2008 Joint Conference Presenters -  Information you Need to Know...

Thank you for submitting your presentation for the Joint Conference on Health.  Confirmation letters were emailed out to everyone who submitted an oral abstract to the Joint Conference in July and we appreciate helping us to make a successful conference.  To provide you with immediate information and answers to some of the most common questions, please read the information below. If you have further questions please contact Kathy Kondakjian at kathy@wspha.org or call 425-337-5717. 

Who should be listed in Registration Brochures? Primary presenters and panelists will be listed in the registration brochure scheduled to be posted on-line by Tuesday, July 8th. We ask that you do not list people as panelists if they are not presenting. We've had problems in the past with people being entered in as panelists when in fact they were not attending at all. If you wish to acknowledge someone who helped work on the abstract please let me know and they will be listed separately as "acknowledgments" under the abstract. If you have presenters but did not list them during the abstract process you will need to provided all detailed information on them including a bio, educational credentials, work information, etc. immediately upon accepting your time slot for presenting at the Joint Conference.  We are not responsible for double-booking of presenters when presenter information was not provided upfront when abstracts were being accepted and slotted into the conference.

What will be printed in the Final Program distributed at the conference? A detailed agenda will be printed in the front of the final program.  The plenary and concurrent session abstracts will also be printed along with a contact list of all presenters in the back of the program. All exhibitors and sponsors will be listed in the program along with all who helped on the JCH planning committee, moderators, abstract reviewers, volunteers at the JCH, and WSPHA board members.

How many presenters can be in the front of the room presenting for a single presentation at JCH? The maximum number of presenters allowed for any presentation is 4. There will be a moderator provided for sessions with two 45 minute presentations.  The moderator is not a presenter and should not be participating in the presentation; they are only there to announce the two presentations and to make sure each one begins and ends on time.  

Can I change the content of my presentation? The content of your abstract should not be changed once it's been accepted unless you were asked to adjust the time on your presentation. Please make grammatical corrections to the abstract as needed and changes to the title are permitted. Final changes for the conference program need to be submitted to Kathy Kondakjian by Thursday, September, 5th at noon. 

What if I am doing a PowerPoint presentation? The JCH is offering to presenters using PowerPoint presentations the opportunity to have your presentation placed on equipment ready to go in your presentation room. Your obligation is to have the presentation sent to the AV Coordinator, Richard Pedlar, by Monday, September 29, 2008. In return, you will receive confirmation it was received, it has been run through anti-virus software, and that is has been reviewed. The confirmation will also include how many slides are seen and if there is any animation or sound just to make sure that we have your whole presentation. Presentations can be e-mailed, sent on disk, or sent through the Internet. You can contact Richard at work at (360) 236-3115 or richard.pedlar@doh.wa.gov. He can also be reached at (253) 588-4357 or rwpedlar@comcast.net.

We are encouraging everyone with PowerPoint presentations to take advantage of this opportunity. All of the breakout rooms will be pre-set with LCD and laptops computers for the Monday - Wednesday concurrent sessions. If you choose to bring your own you will need to work around the equipment already in place for other presenters. Technical support will not be provided to anyone bringing their own equipment so make sure it is working properly prior to your presentation. Anyone forgetting their equipment who did not work with Richard to have their presentation pre-loaded may have to rent equipment at the convention center in the amounts of $150 for laptops and $400 for LCD projectors. 

What if I need to make copies, use a computer, or need network access while at the conference?  Space is limited at the convention center as we use every room available.  If there is a room available for a short time we will allow you to use it as long as any equipment set-up in the room is left as is.  There is also a conference room we can provide as long as it's not scheduled for use (see registration desk for schedule).  We do not provide laptop computers so you will need to bring your own.  Wireless is available through the convention center at no charge as long as you have a network card in your laptop. 

The JCH workroom is only for the JCH committee to use.  You are welcome to use the convention center copier or copy center over at the hotel but you will have to pay for the copies; otherwise, there is a Kinkos close by. 

What do the different room set-ups mean?  Theater style is head table with seating for 4, table top podium.  Podium microphones are provided for the larger rooms. Seating is rows of chairs from the front to the back of the room. Classroom style is the same in the front as theater but tables are provided for the audience to use for writing.  Roundtable style is set for group discussion.  Round tables are provided for the audience, there is usually not a head table and a microphone can be provided for the presenter to take from table to table.

Contact Us

How do I request other A/V equipment? Other equipment such as DVD players, TV/VCR, flipcharts, etc. can still be requested through Kathy Kondakjian at kathy@wspha.org. This information needs to be provided by September 19th.

Should I provide handouts and how many? Attendees have been requesting that handouts be provided for the sessions - especially on the PowerPoint presentations. We would appreciate it if you would make at least 50 copies of any handouts for attendees. If your presentation is too large for handouts perhaps you could make it available on a website after the conference for attendees to view again later. 

Will evaluation forms be provided and are they available to enter on-line?  Overall conference evaluation forms will be made available for attendees in their packets which they will then be able to enter their results onto a computer later at a link provided on the form.  We had hoped to have computers available in the registration area this year but that is not yet confirmed.  Individual session evaluations will not be provided by JCH; however, presenters are welcome to bring their own and pass them out, then collect them during their session.  

Do I need to register for the conference?  All presenters must complete an on-line registration form for the conference.  As indicated in the "Call for Abstracts" the primary presenter (the person listed as the first presenter on the presentation) is required to pay a conference registration fee for the day they are presenting. Panelist are also required to pay if they plan to attend more than the session they are presenting in. Panelist coming to present then leaving do not need to pay a registration fee but must still complete the on-line form so we know they are coming.  Name badges and registration packets are assembled for all presenters. 

Every presenter (poster, panelists, etc.) who is coming to the conference is required to complete a registration form.  Registration for JCH will be on-line registration only.  Click on the link to the left to register for the conference. 

Will there be Continuing Education Credits for my session?  If you provided all of the required information to Kathy Kondakjian by September 5th then your session should have CHES and RS credits.  We cannot guarantee the credits as it is the decision of the organization providing these credits for the conference.  We will also offer Category II physician credits as well as dental hygienist credits. 

How are moderators assigned for Concurrent Sessions?  The moderators are assigned by Kathy Kondakjian or, if the information was provided in advance, the presenter may also choose a moderator for their session as long as it is not one of the people presenting at the time (primary presenter or panelist).  Moderators are only provided for the 90m sessions which have two 45m presentation within.  The presentations that are 90m long do not have moderators assigned.  We do not ask people who are not paid registrants for the conference to moderate sessions. 

What are the responsibilities of the session moderator?  The responsibilities of the moderator are to: 1) announce each of the presentations just before they begin.  This could include an intro of the presenters or whatever the primary presenter wants to have said.  2) keep track of the time making sure each presentation has an equal amount of time which should be 45m each.  If the first presentation gets off to a late start because they are not ready it will cut into their own time. 3) alert the presenters if they are getting close to the end of their time 4) keep the session running smoothly by using people from the audience to locate key people outside the room if assistance is needed.  Moderators can moderate more than one session at the conference.

Moderators are required to contact the primary presenter from each of the two presentations in the session.  This is to let the presenters know who is moderating their session and to discuss what the presenters would like to have said as an introduction, if anything.  If you decide to moderate a session, please contact Kathy at Kathy@wspha.org.  Moderators will be provided with the two primary presenter's names, their email and phone number to contact them.  Moderators will need to ask the presenters for any resume or bio information needed for the introduction of their presentation.   We ask that you please work with each other to develop the opening/introduction for the presentations instead of requesting the information from Kathy.

Kathy will be soliciting for moderators the week of September 8th.  Moderators are printed in the final program so those who have made the decision to moderate prior to going to print on September 19th will be listed in the program.

Convention Center Regulations