President’s Message
We cannot open registrations until we have all the presenters
locked in, title of workshops and abstracts, photo and biographies
provided. This slows us down a lot. Then we upload this information
into XeN Connect, our events and membership database. This
database allows us to advertise the event and allows teachers
to log in and pay electronically. Members can access the event
calendar and registrations via their member portal. Online
payments are always our preferred payment method. Paypal
is our payment gateway for credit card payments, however,
offline credit cards can also be used. XeN is continually being
improved to make the user experience better for our members.
We welcome your feedback.
Margaret Shepherd
President STANSW
Then comes advertising, sponsorship and venue logistics;
catering, insurance, IT, programs, rooming, exhibitors and the
list goes on. Thankfully, Visnja organises this really well, because
no one on Council would have the time to spend on this. The
office team also prepare lanyards, sign-on sheets, conference
packs and satchels, and we have previously received help with
these jobs by volunteers. If this is something you might be able
to help with one afternoon or evening before an event, our office
would love to hear from you!
I sit here tonight after another successful physics conference
held by teachers for teachers, and I thought I would reminisce
about how a STANSW conference comes together.
The ideal situation is that we start the project management plan
(PMP) for a conference a year before the event, however, as
usual we were late. I won’t tell you how late but I do know that the
impact on the office staff is huge. We are always so apologetic
to Visnja Aw for this, however we still work on it, and hopefully we
will get it done this year for 2019 to make life easier for everyone,
teachers included.
Then the big day itself. We actually breathe a sigh of relief once
the keynote begins as that means all is well. Any problems of the
day can be sorted but generally we can hand it all over to our
volunteer presenters who always do wonderful work. They spend
hours putting together a presentation for you. Sometimes you will
find enormous value from a presentation; sometimes you may
find it less rewarding. That is inevitable, no matter how hard the
presenter has worked on it. Sometimes the day itself is a shot in
the arm for you and a revitaliser so you go away confident that
you are on the right track.
We set a date early in the year so we can inform teachers of a date
to keep free in their calendars, and then we need to find a venue.
That can be tricky trying to match a date with the availability at
the university willing to sponsor us for the event. There is a lot of
communication between Visnja and the event facilitators to get
this right.
Then the PMP has to be ratified by Council. We need to make
sure that the conference is priced reasonably while still covering
the costs involved. These events together across the year need to
make enough profit to allow us to continue to maintain STANSW
office.
We cannot say enough about how impressive are our presenters.
To volunteer to present in front of a room of professional teachers
is a big ask but they do it so well and we are very grateful.
The Event Committee also need to make sure the event meets
the Accreditation Standards for participants and presenters. The
event is registered with NESA and delegate hours are validated
after the event. There is a lot of admin time required to manage
this process, and we are fortunate that Shay Deen, our Admin
Officer, arranges this very successfully. The main challenge is to
ensure all participants stay for the full time and do not leave early,
because we are accountable to NESA to ensure that we remain a
highly creditable PD provider. (So please don’t forget to sign out,
because otherwise we can do nothing to help you get the hours.)
STANSW is all about teachers helping teachers
NESA is very supportive of us, providing representatives,
frequently more than one, to come along and provide their input,
and attempt to answer all our questions. Although they don’t have
to attend, they really try to be there to assist, so we are thankful
for this. NESA is always open to us so let us know if you want us
to contact them for you about any questions you may have.
So that is the timeline of one conference and each year we
provide many. Whew! It does get tiring but it is so worth it. It is
such a wonderful experience to be there at the conference and
talk with teachers and listen to their enthusiasm about the event.
The real work begins in putting together the event program,
selecting workshop presenters and keynotes. We have a
submission link on the website so any teacher can submit a
workshop at any time during the year. Sometimes we seek people
out, depending on what we want the conference to look like.
There is a great deal of enormous interest and value happening
out there so please consider submitting an idea for a workshop.
Thank you to all our members for their support of this marvellous
Association! Without you both presenting and attending there
would be no reason for it to exist!
We are also planning all our PD for 2019 NOW and would like
to invite applications from members who want to be on the
Organising Committee. You can apply here
Margaret Shepherd
STANSW President
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 2