Guidelines for planning a seminar

Are you planning a seminar or webinar?

Guidelines on how to plan, start and carry out FORCE seminars.

For webinar

How to arrange a webinar for your FORCE-group:

1. Find an interesting topic from your company that can be presented.
2. Make sure you have internal and partner approval to present externally.
3. Check website for available dates: https://www.sodir.no/en/force/events/. Try to avoid having events on the same date as other FORCE events.
4. Webinar is typically 30-45 min presentation with room for questions at the end. Ask the presenter if they would like the webinar to be recorded.
5. Contact Linn Smerud as the secretariat to help organize, put information out on website and set up a test meeting.
6. Introduce the FORCE group you are representing and the presenter/topic. Be present at the webinar together with the presenter.

For in-person seminar

1. Gather members to make up the organising committee

The organizing committee (OC) is responsible for pre-seminar meetings, and for planning and carrying out the seminar. This initiative most often starts in the network groups and it should consist of committed participants. The FORCE secretariat must be contacted as soon as you know you will arrange a seminar and will assist with practical tasks. A representative from the FORCE secretariat (the Norwegian Offshore Directorate) might join the OC, but this is not a necessity.

The secretariat can help you with:

• Establish and maintain a course-site at force.org
• Marketing the seminar through our regular channels
• Booking venue, making dinner arrangements, etc.
• Practical help on the seminar day – i.e. registering participants

2. Start planning meetings

The the Norwegian Offshore Directorate offices are available for FORCE meetings. Please contact Tone Mydland or Linn Smerud for conference room and lunch bookings.

Subjects to discuss:

• Where and when the seminar will take place. All seminars are to be held in Stavanger at the the Norwegian Offshore Directorate auditoriums
• Check for conflicting seminars and conferences
• Topics
• Speakers; the organizing committee is responsible for inviting relevant speakers
• Agenda
• Display of posters, hand-outs, abstracts, presentations, need for extra rooms, social dinner, etc.
• Divide responsibilities among the OC members

Commercial seminars and presentations must be avoided.

It is important that the date, topic and preliminary agenda is published at www.force.org at the earliest possible date, to enable early start of registration and marketing of the seminar.

3. Topic of seminar and presentations
   
   FORCE is a non-profit, non-commercial organization. Please respect this when planning topics and inviting speakers. Communicate low threshold and importance of sharing.
   Make sure to communicate deadlines for abstracts to presenters. Follow up quickly if they fail to deliver by the deadline. Ask presenters to send their presentations no later than 2 days before the event in order to organize the presentations on a PC or memory stick.
   
   The OC needs to clarify in advance with presenters whether or not they want their presentations published at www.force.org. Keep a close dialogue with presenters to establish a structured and balanced program.
   
   
4. Core viewing

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate’s core viewing rooms are available. The OC is responsible for transportation of cores and directorate staff will put them on display. Book the room(s) as early as possible, preferably 6 months in advance.

There are two core viewing rooms available. Each room has 8 tables with room for 17 boxes on each table. For the show cut, each box contains 2 metres of cores, which means each room can have up to 272 meters of cores on display.

Please allow The Norwegian Offshore Directorate staff 2 days for preparation of the cores and send a complete list of cores to be displayed to odd.kristiansen@sodir.no. 

5. Costs

There are standard prices for attending seminars, see the prices 

The seminar fees should cover all costs associated with the seminar; room rental, lunch, dinner, speaker gifts, and in some cases, travel expenses for visiting speakers. If this is considered, the cost of it needs to be cleared with the FORCE secretariat in advance.

Speakers employed by member companies must pay travel- and accommodation expenses themselves.

Speakers from universities, research institutions and students might have their expenses covered. This needs to be cleared with the secretariat.

Travel expenses up to NOK 5000,- per person. I addition FORCE will pay the cost of accomodation. 

• Lunch & Learn seminars: 1 speaker and 1 student
• One day seminars: 1-2 speakers and 1-2 students
• Two day seminars: 2-4 speakers and 2-4 students

Please note, if you are considering inviting international speakers that generate substantial higher costs, you must send a short application/request to the Technical Committee asking for funding. TC will evaluate your applicaton and decide if you will be sponsored with extra funding.

Seminar fee payments are made online with credit card and are non-refundable. 

6. The OC can choose to ask companies for sponsor funds

If a seminar is planned, that causes additional costs, sponsorship can be a way to finance it. The committee is responsible for contacting possible sponsors and making the actual agreement. The secretariat will take care of invoicing, upon receiving an invoicing address, contact person and a PO-number from the OC.

7. Marketing

The FORCE secretariat will assist with marketing through available channels, such as publishing the seminar on www.force.org , and sending out newsletters to our subscribers. The secretariat can also help in placing ads in other publications. The costs will then  be charged to the actual seminar.

The OC is encouraged to use their own marketing channels to promote the seminar, like their own networks and associates. It is important to have a plan on how to reach the right audience.

The seminar will be published on the FORCE webpage. Please allow the secretariat approximately 3 days to publish it after you have sent all relevant material. Please note that the agenda does not have to be complete to publish it. Information can be updated continuously.

8. Seminar day

A representative from the FORCE secretariat will be present to register participants and help with other practical tasks. The OC is responsible for all planned activities, and will lead the seminar.
 

8.1. Checklist technical details seminar day:

• PC for presentations
• Pointer
• Headset microphone and backup
• Microphone for questions from the audience
• Stand-by technician
• Get acquainted with the technical system at the conference facility
• Consider to have backup PC available
    

9. No photography

FORCE is a forum for knowledge sharing, and confidentiality is governed in the membership contract. In order to maintain trust, and to keep the forum an arena where research and development is shared, we ask that no photos be taken during presentations. The committee must inform the audience at the start of the workshop and signs are posted at the entrance of the auditorium.
   

10. Restaurant

Some seminars start with a dinner in the evening. The secretariat will arrange the restaurant booking. There are some options regarding choice of dinner service:

• Restaurant in the city centre
• The Norwegian Offshore Directorate's dining facilities
• Simple refreshments will be served near the seminar area

To avoid a large number of no-shows, the secretariat will send out reminders and ask all participants to notify us at least one day in advance if they will not attend the evening dinner. 
 

11. Debriefing

It’s recommended that the organizing committee have a meeting a few days after the seminar to review it. The secretariat must be copied on any final reports or notes.
 

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