There are 4 afternoons of parallel sessions: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with Wednesday free for socializing/excursion.
A typical full parallel session has a single 4 hour afternoon time slot for the chair
to divide up in speaker time units as he or she sees fit. In the past when we
received too many abstracts for a single session (both solicited by the chair and unsolicited
independent submissions), we split them into 2 such sessions
and when we received too few abstracts we combined sessions where possible. The thing to
keep in mind is that the MG meetings try to give everyone a chance to make a
verbal presentation if only for 5 minutes at the end of the session so people
get face recognition for meeting each other for personal exchanges if they have
mutual interests.
The pre-abstract-submission-deadline task of a chairperson is to line up a
handful of people who are willing to make good contributions to the session.
Later in the spring after the deadline for abstract submission, the chairperson
will integrate all the abstracts together (which should include the people who
have had advance contact from the chairperson) into a session program. The 4
hours of a single session may be divided up in unequal portions at the
discretion of the chairperson. In the event that a very large number of
abstracts are received, a session may be split into two sessions. Conversely, if
too few abstracts are received, a session could be reduced to a half session or
consolidated with another compatible session. With the number of parallel
sessions over 70 this time, some coalescence must be expected, in which case we
hope chairpersons can work together on the final program when such natural
consolidations are made.
At least one longer "Rapporteur" talk reviewing the topic is traditionally given, either by the chairperson or by someone chosen by the chairperson, and this contribution to the proceedings will have a long page length comparable to plenary speakers. The chairperson may also have a few longer talks depending on the circumstances, and the full session time may be awarded unequally at the discretion of the chairperson. [To put the timing into perspective, all plenary speakers will have 35 minutes for their talks.] However, the MG meetings have a tradition of giving everyone a chance to present their work, if only in a series of short summaries at the end of the session so that people can see their faces for later individual conversation if they are interested. The name of the designated "Rapporteur" speaker (with the session name) should be forwarded to the Meeting email address so that the database can properly identify these contributors to the proceedings.
The MG meetings could not function without the active participation of so many people, but it does not have deep pockets. Every one who has some source of travel funds should exercise that option first. For those who need more help from nations that have national science organizations to which one can apply, this is the next option for travel funding.
Some shifting of conference fees can support some participants but this is traditionally used for participants from less economically fortunate countries. As a rule at the MG Meetings, parallel session invited speakers are expected to cover their own fees and travel expenses with the exception of IUPAP funds that are reserved for people from Eastern Europe and developing countries. In cases of absolute need an attempt will be made to extend some funding using support from German institutions.
If you yourself or someone at your institution can create a simple webpage to post information about your session, this would be welcomed. Just send the URL to the conference email address.
After the deadline for receipt of manuscripts for the proceedings, each chairperson should look over the PDF contributions in his or her session on-line for quality control purposes, excluding papers whose contents do not meet international conference proceedings standards by not checking them to be included in the proceedings.