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Planning Your 2-day Workshop

The Schedule

The idea of a BIRS workshop is to allow the exchange of the latest and most important information in your field and to allow people the time to discuss and brainstorm together in an inspiring and stress-free setting. We leave the detailed structure of your meeting up to you. However, we wish to encourage the scheduling of some unstructured time and discourage the notion that every participant should be invited to speak.

It is very useful for BIRS and for the participants of your workshop if at least some of the scheduling for talks and other activities is determined in advance. This is particularly true of the first day.

The following is a generic schedule for a BIRS workshop and also LaTeX files for producing your own schedules.

2-day Workshop Suggested Schedule Format: program_2day_2012.pdf - PDF files.

If you wish to create this schedule using LaTeX:
program_2day_2012.tex

birs_banner.pdf

If you wish to create this schedule using Word: program_2day_2012.doc.

Please email your finalized schedule and abstracts to BIRS Station Manager birsmgr@birs.ca by Thursday morning before your arrival (at the latest) in order to allow for printing and posting to the website.  You are also encouraged to e-mail the schedule to all of your participants. An electronic mailing list is offered to each workshop, at the address: @lists.birs.ca. More information about your mailing list is available by clicking on the "Mailing List" link on your workshop home page. If there is no such link, and you would like a mailing list, please request one at help@birs.ca.  


Travel and Accommodation

Participants are expected to arrive in the afternoon or evening on Friday and to depart sometime in the afternoon on Sunday. Accommodation is provided for the organizers and participants for the duration of the workshop. Check-in time is 4:00pm on Friday and check-out is 12:00 noon on Sunday.

Unless specifically negotiated, all meals are the responsibility of the organizers and participants. Note: The Banff Centre has a dining facility that operates a buffet style service (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). This is available on a pay-as-you-go basis. The main town site of Banff (10-minute walk) has many restaurants. Should the organizer wish to have the group dine in the main dining room, please contact The Banff Centre three weeks prior to the workshop.

The nearest international airport is in Calgary and there are regular shuttle services connecting it to Banff. The shuttle bus will take you right to the Banff Centre. Directions by car and transit are listed in more detail under "Getting to BIRS". Local information is available under For Participant.

Some of your group may be interested in extending their visit to Banff, and possibly involving their families. BIRS facility has no provision for accompanying family members or for extension of participants' stays. However, The Banff Centre itself (in which BIRS is located) has considerable facilities for accommodation, both for singles and families. Also the town of Banff, which is readily accessible by foot (about 10 minutes, downhill) from the Banff Centre, offers a variety of accommodations. You can find a useful map showing the location of the Banff Centre and some of the main hotels, restaurants, and attractions of Banff at: http://www.discoverbanff.com/Maps/

The following are a few examples of Banff tourism/accommodation websites: