meetings and President-Elect for summer meetings) each committee chair is responsible for providing a list of invited speakers, descriptions of workshops and sessions, call for papers if desired, and other critical paperwork (Calendar of Deadlines). The national program chair may solicit special sessions from local scientific institutions or laboratories, areas of interest related to the theme, cutting-edge physics topics, or sister societies. Proposals are not accepted from individual members, but must be submitted from a committee or the program chair.
Immediately following the proposal acceptance, titles are posted on the AAPT website and individuals may submit abstracts (Submit an Abstract). Individuals are encouraged to designate the session in which they wish to speak or present their poster. Abstracts are accepted only from AAPT members or individuals who are sponsored by a member. An individual may give one contributed paper and/or multiple posters per meeting. After the abstract deadline, the paper sort committee—program chair, local host, three area chairs, and the AAPT meetings director—meets for two-and-a-half days at ACP to sort the papers into sessions, set up the schedule of paper and poster sessions, crackerbarrels, committee meetings, and all other functions for each day of the meeting. After all room assignments have been made and conflicts have been researched, individual presenters are notified of their date and time, along with information concerning media services available at the site. Plans are currently under way to make this entire process paperless, greatly saving time and cost and increasing efficiency.
Before those letters go out, a lot of behind-the-scenes work goes on at the central office. Perhaps you have received e-mails from the Meetings team: Tiffany Hayes, Natasha Randall, or Jackie Determan; or from the Programs team: Maria Elena Khoury, Annette Coleman, or Janet Lane; or from some of the Communications & Publications team: Jane Chambers or Rob Headrick. They are the ones checking all of the details, resolving conflicts, and producing publications and signage for the meeting. They file all of the proposals, type in the titles and organizers for all sessions, collect the invited speaker list, and photocopy all of the abstracts for the sorters. After the sort, they verify membership for each speaker, make sure that no one has more than one paper, cross-reference for overlap of presentations, and check the footnotes and comments for potential conflicts. They also make hotel arrangements for all plenary and award speakers, make sure there are enough meeting rooms reserved in the hotel and/or university for all workshops and sessions, assign presiders, and keep track of registration materials. They also handle all of your phone calls and e-mails concerning the meeting.
Beginning with the Greensboro meeting, the AAPT sent to all members a Program Preview with information about Greensboro, registration information, meeting highlights, the times and dates of special events, award and plenary speakers, committee meetings, and all workshops and sessions. Soon thereafter a complete Online Program Schedule and Itinerary Builder went live featuring a list of all events and abstracts of all presentations—I highly recommend the itinerary builder feature. Lastly, a complete Onsite Program Guide ("abstract book") will be available at the meeting for attendees. (A PDF of the guide is available to the public here).
The meeting is less than two weeks away, and we are all in the final stages of preparation. The local arrangements committee is signing-up volunteer guides and putting the finishing touches on the picnic, demo show, and t-shirts. The programs staff is double checking on arrangements at Davidson College for the Computational Physics Topical Conference, dorm rooms and food services for the PTRA institute, and the workshops on the UNCG campus and the PER and PhysTec Conferences. The meetings staff is checking on travel plans, arranging alternative housing--for the dorms, which are now full, and for the hotel, in case it fills up, finalizing menus for the luncheons, negotiating AV arrangements, confirming exhibitor contracts, and making sure all is confirmed with the company shipping our material to Greensboro. The publications staff is finalizing the onsite addendum; preparing maps, signs, and audio/video; and making contacts with media outlets in Greensboro.
As you can imagine, hundreds of volunteers and professional staff members are involved in putting together a meeting: the local arrangements committee, national program committee, area committee chairs and members, paper sort committee, university and hotel staff, AAPT central office team, the Executive Board, publishers and printers, AV companies, delivery services, exhibitors, local volunteers and guides, the members themselves, and many other behind-the-scenes people. As of July 16, we had more than 1,000 attendees preregistered for Greensboro, not counting exhibitors. That is amazing, and I have each and every one of you to thank for your part in making this the biggest and best AAPT meeting ever.
Now you know the secrets. So, the next time someone asks you how or why something happened at a national meeting, sit back, take a deep breath, and explain all of the inner workings of planning a meeting.
Enjoy your next few weeks, and I hope to see you in Greensboro. No, we are not there yet, but much closer. It is right around the bend.
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