---
tags: Conference planning
---

# 2024 Live Conference

## Decisions (04.04.2024)
- Lunch at Mau-Kas (Richard ?)
- reserve one room
- specify in e-mail that we don't know exact number
- is it free to cancel reservations? By when if yes?
- Coffee breaks:
- catering from Mau-Kas
- by when do we need to reserve?
- how does the delivery work?
- Sauna:
- already booked
- Rooms:
- already booked
- Room at Fat Lizard:
- is this still self-paid?
-

- Abstracts:
- we review them through Zulip
- probably full acceptance
- by Friday 12th we send out acceptance letter
- authors need to register for place in schedule

- full registrations and reservations:
- end of April: closure of sign ups
- definitive reservations for Coffee and Mau-Kas
- email of information first week of May:
- who comes to sauna
- who comes to dinner

## TODO:
- [x] Write to Täffa (restaurant) (Richard)
- [x] Announce call for abstracts
- [x] Twitter/Mastodon: Matteo
- [ ] Internal nodes: everyone
- [x] newsletter: Jarno
- [ ] Announce registration
- [ ] Twitter/Mastodon: Matteo
- [ ] Internal nodes: everyone
- [x] newsletter: Jarno
- [x] Open registration (Jarno, Matteo)
- Include fields: Sauna, dinner
- [ ] Abstract selection (Matteo, Stephan, Jarno, Luca?)
- [ ] Local things
- [x] Get options for meals (lunch ×2, dinner (self-paid), coffee × 3 do we need breakfast on day 1?)
- [ ] Get photos of venue and restaurants
- [x] Sauna reservation
- [ ] Write up full schedule
- [ ] Suggestions for hotels?
- forenom in otaniemi: https://www.forenom.com/fi/hostellit/espoo/forenom-hostel-espoo-otaniemi/
- omena hotel in helsinki center (but easily reachable by metro)
- [X] get information about 2025 conference
- Matteo proposes a conference at Gothenburg University, Sweden (he will gather information about costs and organization)

## Notes

- Responsible persons
- Conference organizer: Matteo Tomasini
- Aalto local organization: Richard Darst (and Jarno)
- Sponsors
- Richard communicates with AaltoSciComp
- Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity
- Program
- Advertisement
- Volunteers
- location
- Aalto, Kide (new building) + Thursday morning informal (see more below)
- dates: May 30-31
- 27-29 May: NeIC conference, Tallinn
- Presubmitted topics and agenda
- This helps people get funding
- Need a small program committee

- Call for abstracts
- Need to send out quickly
- What is the focus? Networking for RSEs, or something more specific?
- Sessions (We ask for contributions on these topics):
- Open session
- Best practices session
- Technical session
- Soft skills / Community session
- Add: share your project? Or is this the technical session?
- Types of submissions:
- Talk
- Workshop (audience participation or type along)

- sponsorship
- ask some companies / university to sponsor the event or some sub-event like sauna evening
- offer e.g. a stand where they can deliver brochures/swag, etc.
- possible candidates? (just brainstorming, not asked)
- CSC
- NeIC
- https://www.helsinki.fi/en/infrastructures/fcci
- > Let's prepare some text that we can then adjust and send to possible candidates
- what is Nordic-RSE and why do we need a conference
- what kind of people do we expect
- (personalized) why they might be interested in sponsoring
- what options for sponsoring do whe have
- sauna
- dinner
- goodiebag
- ...?

- Incentivice people to chair and do other tasks
- Include names in agenda, website
- Wave fee if volunteers ask for it
- Budgeted 5 extra lunches

- technical issues
- do we want to record and publish talks afterwards?
- needed to be taken into account when reserving rooms
- we will need 1-2 rooms in parallel --> most likely not an issue to find a room with good AV setup for this in Aalto
- Need permission to publish talks
- When recording, we could offer stream too ?
- we are a Nordic thingy, and not everyone may be able to travel
- focus should be on in-person attendees though
- stream just for listening in

- Tickets selling:
- use eventbrite?
- cost:
- free up to 20 tickets
- 10e up to 100 tickets

Timeline:
- set up website
- ASAP, mid-November
- set up registration (eventbrite)
- early January
- open abstract call
- mid-December
- close abstract call
- mid-January
- open registrations
- end of January
- close registrations
- end of March

Budget:
- catering would likely be the only cost
- option for "gala dinner"?
- Matteo proposes that the "gala" dinner is paid by participants, we only need to know how many people would join to reserve a table.
- local Aalto catering is probably out of the question (46€ for one lunch and two coffee breaks per person)
- Täffä could be an interesting option: https://lunch.tf.fi/

## Thoughts

- hotel: Could we ask for special price from Otaniemi radisson or Heymo hotels if we bring them X guests?

## Questions to ask in the questionnaire

- are you coming to sauna?
- are you coming to dinner?
- yes!!!!

## Agenda

### Rooms

- Thursday
- Top lounge: 8-13
- Skodowska-Curie (60p): 14-20
- Meitner (40p): 12-20
- Noether (36p): 11-20
- Sauna: 15-25

- Friday
- Skodowska-Curie (60p): 8-18
- Meitner (40p): 12-18
- Noether (36p): 10-18

- Thursday
Morning, informal space (hard to get to but nice for informal discussions). Do some social stuff, maybe go outside.
Lunch
Transfer to new home. Rooms available after 12:00. Someone needs to set them up
12:00-14:00: two small rooms available (capicities 40 and 36)
14:00- : big room capicity 60 available.
All of these rooms are right next to each other separated by a nice lobby
There is no restaurant in the building so we can order catering from anywhere.

- Friday
Big room available all day
One small room available after 10:00 and one after 12:00

### Agenda

#### Day 1: 2024-5-30
- 9:00 - 11:00 : Informal get-together on campus.
- 11:00 - 12:00 : Lunch
- 12:00 - 13:20 : Best practices session
- 13:20 - 13:40 : Break
- 13:40 - 16:00 : Soft skills session

#### Day 2: 2024-5-31

All times are EET ([convert to local time](https://arewemeetingyet.com/Helsinki/2024-5-30/9:00))

- 9:00 - 11:00 : Technical session
- 11:00 - 12:00 : Lunch
- 12:00 - 13:00 : Technical session continued
- 13:00 - 16:00 : Open session

## Notes from discussion with other RSE conference organizers

30.11: RSE-Con (Ed Bennett (chair of last RSECon) and Lyndsey Ballantyne(community and event manager UK-RSE))

* External funding?
* UK-RSE had society of RSE backing them (in case of minus, they covered)
* some external funding from "random idea" companies, based on levels (gold,platinum etc) that came with different benefits, such as keynote etc
* Registration
* Costs for participants?
* UK-RSE tried to keep as low as possible through sponsors
* Number of participants estimation
* hard to know, based on other events maybe?
* Best marketing strategies
* find people in different places (career and position wise) and ask them to forward to interested colleagues
* website, chat etc
* start early and with a plan
* Any other tips and tricks?
* check old RSECon conference pages on how they were advertised
* talk to people from first RSECon
* use "following the footsteps of successful UK-RSE, US-RSE conferences" to show that THIS is a thing that RSEs and related should be interested in
* have a timeline for planning
* when having "open topic call" : make sure talks speak to a broad audience, if it seems to narrow ask speaker to focus on some topic within their topic that is not domain specific

### Questions for deRSE meeting with Claire 25.1

Nordic-RSE conference plan: Thu + Fri, physical spaces sponsored by Aalto, auditoriums and lecture halls, lunch reservation + tickets, dinner plan in restaurant (self-paid); main cost is food and drinks

-> add all of these expenses up + 10%, which could then go to next year

**Feasible to do self-catering?** - might work if someone is dedicated; could be volunteer category, deRSE this year will also have volunteers taking care of catering

Approach UK society for funding, to "get going" -> Claire can introduce us

Good to get started small, sell out all tickets.

- Did deRSE have external funding? How did you find those funders, if yes?
- write to everyone
- Tips on best marketing strategies?
- mailing list
- website
- x/mastodon
- committee across the nordics to use their own mailing lists
- posters/flyers
- start marketing with questions, check UK society front page: https://society-rse.org/what-is-an-rse/
- make it not around the job title, but the idea
- Registration price estimate?
- UK 5000 pound grant
- needed sponsors, send out to all possible companies
- each year deposit needs to be paid to rooms
- deRSE: healthy situation due to covid, but still sponsors involved
- UK: ticket price depended on prices for rooms and food and how many sponsors to also have enough for following year
- try to keep low as possible
- UK: main fundraising event (apart from membership)
- to keep website going, keep society going
- deRSE: 145 €, 3 days, lunches and 2 evening meals
- UK: keynote speakers paid travel and conference ticket, later also speaker fees were paid
- Getting started for planning and keeping small conference?
- see other questions answers
- Making Nordic-RSE a "thing"?
- see other questions answers
- How is deRSE organized, do people do stuff from their organizations or hired by deRSE?
- UK: Claire only hired person in beginnig by SSI
- Trustees are volunteers, meetings on worktime, check with your boss to be ok to give worktime to do this
- Now: Conference organizer was hired + community manager
- Germany: All volunteers, within work hours
- Seniors started this thing in UK; did not need to ask anyone
- later: requirement to be trustee: check from boss
- seniors have problem of not having enough time, so a mix of seniors and juniors is important
- write a motvational text, why it is important, link to international RSE groups, this is a THING worldwide

- How much did the society grow because of the conference and vice versa?
- Society came from UK RSE association
- Conference came from association
- Formalized association into charity and had election
- conference has helped to encourage people to become trustee
- UK conference growth : 120 - 200 - 340 - 350 people

- Board member have a talk about the association in beginning of conference, have yearly general meeting as part of conference; push membership and look for organization committee
- people look for a "title"

- Growing membership
- UK: discount ticket to conference was price of memebership
- deRSE: only part of memebership fee

- if i divide conference organization into 4 stages: beginning of organization, just before the conference, during conference, after the conference: what were important realizations and missing things that turned out at later stages and where you hoped you prioritized them earlier?
- after the conference things can get a bit lost
- plan communications in advance
- prepare feedback form in advance
- people who enjoyed it will let you know
- Announcing next years date, find a host at end of conference
- look for more board members
- send something branded to "30th person to fill out the feedback"
- how do you want to "remember" the conference
- website, pictures, blog posts, proceedings etc
- give people something to point to
- recommendations on how to avoid "manels" (men-only panels) and similar diversity-lacking-disasters early in the organization?
- difficult just from the nature of the role
- panel: rule: have it diverse and mixed
- submissions are anonymous, but then statistics were looked at and if it was unbalanced needed to be fixed
- UK: dedicated chair to look at language in public is incluisive and open
- Clair can send a doc
- honorarium, travel costs covered for keynote speakers
- keynote speaker without cost?
- can of course be asked, but would not expect anything
- Better: ask people from organizations with an interest in "furthering the cause", sending a keynote speaker could be one kind of sponsorship
- eg. Simon/Neil (SSI) / Malvika (Alan Turiung)
- recommendations for inclusive and equitable access to conference
- difficult
- online/streaming; can be very expensive if outsourced
- DIY might not give online participants enough interaction possibility
- Kristin (EDI chair)
- even RSECon was still small to put too much effort in it
- provide some way fo interaction, slido
- recording is one way
- streaming ok, but full hybrid is hard
- people should also pay for online participation
- managing of online is hard and needs dedicated person
- "what do you know now that you wish you knew when you started organizing conferences?"
- UK: you cannot rely on sponsorship every year, first time was easier as it was this shiny new thing, build sustainable system
- clear role descriptions with backups, clear boundaries of who is doing what
- smaller roles for people with less time: eg publicity,

# Archived notes:

- Other events (decided date 30-31)
- 27-29 May: NeIC conference, Tallinn
- 4-6 June: ASC kickstart
- (in 2023, Aalto/Helsinki courses started 4 september)
- in 2024, Helsinki courses start on 2 september
- Representative People (Ask these about choosing the dates):
- Richard Darst
- Radovan Bast
- Aurélie Vancraeyenest
- Jarno Rantaharju
- Matteo Tomasini
- Samantha Wittke
- Luca Ferranti
- Stephan Smuts

# Announcement of call for abstracts

## tweet
- Tweet / toot 1 (Today? end of February)
- This is for real! Mark the date! Welcome to the first in person Nordic RSE conference, on May 30-31 2024 in Aalto! \\ For more information and to submit a contribution, go to https://nordic-rse.org/events/2024-in-person-conference/
- Tweet / toot 2 (first week of March)
- Are you ready for our first in person conference? You can submit contributions by March 22nd on https://nordic-rse.org/events/2024-in-person-conference/! \\ We look forward to meet you on May 30-31 2024, in Aalto!
- Tweet / toot 3 (after opening registrations, CHANGE LINK ONCE WE HAVE ONE)
- Registrations are open to join us on the first ever Nordic RSE conference held in person! Go to https://indico.neic.no/event/260/ \\ We will welcome you in Aalto on May 30-31, 2024. Do you want to contribute? Abstract submission is ongoing and will close on March 22nd!

## email to Nordic RSE list

### Abstract and Registration Reminder

Dear Nordic RSE members and followers,

We noticed that there was an issue with the abstract submission system for the Nordic RSE 2024 Conference. The issue is now fixed and the system should work correctly. If you tried to sign up or submit an abstract and it did not work, please try again.

The deadline for abstract submissions is March 22nd 23:59 CET.

As a reminder, both registration and abstract submission are open. We have also added practical information on the conference site, at https://nordic-rse.org/events/2024-in-person-conference/, so take a look if you are interested.

Regards,
The Nordic RSE Conference team

### Registration

Dear Nordic RSE members and followers,

Registration to the first **in person** Nordic RSE conference is now open! See https://nordic-rse.org/events/2024-in-person-conference/ for more information and to register.

The conference will be at Aalto campus in Espoo, Finland, on May 30-31 2024. This is our first full conference, and unlike the unconferences, we invite you to submit
your contribution well ahead of time at https://indico.neic.no/event/260/abstracts/.

The Aalto campus is well connected to Helsinki, so the Helsinki-Vantaa airport is convenient, as well as ferries
from Stockholm and Tallinn.

We look forward to meeting you in person in Espoo!

Regards,
The Nordic RSE team

### Abstract submission

Dear Nordic RSE members and followers,

We are exited to announce the Nordic RSE **in person** conference in May 30-31 2024!

This is our first full conference, and unlike the unconferences, we invite you to submit
your contribution well ahead of time at https://indico.neic.no/event/260/abstracts/. We will use the contributions to gauge interest
in the event, so please make your submission early. You can edit it later, if you wish.

The event will be on Aalto University campus in Espoo, Finland. The campus is well
connected to Helsinki, so the Helsinki-Vantaa airport is convenient, as well as ferries
from Stocholm and Tallinn.

For more information, check the event page at https://nordic-rse.org/events/2024-in-person-conference/.
Event registration will open in January 2024.

We look forward to meeting you in person in Espoo!

Regards,
The Nordic RSE team

### email for general / professional lists