What Past Chairs Say |
“Sea to Sky’s professional work was instrumental in making OMAE04 one of the best ever attended OMAE conferences. For this they worked in harmony with the local advisory group and made extra efforts in marketing. Sea to Sky was very careful in budgeting and staying in budget. They provided excellent marketing services to attract the high number of attendees and hired very qualified professionals to run the various events of the conference. Sea to Sky contributed greatly to the success of OMAE04” Professor Sander Calisal,
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Sea to Sky Meeting Management Inc. (Sea to Sky) has had the honour of working with deeply committed professionals who have hosted international conferences in the past, and it has been a privilege to be a part of their conference management team. Below is a series of questions and answers regarding their experience as a conference chair or co-chair. Our heartfelt gratitude to Dr Sander Calisal, Kim Stefaniuk, Jeff Barnett and Dr John Nightingale for taking the time to respond to our questions in order to share their experiences with you – a potential conference chair or co-chair! Co-Chair: Sander Calisal, P.Eng.Professor Emeritus, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia
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Co-Chair: Sander Calisal, P.Eng.Why did you decide to become a conference co-chair? How did you manage to take on the role of conference co-chair and continue your fulltime job? What was the return on investment and was all the effort worthwhile? Would you do it all again? Any other words of advice? Co-Chair: Kim Stefaniuk, BSP, RPEBCOncology Pharmacy, Cancer Care Ontario
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Co-Chair: Kim Stefaniuk, BSP, RPEBCWhy did you decide to become a conference co-chair?Busy health care professionals understand the importance of meeting and staying current with the exponential advances in medicine. Conferences are an excellent format for presentation of a variety of topics; networking permits idea exchange, sharing best practices and contextualization of knowledge. However, there is often so much information presented it can be difficult to assimilate and for experienced practitioners or relative newcomers to the field, it can be challenging to select appropriate sessions or even to identify colleagues in similar practice settings with whom to network. My decision to co-chair a conference was grounded in dissatisfaction with existing conference structure. Typically, a series of experts, not necessarily in my field, presented rapid-fire slide after slide of facts and figures with no time to reflect or an explanation about what it may mean to my current practice. I left conferences exhausted and overwhelmed, my mind reeling with too much information, most of which was forgotten a month later. I actually stopped attending conferences for these reasons. "If you don't like something, try to change it" was the philosophy at the heart of my decision to co-chair a meeting. As co-chair, I could shape the symposium to better direct the educational presentations, identify themes and levels of complexity to make it easier to select sessions, facilitate networking, and improve the overall quality of the meeting experience for both participants and sponsors. Getting involved helped me make sure the needs of the learners at all levels were addressed so they could take back tangible and meaningful information they would remember. I wanted to give them the tools to act as change agents to improve their own practices and the health of Canadians. By incorporating principles of adult education, it was my hope to make the symposia more relevant to current practice yet still equip participants to help shape the future of oncology pharmacy practice. How did you manage to take on the role of conference co-chair and continue your fulltime job? The key to coping, though, was organization and teamwork. I fortunately had an understanding employer who permitted me some time on work hours to respond to urgent e-mails, for example, but much of the work had to be done during evening and weekend hours. Despite being geographically separated by a 5 hour flight and organizing a meeting in a city in which neither co-chair resided, my excellent “partner in crime” and I divided up the labour based on our strengths, kept in regular contact, and made sure we chose our committee members wisely. Though small, our volunteer core committee accepted delegation of tasks, were accountable, responsible, and could deliver on time. Sea to Sky also gently stepped in when we were getting overwhelmed and helped facilitate communication with the national and international committee as well. It is essential to have vision, good people on the organizing committee, and a solid "command" structure, but by far, the most important element for coping while co-chairing a meeting and working full time is the integration of a skilled meeting management company. What was the return on investment and was all the effort worthwhile? Delegates identified numerous practical and tangible practice changes they could implement as a result of this meeting and commented on how much they actually learned. The social events resulted in global friendships, meeting colleagues where participants could exchange information, and gave us the opportunity to showcase the city of Vancouver in all its glory and many facets of life in Canada. A number of delegates stayed either before or after the meeting for a holiday, exploring the city or the surrounding area, bringing in tourism dollars and an appreciation of the city and country as a meeting destination that "has it all." On a personal/professional level, there is the quiet satisfaction of a highly successful meeting, knowing you have set a benchmark or standard by which future meetings will be judged, and also of knowing that you have changed for the better, either subtly or overtly, the way educational symposia will be delivered. Two years later, I overheard several comments about how the meeting we organized was superior and how we set the standard; four years later, the symposium organizers were still talking about the "Vancouver model" as a way of organizing a meeting. There are also intangible personal benefits too perhaps not immediately apparent: broadened perspectives, recognition among international community, new business opportunities, career advancement, networking, new skills, better quality of practice, personal fulfillment, and heightened respect among colleagues. As Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked, "man's mind, once expanded by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." Nowhere is this truer than having co-chaired a major international symposium; despite the stress and hours or work involved, yes, in the end, it was worthwhile on both professional and personal levels. Would you do it all again? Co-Chair: Jeff BarnettPharmacy Information Analyst, PharmacyBC Cancer Agency
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Co-Chair: Jeff BarnettWhy did you decide to become a conference co-chair? Seriously I had had some previous experience chairing conferences on a smaller scale with NOPS (CAPhO’s annual conference), and locally here and thought that it would be great to bring ISOPP to Canada but we needed a good team to do it. My co-chair, Kim, and I were friends going back several years and I thought the two of us could pull it off and it would be a good thing to have on our resumes. Plus I felt that this would be a good challenge and the type of challenge that I would like to succeed at professionally. How did you manage to take on the role of conference co-chair and continue your fulltime job? What was the return on investment and was all the effort worthwhile? Would you do it all again? Any other words of advice? Chair: John Nightingale, Ph.D.Executive DirectorVancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre
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Chair: John Nightingale, Ph.D.Why did you decide to become a conference chair?Hosting national and international meetings is good for the Vancouver Aquarium, and good for Vancouver. As a leader in our field, one way to communicate how good we are is to host our colleagues by hosting a conference and/or meeting. How did you manage to take on the role of conference co-chair and continue your fulltime job? What was the return on investment and was all the effort worthwhile? Personally - if it's good for the Aquarium, and good for the City - it's good for me. Would you do it all again? |
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