Guidelines for running a Society or Special Interest Group
conference*
Most of the Society’s financial affairs are managed through its Twickenham office, by
the Finance and Operations Manager, Russell Rajendra. All of the money received for
subscriptions, membership dues etc, and all of the bills for printing, distribution, staff
salaries, etc, are managed by Russell.
Since the start of 2008, the office staff have made attempts to provide greater support to
the SIGs by offering to assist with the administration associated with conferences. The
aim is to free up organizers’ time to focus on presenting the best possible science at the
conference. Some of the SIGs have availed of this service.
For all of the conferences run by the Society and its Special Interest Groups (SIGs), the
Society has a responsibility to make official returns which are in compliance with
statutory requirements. This includes compliance with Charity Law, because the Society
is a registered charity, and with tax laws (VAT in particular). As a charity, the Society
does not pay corporation or capital gains tax and so our status as a charity is important.
We still have a small number of conferences which are run directly by the SIGs.
Occasionally, this has led to difficulties when insufficient paperwork is presented to the
Office for auditing purposes or for external examination by Charity or VAT inspectors.
Part of this is due to the fact that insufficient guidance has been presented/available from
the office. These guidelines are at attempt to address this issue.
Some of the SIGs have used university conference facilities and conference office
services to help with local arrangements. This has led to some grey areas in relation to
VAT. In putting together these guidelines, we have also addressed that question,
following a protracted debate with HMRC (VAT office) which began in early 2008. A
statement, agreed with HMRC is presented on the next page.
*For the purposes of this document, a “conference” is an event where scientists gather to discuss scientific
matters. A “meeting” is a gathering to discuss the planning for a conference.
The following note comprises the text agreed with HMRC in relation to conferences. In
it, distinction is drawn between those conferences run directly by the Society, and those
run at Universities.
Conferences held with the support of the Mineralogical Society directly or via special interest
groups which form a part of the society
Conference organisers must obtain approval from the Mineralogical Society before any conference is
organised with which the Mineralogical Society or any of its special interest groups (SIGs) is to be
associated. Staff from the Mineralogical Society office must be involved at an early stage.
Once approval has been given for a conference to be held with the support of the Mineralogical Society,
both the society name (in the format – Supported by The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and
Ireland; registered charity number 233706) and logo should be used on all advertising literature and
publications to show that the conference is supported both scientifically and financially by the Mineralogical
Society either solely or jointly with another charitable scientific body.
Funding
The aim of all conferences is to ‘break even’ financially. It is important that a full budget of income and
expenditure is prepared by the organisation running the conference. The budget must be presented to the
Mineralogical Society Office staff in the format set out on the enclosed Income and Expenditure Summary,
before any action is taken to proceed with the conference. All financial accounting functions will be the
responsibility of, be carried out by, and in the name of the conference organiser (e.g. a University
Conference Office) in any format they consider appropriate. After the conference, the organiser must send
details to the Mineralogical Society of the actual income and expenditure of the conference, also in the
format set out on the enclosed Income and Expenditure Summary, together with explanations of any
significant variances between budget and actual income and expenditure to enable the Mineralogical
society to justify any additional financial support in excess of that shown in the budget.
Any financial surplus from a conference is to be returned to the Mineralogical Society and credited to the
relevant SIG (or their share of a joint meeting) to enable financial support to be given to future
conferences.
Kevin Murphy
Executive Director
These guidelines are structured as follows:
1. What services can the Society offer? What is the alternative?
2. Standard documents (e.g. budget)
3. Timeline
4. Registration fees and fund-raising
5. Invited speakers
6. Publishing
7. Poster session
8. Reporting
9. Financial reporting
1. Conferences: what services can the Society offer, and what is the alternative?
When you have agreed to become the convenor of a Society-led or SIG-led conference,
you have a choice to make. (a) You can invite the Society office to help with the
organization (including planning, budgeting, advertising, web-page creating, online
registration, online abstract submission, abstract volume preparation, accountancy, etc.)
with the Society helping to negotiate for local conference facilities; or (b) you can choose
to make arrangements locally yourself (including the list above), using your institute’s
conference facilities and office.
(a) Services offered by the Society office
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Society staff will attend planning meetings if required
They will help to assemble a comprehensive budget
They will advise on payments to invited speakers
They will create an online and paper registration system
They will create a system for online upload of conference abstracts
They will assemble abstracts for distribution to conference organizer
The office staff will also undertake to assemble, copy and bind abstract volumes
They will help with advertising material, and arrange advertising in Elements,
Society journals, etc.
9. The office staff will also undertake to assemble, copy and bind abstract volumes
10. They will create and update conference webpages
11. They will advise on fund-raising
12. They will advise on/book conference banquet
13. They will arrange bookings for accommodation
14. They will arrange poster boards, lecture room facilities, AV etc.
15. They will create conference signage
16. They will attend the conference and handle registration etc. if required.
Conferences have been identified as an area of high importance for the Society in terms
of our service to the community. However, conferences take up lots of office staff time
and we do impose a charge per delegate (currently £15) in order to offset some but not all
of the overhead devoted to conferences. There is no direct charge to the SIG involved.
If the Office staff are involved in copy-editing, assembling and production of an abstract
volume, there is an additional charge, per abstract, currently £30, levied on the author.)
(b) Alternative, independent route
If a convenor decides that it is only possible to run his/her conference with the assistance
of the local University conference office, then the following applies:
1. The conference should be run in the name of the conference, supported by the
SIG/Society, but not in the name of the Society.
2. An account may be opened at the University, but, again, in the name of the conference,
and not in the name of the Society. Income should be credited to this account, and
expenditure paid from it.
3. All conference literature should say “supported by the Mineralogical Society/ ???
special interest group”, not “organized by the Mineralogical Society/??? special interest
group”. (This will make little difference to the average reader/delegate.)
4. A SIG can arrange for a sum of its money to be paid into the conference account, to
cover expenses for speakers, etc.
5. Any conference surplus can be paid back to the SIG account held by the Society.
Society staff will still, of course, advise and help where possible:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Society staff will attend planning meetings if required
They will help to assemble a comprehensive budget
They will advise on payments to invited speakers
They will create an online and paper registration system
They will create a system for online upload of conference abstracts
The office staff will also undertake to assemble, copy and bind abstract volumes
They will assemble abstracts for distribution to conference organizer
They will help with advertising material, and arrange advertising in Elements,
Society journals, etc.
9. They will create and update conference webpages
10. They will advise on fund-raising
11. They will advise on/book conference banquet
12. They will arrange bookings for accommodation
13. They will arrange poster boards, lecture room facilities, AV etc.
14. The will create conference signage
15. They will attend the conference and handle registration etc. if required.
Although the Society will not be responsible for handing the finances, a full financial
report will be required for auditing purposes. Please see financial reporting below.
2. Standard Documents
In order to avoid reinvention of the conference wheel, we have created a set of standard
documents for convenience. These are included as a series of appendices to this
document
This includes:
1. A check list of all the tasks which must be attended to (feel free to add to this!)
(APPENDIX A)
2. A skeleton budget (APPENDIX B)
3. Standard letters to be used when seeking financial support from e.g. other Societies/oil
companies/instrument manufacturers etc. (APPENDIX C)
4. Guidelines for talks/abstracts (APPENDIX D)
5. Instructions to authors for Society journals (APPENDIX E)
6. Reports, i.e. what the Society needs from you when the conference is finished
(example given in APPENDIX F).
7. Policy document for field trip insurance (all Society field trips are covered by the
Geologists’ Association Group Insurance Scheme to which the MinSoc is affiliated)
(APPENDIX G)
3. Timeline
The best results in terms of conference success are achieved when an appropriate amount
of time is set aside for planning. In our experience, the first planning meeting should be
held at least two years before the proposed date of the conference. This allows time to
secure the attendance of the best invited speakers and of the largest number possible of
delegates.
Two years before conference
 Hold planning meeting
 Create and send out first circular with details of workshops, technical sessions
 call for further session suggestions (include advertisements in Elements and via
email etc., if appropriate)
 if the conference in question is the Society’s annual conference, consider
Hallimond Lecturer; make a nomination to Council (one-page letter outlining
candidate’s suitability)
 dates for registration, abstract submission and housing reservation.
 update website
 Consider possible sponsors
 Put together conference website
 Create e-mailing and snail-mailing list
18 months before conference
 Council must appoint Hallimond Lecturer (in the case of a Society annual
conference); President to write (include note about paper for publications)
 Submit paper to council, including detailed budget, plus other conference
arrangements (lecture rooms/accommodation/ field-trips/workshops/banquet
venue…)
 Send out second circular, including latest list of sessions, invited speakers (setting
out the Hallimond, and possible lectures by the Max Hey? and Schlumberger? and
Collins? medallists)
 Set up online registration scheme
As soon as possible after Council announces awardees for the year of the conference
 Consider inviting awardees to give plenary/invited/keynote lectures (with
accompanying paper for a journal, if appropriate)
 Consider asking nominees of the successful candidates whether they would like to
organize sessions in honour of the awardees (assuming a fit with the conference
theme)
12 months ahead
 Circulate third circular (including costings, accommodation, conference
arrangements; provisional outline programme; plenary/poster/dinner etc.
essentially a reminder/final circular, electronic).
4 months before conference
 Deadline for abstract submission, registration, housing reservation (check how
this ties in with accommodation booking).
2-3 months before conference
 Finalise programme, send out to all participants.
 Make arrangements for appropriate photography, and photographic record.
4. Registration Fees and Fund-raising
Raising money to help with the conference budget is always a challenge. The main
source of income for any conference is the registration fees, and from the SIG or SIGs in
question, if not directly from the Society. Do consider contacting any oil/mineral
exploration companies which may have interests in the conference. Instrument
manufacturers are another obvious target. A standard letter is provided in Appendix C.
Feel free to edit this as appropriate. The numbers shown in this example are not fixed;
they will obviously vary with the size of the conference, and with the facilities you have
available etc. It is better to include numbers though, as this will enable
individuals/companies to see the sort of level of money that would be considered
acceptable.
It is essential to create your budget with realistic expectations in terms of income
generated by registration fee in order to avoid budget shortfalls.
Generally there are at least six levels of registration fee:
1. MinSoc member (membership of other co-sponsoring organizations should be included
here, including GeolSoc in the case of the Geochemistry, Metamorphic Studies, and
Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Groups) early fee (£100)
2. MinSoc non-member early fee (£135)
3. Student early fee (£50)
4. MinSoc member late fee (£120)
5. MinSoc non-member late fee (£155)
6. Student late fee (£55)
Try to have the gap between registration fees for members and non-members about
equivalent to the cost of membership of the Society, £32 for 2009). We want to try to
encourage them to join.
The differential between early and late should not be huge, but significant enough to
encourage people to register on time.
Consider charging separately for an abstract (£30 seems to be acceptable), but if possible,
include the cost of the conference banquet in the registration fee, as this will ensure a
healthy attendance. This will also encourage you to aim for an affordable banquet venue!
5. Invited speakers
The question of knowing how much to offer to invited speakers in terms of their expenses
is one which comes up reasonably often. Experience has taught us that there are two ways
to deal with it, both equally effective:
1. If you are handling the invitations centrally, i.e. for all sessions at the conference, it is
advisable to fix the amount payable to invited speakers (including keynote, plenary, but
possibly not honoured guests) at a certain level. Depending on the number of invitations
you are making, and the likely number of sources of income, other than registration, you
could opt for one of the following options:
1. Free registration
2. Free registration + free ticket for the conference banquet
3. Free registration + free ticket for the conference banquet + free (student-type)
accommodation
4. Free registration + free ticket for the conference banquet + free (student-type)
accommodation + a contribution towards travel costs, e.g. £50 in the UK, £200 in
Europe and £400 beyond.
It is always possible to issue an invitation on the basis of options 1 or 2 above, and see
whether the financial constraints will put off some of the invited guests. If they do, one
could move down the list to options 3 or possibly 4, to pay extra to those with financial
difficulties. Most invited speakers will have access to funds to make up any shortfall, and
will usually be able to obtain the funds if those managing the funds hear that they have
been invited to give a talk at a high-profile conference.
The Society covers directly all the costs of the Hallimond Lecturer and of the Society
medal winners. In cases where the medallists work in a subject area appropriate to the
conference, convenors should feel free to invite them to give a talk.
It is Society policy to “look after” its invited speakers, e.g. by ensuring that on free
evenings they are not dining alone, and that they are introduced to others etc. This helps
in terms of the impression of the Society we are trying to create and when we are trying
to encourage speakers to submit papers to Society publications.
6. Publishing
Journals
One of the Society’s main sources of income is its journals. Much high-quality science is
presented at Society (including SIG) conferences, and the editors of the journals are very
happy to consider proposals for thematic issues or special sections forming part of an
issue arising out of your conference. All papers are subject to the standard journal peer
review, and you may be invited to act as a Guest Editor.
Both Mineralogical Magazine and Clay Minerals have signed up to rapid publication on
both e-platforms on which they operate. This means that papers will appear online within
a matter of weeks (or less) of acceptance. There will no longer be a need to wait for the
next available slot to become available in the paper journal. MinSoc journals are the first
Society-published journals in this subject to offer this facility. In Mineralogical
Magazine, we also all free full-colour publishing (when deemed essential by the Editor)
in both paper and print versions. Authors are given free e-prints of their papers for
circulation to interested colleagues.
Abstract volume
Abstract volumes are an integral part of every conference. The quality of information and
navigability varies. A good format to follow is given below:
1. Cover should include the name, dates, year, and venue of conference, and logos of
sponsoring organizations
2. List of contents
3. Joining instructions, acknowledgements
4. Maps, where appropriate
5. Programme (broken down by session)
6. Oral Abstracts (in order of presentation)
7. Poster abstracts should be presented in alphabetical order of the first author)
8. There should be an author index at the back which will allow readers to identify
abstracts easily.
Readers should be able to check/find easily
(1) What’s on now/today/tomorrow?
(2) a talk by another delegate
(3) the list of talks for any given session, and how to get to the abstracts for those talks
quickly and easily
(4) be able to write to/email another delegate after the conference
7. Poster Sessions
Often considered the poor relation at conferences, try as much as possible to have a
vibrant poster session by:
1. Ensuring a healthy attendance (have a clear slot in the programme, at a time when
delegates are fresh, e.g. straight after lunch, or just after a plenary talk), i.e. avoid the
(usual) graveyard 4.00-6.00 pm slot if you can.
2. Ensure that the posters are (wo)manned throughout the session.
3. Provide refreshments in the same room as the posters, preferably at the far side of the
room from the door, and past the posters!
4. If you have any exhibitors, they should be given good locations within the room.
Ensure that exhibitors are aware of the poster session timings. They will be happy to have
this information in advance as they may not wish to be present throughout a 3 day
conference.
5. Many delegates will wander through the poster session if an oral session is not of
interest. Keep the poster room near the lecture room, if possible, and certainly near where
the tea/coffee is served.
6. Poster boards are expensive to hire. Consider running two poster sessions (if your
schedule allows it) thus enabling you to halve the cost of hiring boards.
7. Remember to specify the format of posters you require, usually A0 portrait, i.e. 83 cm
wide x 115.4 cm tall. These are the most common type of board available these days, and
also the most economical in terms of room space.
8. Reporting
We feel that it is important to present a report of the conference, in written form, for
those who were unable to attend, or who might be interested in attending a future such
event. With this in mind, convenors are invited to consider securing the following records
for presentation on the conference website and/or in Elements. These should be presented
within two weeks of the end of the conference.
Written report
 A 200-400 word (depending on the size of the conference) written report,
outlining the key sessions, and giving the names of keynote speakers and the titles
of their talks, and whether there will be a publication arising out of the
conference.
Photographs
 of key events
 keynote/plenary speakers
 presentations
 of delegates at poster sessions/coffee/banquet
 anything else which was memorable and which will show the group/society in a
good light
Presentations
 copies of the powerpoint presentations made by keynote speakers and possibly
others for publication on the conference website.
Podcasts
 recordings (on a device to be provided by the Society) of some talks, for
podcasting purposes (to tie in with powerpoint presentations above).
Text

quotations from delegates
Feedback from delegates
 on all or any aspect of the conference, good or bad. This will enable us to
improve future conferences.
9. Financial reporting
As mentioned above, there are two possible choices when it comes to organizing a
conference. Either the Mineralogical Society can be responsible for the conference in
which case it must be administered through the Society office or you may prefer to run
the conference outside of the Mineralogical Society, e.g. from a University Conference
Office, and only the surplus or deficit is accounted for in the financial statements of the
Mineralogical Society.
(a) Society-run
In cases where the Mineralogical Society is to run the conference, all the financial
transactions will take place through the Society office and so the Society will be
responsible for all accountancy and reporting functions. Convenors will, of course, be
involved in all aspects of the financial planning and budgeting, to ensure financial
success, i.e. avoid financial losses.
(b) Not Society-run
In cases where the Mineralogical Society is not running the conference, all of the
accountancy will be handled elsewhere (i.e. the University). A bank account may be
opened in the name of the conference (but not in the name of the Special Interest Group)
and all income paid to it and bills paid from it. At the end of the conference, the
Mineralogical Society, will accept a single payment, as a donation, from the conference
(which will be credited to the Society or SIG account, whichever is appropriate). Where
there is an agreed deficit this will be paid by the Mineralogical Society to the conference
account. All that will show in the Society’s accounts is a single entry, i.e. the donation or
contribution as detailed above.
To enable the Mineralogical Society to support the conference the following
documentation will be needed by the Society, after the event is finished, in order to fulfil
auditing needs:
(a) a copy of every receipt issued to a delegate, outlining their registration and the monies
received from them.
(b) a copy of all correspondence relating to other donations/contributions received by the
conference
(c) a summary which shows all the income detailed above in (a) and (b).
(d) a copy of all invoices against which a matching payment has been made, including
internal payments made to the university in question
(e) a copy of all correspondence relating to payments made to invited speakers
(f) a summary which shows all the payments detailed above in (d) and (e).
(g) the difference between the total on c and the total on f should be repaid by or
reimbursed to the university to the Society/SIG.