Dear All, Thanks for those that made meeting today, and no worries those that didn’t @Michael: Thanks for setting up website. I managed to get access to it and added a few things here and there (including Keynote & invited speakers confirmed, Hotel, way to conference, and important dates). This squarenote thing is quite userfriendly 😊 @All. We are I think ready to open abstract submission! Registration we will open later once account finalized (think this is fine, as many people wait anyhow for confirmation of acceptance to register – at least I always used to). Please take a look at website (www.biobrillouin25.com) and point out any changes/additions/subtractions needed by end of weekend. The plan is then to send out email announcing abstract submission is open on Monday. @All Please also follow up on all the speakers you Invited &/or Keynote and ask them to submit a preliminary title for their talk asap. I will add these to website by their names – this I think adds a lot to the appeal of people wanting to come. Also please follow up with all the sponsors you already contacted and contact any others you can think of. We need more sponsors! These can also be institutional (I am asking Medical University of Vienna to see if they can contribute anything). @All One thing that is blatantly missing from website but I wanted to run by you before adding anything is the registration fee. This is important as for some it may be deciding factor and would like to add before opening abstract submission (would include it under registration subpage). I think we discussed 350 EUR for Students and 500 EUR for Postdocs & PI’s. Are we all ok with this. Robert how does this factor into budgeting? I am fine with increasing a bit if needed. Should mention also what all is included in this.. If we say coffee/snacks and lunch on conference days (25, 26 and 27) and Conference Dinner (on 26). In this case I do not think it is unreasonable to even raise price to 400 EUR (students) and 600 EUR (Postdocs & PI’s) or even more. What are your thoughts? Worth noting it was never made clear whether keynote and invited speakers pay registration fee. Now I somewhat despise the idea of having a keynote or even invited speaker pay registration (the way that SPIE and some other conferences do)… it’s not unlike inviting someone for dinner at your house and then handing them a receipt after dinner! This is my opinion and ofcourse if the SOC decides that they should pay then we will go with that. My point though is that if they do not pay registration we are talking a lower income and will need elevated prices. Now I know that many of the invited and keynote would have no issue paying registration fees (for example Alberto Bilenca, he just needs an invitation letter and invited status and he will come – else he can’t – but will pay everything including registration). One can however not be heterogeneous in having some invited/keynote pay registration and others not. My suggestion would be to just have all invited and keynote not pay, and adjust pricing of registration and work hard on finding more sponsors. An alternative would be to reshuffle invited vs. keynote such that only keynote do not pay, but this is not feasible since they were invited already with specific request for keynote vs. invited. A final option, which is a bit of an odd psychological game (but can solve our dilema), is to ask each speaker if due to limited funds (explaining relocation of venue) they would be able to pay registration if it is within their capacity. As mentioned I don’t like the idea of asking for registration costs, but this is a kind of middle ground (like in the dinner invitation analogy, saying if you can bring a bottle of wine to the dinner would be great!). Now on the one hand everyone appreciates not paying, but it is also awkward to admit if they have resources to pay registration to decline (I mention because I have been approached like this with some invited and keynote talks). @All. Kind of related but not totally to last point. Several invited and keynote speakers have requested financial help. Of these are Kandice, Luc, and Biman (Bagchi). Luc I told we should hopefully be able to find since I think it will not be much for him and given his importance I think good to have. The others we have mentioned this will be subject to available budget and will get back to them. Biman (look him up), is a world expert on water (theoretical statistical physical-chemist working on biomatter, just retired) and has some very interesting ideas on interpreting BLS, and I think would be really a great asset for community. He mentioned he can cover his hotel (from his pocket) and would just like some help covering his flight from India (which I would be strongly in favour of). Haven’t gotten back to him yet, but should do soon. I understand situation with Kandice is similar, although from what I understand would need full coverage from US travel and accomodation. Aside from that it appears all others are ok paying their own travel to my understanding. Ok, look forward to hearing from you. As mentioned unless I hear any opposition I will send out email to community on Monday evening saying registration is open, and at same time ask Caterina to post on social media channels. Sorry for long email (I would have written a shorter letter but did not have the time – B. Pascal). All the best, Kareem