Decide on your target number of people: generate a list of the people you would like to attend the meeting. The number of people that attend will dictate what your budget should be. We aimed for 60 people.
Pick a venue: we suggest the Hutchinson Center (after discussing have the event at several other locations). The availability of the Center might dictate what the actual meeting day is. Get a quote for the cost of the venue.
Organize catering: We went with Rollie’s catering because they have worked extensively with the Hutchinson Center. Get a quote from catering depending on the number of people and the amount of food you want to have at the event (i.e., breakfast, snacks, lunch).
Develop a budget: this will depend on the number of people you invite and where you are holding the venue (an example budget is in section V).
Reach out to funders: Send emails/letters to departments on campus to raise money for your event. Do this early and with a detailed budget so they know what the money will be used for. Some organizations will have money that they can spend on specific parts of the meetings (i.e., travel for shellfish fishermen).
Pick a date: We suggest holding the meeting in January to avoid the lobster fishing season, the Fishermen’s Forum, and finals week for graduate students.. We decided not to have the meeting any where close to the Fishermen’s Forum (or even at the Forum) to avoid meeting fatigue and to have a fully engaged audience. If the meeting were at the Forum people would be in and out and not focused on the day.the Fishermen’s Forum, and
Save the date: once your have a date decided, send out a save the date email to everyone that might be interested in the event. We did this in email form (including to industry) and called those that didn’t have email.
Call for abstracts: send out a call for abstracts to graduate students to present their research. We did not give specific guidelines on what the presentations should be (only what they shouldn’t be). Many found this to be frustrating. We would suggest providing a little more information about the types of research displays you are seeking. We wanted graduate students to be creative and explore different methods of communicating research. Give students 4 – 6 weeks to write and submit abstracts. Ask presenters if they would like to be displayed around the room or conduct small group discussions.
Decide on the presentation style: Once you get abstracts back decide which presentations should be during the open mingling session and which should be during the small group discussions (if the presenters didn’t identify which one they wanted).
Develop the agenda: once you have the presentations figured out you can develop an agenda. We did not have the agenda ready by the time the invitations went out to industry but it might be a nice thing to send along (but maybe not).
Order supplies: include the cost of supplies in your budget. You will need: name tags and holders, invitations and envelopes, paper for printing, folders, pencils/pens, labels for printing addresses for mailing.
Print invitations: Industry members should receive a paper invitation in the mail (as opposed to an email) so they have a hard copy of all the information they can put on their fridge. We sent out save the dates once we had a day picked to graduate students, faculty, DMR, and fishermen. Industry members were the only ones that received paper invitations, everyone else received emails.
Design a registration form: we developed a google docs form for everyone to register with too keep track of who was intending to come. Keep the registration open for at least a month to give people time to register. Some fishermen don’t have email or internet so we called them to get them registered. We had participants indicate what they hoped to get out of the day on the registration form, this helped direct some of the conversations.
Assemble packets: each participant should receive an agenda, the abstracts for all the presentations, feedback forms, end of meeting survey, etc. Be sure to account for printing costs in your budget as well as paper, folders, pencils, and other supplies.
Name tags: print these off right before the meeting because some people will register last minute.
Organizing discussion groups: if you decide to have organized small group discussions decide if you want to preselect these groups to get a good mix of people (i.e., graduate students, scientists, industry members) or if you want people to self-select. If you are going to have these discussions decide who will facilitate them and work with those facilitators (i.e., Sea Grant extension) to develop the questions. They are very good at their jobs and will have wonderful ideas and feedback for how the discussions should go.
