The RAS National Astronomy Meeting 2008

Dear NAM Session Chairs,

Many thanks for agreeing to chair a session at the RAS NAM 2008 at Queen's. Easter and hence NAM are rather early this year, which means the deadlines for registration and drawing up your schedules will creep up on us quickly. Here are instructions for accessing registrations and a request for one immediate action item.

Immediate action item
Could you all check the titles of your sessions on the website and send us adjustments or updates by Tuesday 15th January. Could you also send a one paragraph description of your session by Tuesday 15th. For an example see: http://nam2008.qub.ac.uk/parallels_master.shtml#P41

The deadline for attendees to register for an oral presentation is 29th February (Friday). As people register, and request talks you will receive the abstracts as they come in.

You must send us your finalised list of speakers by 5pm Monday 10th March. Hence you have 10 days to design your session programme. We must insist on this deadline in order to send a PDF to the printers and have time for proofing and printing the abstract book (the Easter holidays are in between).

This will require your urgent attention between Friday 29th Feb. and Monday 10th March.

Many of you will want to invite speakers to your sessions, which we would encourage. But we would also request you balance the sessions between your invited speakers and those registering and requesting talks. The latter are often postdocs and students for whom NAM is an important opportunity to speak. Of course some sessions by definition (e.g. ESA Cosmic Visions) will be mostly invited.

All practical information will be posted on the website, if you have questions that are not answered please use the email namsoc@qub.ac.uk. On the website see the link "Notes for Session Chairs" for more information.

Regards
The RAS NAM 2008 SOC.