Tag: #EMBLevents

Meet the EMBL Events Team: Sophie

Meet the newest member of the EMBL-EBI training team, Sophie Spencer. She joined the team in October 2021 with a focus on the on-site and virtual training programme.

PHOTO: Sophie Spencer
PHOTO: Sophie Spencer

We sat down with Sophie to get to know her and find out about some of the other career paths she could have taken.

Welcome to the team, Sophie. Now that you have been able to visit the EMBL-EBI campus, what is your favourite place in the area?
The campus is absolutely amazing, and I have to say Hinxton Hall is a fantastic venue. I can’t wait to run an event there once restrictions allow.

As an experienced events organiser, what is the first thing you do before a course starts and the first thing you do after a course finishes?
Just before a course starts, I take a deep breath and visualise how the day will run. It might sound odd, but it helps me to work through my on-the-day checklist. The first thing I do after a course finishes is to take another deep breath and smile!

Sophie poses with an alpaca
Sophie poses with an alpaca

Changing tact, if you weren’t an events organiser what would you be?
I absolutely love working in events, but I do have a dream of running an alpaca farm with a cute little café when I retire. Of course, I will need to learn about how to care for alpacas first…

 

What is the funniest thing that has ever happened in an event?
That’s a tricky one! I’d have to go with this time I was running a virtual conference a year or so ago. During the event, we had some unforeseen technical issues which, unfortunately, disrupted the entire event. I managed to fix the issue and came on screen to explain to the audience what had happened and to apologise for the disruption. A little while later I was running a session with our keynote speaker who happened to be a polar explorer. He proceeded to invite me to join his next polar exploration because of how calm I am under pressure! Can’t see myself traversing the Antarctic any time soon but nice to know I’ve got options if my event organiser career doesn’t work out.

We think events organisers are already superheroes, but if you were a fictional superhero what power would you like to have?
It would be wonderful to be able to talk to animals, imagine if you could know what your pets are thinking!

And finally, tell us, what is your favourite book?
I’m going to cheat and give a series rather than a single book… I’ve just revisited “His Dark Materials” by Philip Pullman which I loved as a child, and still do today!

You can connect with Sophie on LinkedIn or join her at the following events she is currently working on:

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Why do we charge registration fees for virtual events?

“Why do you charge registration fees for virtual events? You are not flying speakers in, there are no accommodation or catering costs. You are not printing any conference material!” Yes, you are absolutely right! All of these are valid points in the world of virtual training. And yet we are still charging registration fees. Why?

As a non-profit organisation and with training being one of its five missions, EMBL sets its fees at the lowest possible level to just cover the costs of the events program. These are:

Staff

It sounds incredible, but virtual events turned out to be more time-intensive and demanding in terms of staff support than we thought. We are now busy scheduling test runs with speakers, populating virtual platforms, coordinating the timely and high-quality delivery of pre-recorded talks, providing technical support and trouble shooting – all things we didn’t have to do for onsite events, or previously had support with from our onsite service staff. In the past year, our team has even grown in order to be able to deliver the 31 virtual courses and conferences that took place in 2020.

Behind the Scenes at the EMBL Conference: Transcription and Chromatin (27 – 29 August 2020). Previously only one conference officer was the main coordinator of an onsite meeting. Now there are always two people onsite, splitting the tasks of monitoring and communication with the participants, speakers and audio-visual technicians.
Software

Unfortunately, virtual events cannot be run solely on Zoom. That would have made everything much easier, but attending a conference or course is so much more than listening to the talk. Participants look for interaction, networking options and avid peer exchange. So our courses’ and conferences’ programmes incorporate a range of networking and knowledge-exchange sessions such as meet-the speakers, bar mixers, pub quizzes, speed networking and poster sessions. In order to meet these requirements we make use of paid solutions which offer all these benefits and are easy to navigate for the users.

Training

New software means new set up in terms of design and maintenance, and to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible during the events our staff require appropriate and sufficient training to be able to operate it.

Sponsorship

With all our events turning virtual, income from sponsorship has decreased accordingly. Normally at a conference you would see several companies exhibiting in the Advanced Training Centre foyer, but with the meetings taking place entirely online, there has not been as much interest in virtual sponsorship. While we are being creative with what we can offer our sponsors, they also miss the face-to-face interaction with our participants.

Marketing

While the onsite costs have decreased, getting the word out still requires the same amount of budget (if not more!). How do we make sure you hear about us and the virtual meetings we are organising? How do we stand out from the other virtual events that are currently out there? Would you hear about our meeting if we used the traditional channels as before? In most cases, we have had to add on to our marketing channels and campaigns to increase awareness about our virtual programme.

Fellowships

EMBL offers various types of fellowships to support scientists to attend our events. An advantage of the virtual format is that with lower registration fees and no travel to cover, the funds stretch much further.  We are finding that we are able assist more applicants than ever before to attend entirely free of charge.

 

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