There are a few rules/expectations if you accept an offer of a place at the workshop:
- You must attend the entire meeting, from start to finish.
- You must also be prepared to involve yourself throughout the meeting, no matter how unappealing or bizarre the sessions may be to you and no matter how important it is to answer your emails and phone messages or conduct other business.
- You must be prepared to debate vigorously! No one will be allowed to sit quietly and take
notes! This is one of the few chances you will ever have to be a full participant in a lively debate, so you must take the opportunity. - Everyone will be given a specific task to perform, either before, during or after the meeting. There will be scope for negotiation about which tasks you are allocated, but you will be expected to take responsibility for some aspect of the meeting. That way it becomes your meeting, not the organisers'. Examples before the meeting might include producing a short webcast , communicating with a specific group of people to organise a joint presentation at the meeting, or helping to organise how a particular session will be run. At the meeting you might be asked to run/chair a session, give a presentation, run a quiz night, summarise sessions or collate photos taken on the afternoon hikes.
- There will be no opportunity for you to give a formal presentation of your research or a poster! It is not that sort of a meeting! Other conferences cater for that. However, your past, present or future research will no doubt be relevant to the debates.
- On a positive note, it is expected that every participant will be a co-author on at least one paper to be submitted to a journal. However, you must earn this right, either through preparation before the workshop, by working hard in writing teams at the meeting, or contributing in writing/editing after the meeting. Our experience is that papers do not get finished if participation ceases on the last day of the workshop.
