THIS PAGE NEEDS UPDATING

This information is being prepared to be made public for potential hosts of task force meetings.  Further internal information for task force secretaries and other support staff can be found here.

Overview

TERENA task force (TF) meetings are hosted at venues across Europe by task force participants.  If you are considering hosting a TF meeting, this information may be useful to you. 

For each task force, TERENA has assigned a secretary. The secretary will be your main point of contact in organising the meeting and you will probably already know them via meeting attendance. For large meetings, it may be possible for TERENA to provide additional event management support, but this should not be assumed. 

Meeting Size

As an attendee, you will be probably be aware of the typical number of participants at meetings - this varies considerably across task forces and will have an impact on your planning.  Your task force secretary should be able to give you a good indication of what to expect, but the following table may be useful:

Registration

The TF secretary will set up an online form for attendees to register for the meeting. This will include practical information, such as collecting dietary requirements. The meeting will be advertised on the TERENA website, appropriate mailing list(s) and sometimes on the PeaR Community Newsletter. Task force meetings are typically open to anyone who wishes to attend, with the exception of TF-CSIRT. You should agree with the TF secretary when registration for your meeting should be closed and what is your deadline for receiving the final numbers (in order to finalise restaurant bookings, meeting room seating arrangements and so on).

Venue

The host is expected to cover the cost of the venue.  Venues for TF meetings are typically within Universities or NREN facilities, where the host can acquire the space for free or at a low cost. Some larger meetings have been held in hotels, but there is no budget available for this approach. 

If you would like to offer to hold the meeting in your country but have no budget available, please make this clear to your task force secretary. For some meetings, it may be possible to go ahead on this basis but note that the secretary will need to be in full control of registrations and budgets to make this possible. A participation fee may have to be charged in these circumstances.

It would be useful if the venue could provide eduroam. If eduroam is not available, free wireless should be provided to attendees at point of use. If charges apply, please discuss this with the TF secretary.

The meeting room should be equipped with sufficient power sockets for attendees to keep their laptops charged. Some task forces also request that the hosts provide a dedicated laptop from which all presentations can be displayed, microphones or even video streaming.

For some TF meetings, additional small rooms may be required for part of the time where breakout groups can work separately from each other. Sometimes materials such as flipcharts, post-it notes and marker pens may be needed to facilitate these sessions. Please discuss with the TF secretary whether the meeting agenda will mean that such facilities are required.

It is also useful to discuss with the TF secretary what forms of seating arrangements can be provided in the meeting room and which would be most suitable.

Side Meetings

We may be approached by other organisations looking to co-host meetings at the same time as the task force.  We may ask the local host to help with facilitating these requests.  Any requests for side-meetings not directly related to the task force itself, these should be charged at cost to the requesting organisation.

Video Conferencing Facilities

To enable widest possible participation, video conferencing facilities should be available in the meeting room and joining instructions should be communicated to those participating using video. TERENA can set up VC rooms for events if needed. 

Catering

Lunch and coffee at the venue is paid for by the host.  If you would like to offer a venue but cannot cover the catering costs, please let us know at the time of offer as this will need to be discussed internally within TERENA. There may be circumstances where TERENA is able to cover the cost of food at the venue.

Dinners

Hosts are not expected to provide dinner for the event, although some hosts are able to generously provide one or more social event(s). It is also possible to bring in third-party sponsors (e.g., vendors) in agreement with the TF secretary. If you are not able to provide the dinner, you may consider working with the TF secretary to:

• provide suggestions for local restaurants;
• arrange a 'no-host' dinner, booked by the host but paid for by the participants.

The secretary should make payment arrangements clear on the event web pages before the event to avoid confusion.

Other Arrangements

The local host will be asked to help provide appropriate hotel recommendations and details about public transport. It is not necessary to block book hotel rooms unless you already have a convenient arrangement with local hotels.

For some meetings, the TF secretary may provide badges for participants. If your venue requires any specific badges / identification for security purposes please let us know.