Guidelines for Suggesting Your City as a Location for Our Next Conference

Submitted by admin on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 10:58
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Because we are an volunteer group, PSC Partners counts on its members to co-chair its annual conferences. If you’d like to step up and co-chair the annual event, this is where to start.

We’re eager to start planning for our next conference, but before the board makes a decision about the locale for the conference, we’d like to consider your suggestions.

If you are interested in hosting the conference, please check on all this pertinent information (below), fill out this form, and email it to Ricky Safer at contactus@pscpartners.org or fax it to 303 221-0757.

We’d like to have all hosting forms returned to us by January 15, 2010, so that the board can choose the venue for 2011 and announce it at our 2010 conference. If you have any questions, please write to us at contactus@pscpartners.org

Contact Information

All fields are required.

First Name

Last Name

Email Address

Street Address

City

State

Zip

Phone #

Advantages of holding the conference in your city:

Speakers
Who are the speakers who are willing to give presentations?

Do you have a verbal/written confirmation from them?
Yes No
Are they local?
Yes No
What topics would they like to present?

Are they expecting an honorarium?
Yes No
If so, in what price range?

Is your medical center willing to offer us any financial sponsorship?
Yes No

Hotel
What is the name of the hotel and what group rate has the hotel confirmed for hotel rooms? (a weekend in late April or early to mid-May 2011)

How many rooms will they hold for those dates at the group rate?

Name/phone number of contact person at the hotel who quoted the hotel rates.

How far in advance does an attendee have to cancel the room without paying a penalty?

What is the largest number of attendees that can be accommodated in the meeting room in the hotel?

Is there a charge for the meeting room?
Yes No
If yes, what is the charge?

How many breakout rooms are available, and how many people can each accommodate?

Is there a workroom where we can store all our materials and use to organize goody bags/handouts?
Yes No
Breakfasts, lunches, and snacks must be available on site. Please give us the estimated per person cost for a continental breakfast, box lunch, and snack.

Which of the following equipment is available to rent at the hotel:
(Check all that apply)
LCD projector
Screen
Microphones
Podium
What is the cost for these items?

Miscellaneous
How far is the hotel from the closest major airport?

Describe shuttle service/public transportation from the airport and the cost.

How far is the hotel from good medical facilities?

Will you be the conference organizer?
Yes No
Do you have other helpers in your city?
Yes No

Thanks for submitting your city as a possible venue. We appreciate your input. 


Personal Stories

“. . . the most rewarding experience. . .”

All I can say is that it was the most rewarding task/experience I have ever taken on. I will always remember how many attendees we touched here in Pittsburgh and what a wonderful weekend it was.

Joanne G., 2006 Conference Co-Chair

Why We Wanted to Co-Chair a PSC Conference

We wanted to sponsor a conference for multiple reasons:

  • No conference had been held in the northeast. We felt the need to spread the PSC message in the New York to Boston corridor.
  • We wanted to give something back to PSC Partners Seeking a Cure.
  • We had access to a distinguished roster of experts from a world-renowned medical center.  

Yale Medical School and Yale New Haven Hospital began a serious effort to add a liver component to its transplant center in 2006. Its leaders were, and still are, committed to an open dialogue with lay people concerned about liver disease. This attitude made it easy for us to interface with the experts and obtain commitments to support the conference.

A little background: We are among the few veteran conference goers who attended the first conference in 2005 and all the ones since. Our son, Jecy, 31, was diagnosed with PSC and ulcerative colitis in 1996, and he began attending conferences in 2007. He has assisted in reaching out to the under-40 PSCers, greatly expanding their participation. With the ulcerative colitis under control we began the search to find out what this PSC thing was all about. We turned to the Connecticut Chapter of the American Liver Foundation (ALF) for information, and increased our volunteerism as knowledge and comfort levels grew. Reggie is the current president of the chapter. 

Web searching for more PSC-specific information brought us to PSC Partners Seeking a Cure about two weeks before the 2005 conference, so off we flew to Denver. What we learned there gave us courage, comfort and knowledge to confront our son’s condition. When Joanne Grieme co-chaired the 2006 conference in Pittsburgh the light bulb came on. “Gee, maybe we can do that too.”

In 2007 Reggie approached doctors in the Yale Department of Digestive Diseases with the idea of hosting a conference. The group formed a Steering Committee in the fall of 2008 to write a proposal for the 2010 conference. This proposal was submitted in January 2009 to PSC Partners and approved in May. The conference will be the culmination of a three-year collaborative project.

Reggie & Jeff B.,
Co-Chairs 2010 PSC Conference, Hartford, CT

“. . . a pleasure and a privilege”

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to host the PSC Partners conference in Chicago. After attending my first conference in Denver in 2007, I experienced just how powerful this event can be for a new member. There, I learned that knowledge is power and felt validated by others with shared concerns. So, I was overjoyed to have the chance to pay-it-forward in Chicago. It’s a tremendous feeling to help bring together these motivated people who put their collective passion for research and advocacy into action. We wanted to share that sense of hopefulness and purpose with the new attendees who joined us from all over the world.

This year, we were particularly excited to showcase the medical resources at Northwestern and the many attractions in downtown Chicago. If you are considering hosting the conference in your town, it is worthwhile to work closely with physicians, promote your city, and serve this exceptional group. Working with Ricky to plan this meeting was a pleasure and a privilege- thank you for entrusting me with such a special event!

Becky L., 2009 Conference Co-Chair, Chicago

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