Well, the conference was a success.  46 Delegates arrived fro around europe, and 17 talks were given, along side a number of posters.  We recieved very positive feedback from the delegates regarding the conference, and from the public regarding our open day at the museum.

We would like to thank all our sponsors and those that attended the meeting.

Not a lot to report.  We have confirmed our lunch provider and set the menu, we have sent out invitiations to the conference to local groups such as the Manchester Geological Association, and we have begun circulating emails to post-grad students (emailing lists were based on abstract books from previous years and our personal contacts).

Already we are getting people signing up and submitting abstracts.

We’d like to drop a few links in for our readers.

 Firstly is the Careers service weblog, with whom we are writing this blog.  Their RSS can be found to the right.

Next up is our society website, along with a page for joining online.

Well, we can now be found on the University Student’s Union webpages as a society. The advantages of this with regards to hosting progressive palaeontology are two-fold.  Firstly we can organse sponsorship funds with a university society bank account (which looks a little more professional than asking money to be sent to us individually), and secondly we can advertise the conference through/to our members as well.

We would also like to say thanks to the Manchester Geological Assocation for sponsorship.   You can visit their website here:

http://www.mangeolassoc.org.uk/

The business plan – what is it and why?

Well, it’s basically a summary or statement of the conference, outlining current progress and acheivable goals.  It should evolve as progress is made with regards to booking facilities and attendee resistration.

 The business plan is therefore central to your own organisation of the conference.  It can also be used as a formal means to communicate the conference to internal and external groups where necessary, in instances where a flashy poster or website are not appropriate.  For example, it may be necessary to seek funding for your conference – the cost of receptions, coffee breaks and meeting facilites soon add up (take our word for it!!).  This business plan is the place to formally establish the budget for your conference and communicate the importance of achieving it to potential sponsors.

With regards to the business plan, we won’t say what you should and shouldn’t include, as it will probably vary a lot from case to case.  What we will do though is provide you with a generic plan we use.  It should be noted that this plan is always tailored specifically to the potential sponsor, varying between academic and private companies.  The version available here was tailored to a University Faculty and is therefore heavy on the science.  Private companies probably won’t be as interested in this level of detail so its probably better to keep it shorter and punchier in such cases.

 You can download the business plan below.

Our Generic Business Plan

Karl and Peter

So we’ve convinced you that organizing a conference is a good idea – but where should you start?

 Well you’ve probably got two options. One, you can contact an organization or funding body who have annual conferences and ask to host the next available meeting.  Those who have read our earlier posts will remember that this is exactly what we did…..on a drunken dare!  Alternatively, if you’re really brave you can invent your own conference, probably with a specific theme.  If you decide to go down this route its probably a good idea to contact colleagues in your field to make sure enough people will be interested.

 Think about what you will have to provide – if you’re hosting a new conference you need to decide what you will require – a lecture theatre will probably be a necessity, but aside from this you might want to host a function such as a dinner or reception? How many days will the conference run for?  Will any special equipment be needed for presentations?  A room for posters perhaps?  How will attendees be accomodated?  What dates will it run on (and will it clash with any other major conferences in your field)?

   In the case of continuing a regular or annual conference, as we are doing, many of the specific requirements are already clear: we know from previous prog pals that the conference runs for 1 day, with an annual meal in the evening, usually a reception the night before, and that attendees generally find their own accomodation, and that it generally runs sometime between April and June.  In the past oral sessions have been the main focus, with poster sessions during coffee breaks.  One advantage of continuing a regular conference is that you know where the bar is set in terms of quality.  Whether you want to accomplish something near that bar, or try and go above and beyond it is upto you.

   Knowing what you will need will let you get a general idea for venues and equipment, and the associated costs.  You can then start putting together a business plan.  This will provide you with a focus and definite goals and deadlines to meet, and allow you to begin to address the big matter of funding!

 Karl and Peter

  So why go to all this trouble?  What are the benefits to a group of post-grads for organising a conference? 

 Well, it’s good experience!  Skills and experience relevant to organizing meetings and conferences is valuable in any future careers and universally attractive to employers.  As PhD graduates we’ll be competing with bright researchers from the worlds top academic institutions and something like organising and hosting a well known conference (at least within one’s own fields) provides a nice edge over competitors.  In other words, it looks very good on your C.V.s!

Hosting the conference is also an opportunity to enhance one’s reputation by spreading your name around, both at the conference and after in reports for newsletters, conference abstract books, word of mouth etc.  It will also do wonders for the Univesity of Manchester.  It presents an opportunity to showcase not only your own research but also your institution to your peers.  This might be particularly important if your research group has a specific focus or unique strength that might be emphaized in the conference (For instance, our group specializes in high performance 3D modelling, hence the visualisation session in our conference).  This will have a knock-on effect for us in that we will be obtaining PhDs from a University well known for excellence and innovation in palaeontology.

Finally (and most importantly) – it should be fun and rewarding!  Make no mistake, it will be hard work but when things start to fall into place its a great buzz!

Karl + Peter

So, to carry on from the last post, we should probably tell you about the soiceity we set up.  Originally this was just a name to attach to talks we were giving in the department, but it has grown somewhat.

Through our external research links into the engineering faculty, we were approached by an engineering in schools project.  So, myself and Karl put together an hour long session involving dinosaur tracks and a T-rex leg to wow young children in schools.  We went to three schools, and gave our session to 4 classes in each.  It was actually really quite rewarding seeing the kid’s get excited over dinosaurs (in that respect palaeontologists often have more in common with children than other adults!).

So, we’ve developed a program we intend to take to other schools and museums when required.  Indeed, tomorrow I’m heading to the Yorkshire museum to fly the manchester flag and take part in an open day, with a stall set up to provide the session we’ve developed here.

To make all of this more coherent, we’ve decided to mak our society a ‘proper’ society, open to all members of the university.  This involves filling out an application pack from the union.  Unfortunately, odd rules make things more complicated than we thought – to become a society, we need a form with at least 30 names and student numbers.  However, we aren’t garaunteed a stall at fresher’s fair if we haven’t been a registered society for a year…  so we have a small catch 22 in that we need students to become a society, but we need to be a society to be able to get students!  What this means is that September/October time, we’ll be visiting classes in earth sciences and biological sciences to get enough students, and then opening up to the university fully next year.

A bonefied union society is something worth pursuing though.  As a society, we will be able to open a society bank account, which means sponsors will have a more formal name to send money to, rather than it looking like one of us is pocketing the money.  We also open up a new funding avenue – the union provides upto £2.50 for each student in our society towards such things as bringing in external speakers, perfect for inviting potentia viz suite users up to give a talk and check their work in the viz suite before prog pal next year.

We’ve filled out all the forms needed by the union.  All that waits to be done now is the collection of 30 student numbers and emails addresses.

Peter

It all began at the Mezozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems conference here in Manchester, back in 2006.  Myself, Karl, and James had been to Cambridge Prog Pal the week before.  Karl had a moment of inspired madness, and said to our supervisor Phil Manning (after a brief discussion with me and James), “We were wondering about holding Prog Pal in Manchester in 2008.”  This was followed only by “Yes.  Do it!”

And so it began…

What followed for the next few months was a lot of nothing really.  We bounced ideas around about where it could be but not a lot really happened regarding prog pal.  However, it was at this time that our colleague Chris Ott, another palaeontology PhD at manchester started the small seed of an idea within us of starting a palaeontology society for Manchester students.

The real conference organising began shortly after Prog Pal 2007, held in Bristol.  Myself and Karl attended, and made special note of what they did and how they did it.  Funding in particular was a topic of conversation between us and the organisers in Bristol.  Pal Ass offers some money towards the conference, but to do something really worthwhile, other funding needs to be found.  Bristol had contacted several publishers, and received books, and had received some money from their alumni.

So, on returning to Manchester, Karl put together a ‘buissness plan’ – a document detailing what we were hoping to do with Prog Pal.  This involved a wine reception at The Manchester Museum, oral and poster presentations also held there, coffee and biscuits provided, an annual dinner (at this point we weren’t sure where), a field trip, and our pièce de résistance – an oral session in the Visualisation Suite in Computer Science.

The Viz Suite is something we are really hoping will work, and make our Prog Pal stand out.  At Manchester we pride ourselves on the fact that much of our research involves cutting edge technology.  Both myself and Karl use high powered computing simulations to understand dinosaurs.  But it’s not just a self promoting gimmick, as we know other researchers also dealing with advanced computer visualisation in palaeontology.  Our hope is that the Viz Suite will allow workers using these technologies to convey their work in an precedented freedom, rather than present two dimesional images of their 3D work.

So, with a buisness plan drawn up, and a reasonable budget outlined, Karl began the process of sending it to relevant companies; publishers of palaeontology books, companies dealing in geo supplies (notebooks, compass-clinometers etc), and companies involved in making equipment such as the laser scanners we use.  In return for a donation, we would put their logo on everything we did regarding the conference.  A larger donation would get the company not only advertising during the conference, but throughout the year on all talks given as part of our society.

We also sent our buisness plan to Manchester Alumni.  They were interested in supporting the conference and promoting Manchester as a top place for research into palaeontology, but it was what we were accomplishing with our society’s outreach program that really scored points with them…

Peter and James

Welcome to our website, hopefully detailing our activities as we fundraise and prepare for hosting Progressive Palaeontology.  Prog Pal is a postgraduate conference in palaeontology.  It’s a part of The Palaeontological Association, and runs each year as a venue for postgraduate researchers to present their work in a semi formal environment to their peers.  There are three of us here in the University of Manchester studying various aspects of palaeontology, and we are the brave (or foolish) people who have the task of bringing Prog Pal to Manchester.  As way of an introduction, we are:

Karl Bates: PhD student working on biomechanics of dinosaurs.

James Jepson: PhD student working on the Neuropterida of the Purbeck and Wealden.

And myself, Peter Falkingham: working on dinosaur tracks and finite element analysis.

All three of us will be adding to this page as we go along, to act as a source of information for others who are planning on hosting a conference.  This blog will be available generally online, but also through the Manchester University careers service.

Our next update will be coming soon, and will detail what we’ve accomplished already in the last few months.

 Peter.