At 6pm this evening, there was a real air of anticipation at the conference hotel. On level 2 the poster presenters were gradually finding their allocated slots and gaps were being filled. Up the escalator on level 3, the registration desk has now closed for the night. It will open again at 6am in the morning, ready to register another few hundred delegates. The lanyards are neatly rolled, the bags stacked tidy and ready for their eager recipients. A snake of coffee cups is ready for that all-important mid-morning energy boost.
Getting into the lift is like entering a who’s who of the MND world, international scientists and clinicians greeting each other and exchanging stories on jet lag, holiday plans and of course the results from their lab or scientific gossip.
As well as soaking up this atmosphere, today I’ve been busy putting Kate and Kelly’s plans for the poster session into action. The poster session is arguably the most interactive part of the meeting, an opportunity to share a hard copy of your presentation with a (possible) 600 people is valuable. They may pass on the next tips to helping get that experiment to work or you may set up a new collaboration or redirect your research. However, in order for this all to happen, 300-ish 2m high and 1m wide boards, need to be individually assigned to specific posters, in an order that (I hope) the delegates will follow. Thanks to Harriet for all her help with sorting this out.
Across the road from the hotel is the Queen Victoria Building shopping arcade. It is beautifully decorated for Christmas – there are only a few weeks to go. But for Symposium delegates it is only one more sleep before our excitement begins!
Hi Belinda,
Thank you for updating us all. Looking forward to hearing about the research news that come out of the Symposium! Is there any chance to see some images of the posters and how it’s all set-up? Also, do you know if the various presentations will be filmed so we can listen back to what was said?
Matt
Hi Matt, it’s Kelly (in the UK).
Belinda has taken a few pictures of the poster session while it’s empty and may take a few when it’s full of delegates at the poster session, but i’m afraid they are not availble yet. We’ll get them uploaded as soon as possible for you to see.
Presentations will not be filmed as some slides show unpublished data, which researchers aren’t normally too keen on showing. Writing about the overall message etc in our blogs is okay, but physically taking pictures of the ‘proof’ and sharing with others isn’t an accepted practice – especially without receiving permission from those being filmed. Technically, videoing sessions would also come at a significant cost to the MND Association, as we orgainse the symposium every year. With over 20 hours of possible footage of the sessions (not even including poster sessions) this would be impossible to stream. I hope you can see why the value vs potential benefit of doing this isn’t currently feasible.
However, we’ve picked out the best sessions to report on, so I hope you enjoy Belinda’s blog articles over the next few days.
Kelly
Thanks Kelly! Can’t wait to see the Symposium pics.