Hosting CCA Meetings

Thanks for volunteering to host a CCA Forum meeting! If you don't have much experience organizing meetings, hopefully these notes may help you. Please feel free to ammend them — that's what a wiki is for!


Lab people are limited by the federal (GSA) per diem rates for hotel reimbursement. If you can get the hotel to give you "government rates" for the block, life is easy for the lab people. If they won't go that low, the labs will generally reimburse hotel rates up to 150% of the federal per diem with appropriate documentation that (a) it is the meeting hotel, and (b) what the block rate is. Typically, a web page, email message, or piece of paper saying "The January CCA Forum meeting will be held at the XXX Hotel in Sin City and the block rate is $YYY/day." suffices.

You can look up the federal per diem rates at this page on the http://www.gsa.gov web site. Rates are adjusted every fiscal year, so make sure you're looking at the right ones for your meeting dates. Rates vary by county, but there is a default rate if your location is not listed ($60/day for FY2006). For some locations, rates are seasonal. Hotels usually know about this, but it is worth double check that you're getting the proper rates for the time of the meeting because they sometimes forget or get confused. The relevant rate is the "Max lodging", and that's just for the room rate, excluding all taxes.


Meetings have been running around 15-20 people lately, give or take 5-10. Note that with local participants and people not staying for the whole meeting, your room block may be smaller. If you want more precise historical information, look up the attendance records on Quorum, but recognize that these records don't distinguish remote participants from ones that were using up hotel rooms. There is some seasonal variation in attendance.

If you're uncomfortable about these estimates, talk to people like Rob or David.


The CCA Forum meeting is typically 1.5 days, but it is not uncommon for subgroups to want to add on a small sidebar meeting — typically on the day before or after the main meeting. Sidebars typically range from half a day to a full day. As host, you may want to put out a call for any sidebar meetings so that you can make appropriate arrangements for meeting space and the room block.


The primary thing needed for CCA Forum meetings is a video projector and screen. Hotels tend to charge a lot for video projectors, so you may want to bring your own if it is convenient.

These days, there's pretty much an expectation of network connectivity. If the hotel only has wired, or peculiar pricing policies on the wireless, you can get a commodity wireless router these days quite inexpensively. Many people in the group have one they can bring along if you can't otherwise get one — just ask.

In order to support remote participation by people who can't travel to the meeting, we like to have a phone line we can dial out on. Hotels rarely have good quality speakerphones, and will charge you out the whazoo even for the bad one. David has a Polycom speakerphone with extension mics and a wireless mic that he can bring (or ship) that works pretty well. We've found that anything less than this (especially the wireless mic for the main speaker) can make it hard for the remote participants. David and Rob have dedicated 24/7 telecon bridges that can be used. David's is toll-free, which is usually what you want so the hotel doesn't charge you outrageously to dial into the phone bridge.

Recently, we've been using MeetingPlace to share presentations with remote participants. As a practical matter, this requires a Windows computer (laptop is fine) with a recent Java installed and network connectivity to dedicate to the presentations (instead of everyone using their own laptop). Obviously the easiest thing is if the host can scrounge up a suitable machine for a few days. Otherwise, contact David about bringing one.

It is handy to have a whiteboard or flipchart in the room.

Since on the final half day, we typically have breakout sessions, it can be helpful to arrange a second (smaller) meeting room if that can be done without too much trouble and expense. This can help keep multiple discussions from interfering with each other.

We typically make do without extra A/V for the second room — that almost always costs annoyingly large amounts of money.


Though it is not always done, there is precedent for charging registration fees to cover meeting costs. When we've done this so far, we've tried to give graduate students a reduced or free registration rate because we want to encourage their participation.

At most hotels, you'll have a combination of fixed costs and per capita costs, which depend on the number of people actually attending. Fixed costs usually include A/V, network, etc. and the primary per capita costs are food. You'll have to use estimated attendance to figure out how the fixed costs divide out.

As if their base prices weren't high enough, hotels usually tack on services fees (~20%) and taxes on top of the amounts on their price sheets. Make sure you know whether the quote you're looking at figures in those things or not. At some institutions, you're required to make all of the arrangements to host a meeting through the institution's "Conference Office" that may also charge a fee — sometimes on the total value of the meeting contract.

Finally, you'll want to give yourself some cushion in figuring the registration fee in case your attendance estimates are off, etc.

Before you start trying to collect registration fees, you'll need to be clear on what forms of payment you can accept and what info you need to collect to make people happy (like your credit card processor).

At the meeting, you'll need to provide people with receipts indicating the amount of the registration fee paid so that they can get reimbursed by their employers.


There is a tradition that breakfast is provided for the two days of the meeting (perhaps for sidebars too). This is usually just a standard continental breakfast, but some hosts go for something more. It helps get people to the meeting room in a more or less timely fashion.

Lunches may or may not be provided. If there are places nearby that you can go to, eat lunch, and return to the meeting in about an hour, then this usually the cheaper option. It often works nicely on university campuses or national labs with a cafeteria within walking distance. Otherwise, it is probably better (for the meeting, not for your budget) to have the hotel cater a lunch. If you provide lunch on the second day, consider requesting a box lunch and having it ready by ~11am so that people who need to get to the airport can grab-and-go if they need to.

Dinners at CCA Forum meetings are traditionally on-your-own, but often that means a few sizable groups going out together. If you know the area of the meeting, it can be helpful if you're prepared with a few restaurant suggestions.

Please try to make sure the agenda and/or registration receipts are clear as to what meals are provided as part of the meeting. If the breakfast is continental only, please say so — some institutions don't consider this to be a real breakfast and won't deduct from the traveler's reimbursement. Likewise whether lunches are provided or on your own.