Nashville update : Webinar and Conference room provisional plans

NOTE CHANGES, SEE UPDATE POST:
The Nashville Body Odor & Halitosis
meetup to become two separate events

Donations needed for Conference Room and Webinar

This March 2010 sees the inauguration of the online community Body Odor and Halitosis Conference and Webinar to be held in Nashville Embassy Suites Airport Hotel on March 20th and 21st. Originally, it was planned as just a meetup amongst community members, but now it hopes to be both a meetup and a conference, with the conference being in the form of a webinar, so that experts can speak from their homes, and so the online community can watch the presentation videos and communicate in text format from anywhere in the world.

Invitations to TMAU/FMO3 experts have been sent and so far a renown geneticist expert has said he would be happy to help if his schedule permits, and another 2 have said they would be giving a joint lecture on FMO3 genetics and best practice for coping with TMAU. The expert overseeing the MeBO-Biolab Gut Dysbiosis Study has also offered to do a presentation.

Conference room arrangements :
Pending the numbers who will attend this Nashville Webinar, it has not yet been decided if the meetings will be held in the Governors Suite, or whether one of the larger hotel conference rooms may be needed. The cost of a any of these rooms may cost from $150 to $500 a day depending on the room size. This will be determined later once the number of attendees is more accurately established. Whether to book a conference room for 2 days is also still to be decided, depending on factors such as whether the attendees wish 2 days, cost, and the potential numbers of speakers. At the moment we are proceeding as if the webinar will last one and a half or two days. After all, it was initially intended to be a meetup to promote camaraderie and support, and for attendees to also have the opportunity to have fun together.

Capacity sizes of the conference rooms

Webinar arrangements :
The webinar format will allow experts who cannot attend to speak from their homes via a webcam and microphone (via a TV or monitor) to the attendees in the conference room and to those online to also watch in their own computers. One popular body odor & halitosis phone-conference in the US had around 80 callers about a year ago; therefore, the webinar arrangements will be based on the possibility of over 100 watching via the internet. Nonetheless, to ensure no-one is left out, it will probably be based on 500 watching or even more.

Meanwhile the group in Nashville will be watching from the conference room and will be able to ask questions to the speaker during the Q&A session after each presentation. Those on the internet will provisionally communicate their questions and comments via text chat or email.

We have yet to find the program we will need to do this, but it will probably cost us between $50-$100 (or more) for the shortest subscription (one month). The viewers will be able to watch for free, though donations will be accepted. One candidate program is dimdim webinar but it has not yet been determined as other possibilities will be explored. Dimdim uses flashplayer and can be watched without the need to download anything. We will probably do a trial run of a webinar in late February/early March so that anyone interested may join to get the hang of it. It's hoped the Nashville 2010 webinar will encourage future webinars.

Things we think we will need for the conference room :

• A table (to put the TV/Monitor on)
• A wireless mic (so the host and those in the room can speak to the speakers)
• Possibly sound speakers
• A TV (if it has a computer monitor socket) or monitor
• A laptop (probably 2)

Webinar program basic needs :

• 500-1000 viewer capacity
• 3,4, or 5 cameras and mics enabled (maybe 2 minimum)
• Can record video (with speakers permission. Any permitted video would be freely available on the blog and MeBO website. No sufferer wouild appear wihtout permission)
  

Donations :

For the above objective to come to fruition, it was suggested that anyone interested may donate to a ring fence 'Webinar Fund'. The proceeds of this Fund will be used exclusively for the rooms used specifically for the conference and the technical equipment used.

The easiest way to donate is to go to your paypal account and send money as a 'gift' to :

webinar@meboresearch.com (send as a gift)

Other donation avenues may also be used; and to do so, you may contact María at, maria@meboresearch.com to make those arrangements.