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Good day, MOBTS Oceania Registrants!
We're just weeks away from our conference hosted at University of New South Wales in Sydney. This conference has been a long time coming since our January 2020 conference in Christchurch, New Zealand and we look forward to engaging with all of you and seeing you engage with one another as we build momentum into our 2024 conference and beyond.
This email is the first in a series of update you will receive leading up to and through the conference. The goal is to provide you with information on what to expect, any changes that are made along the way, and so forth.
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Australian Travel Visas
Before we dive into the conference, let's make sure you can get to the conference! Australia requires travel visas for residents from most all nations. For leisure and general business/conference travel, this can almost certainly be handled by downloading the Australian Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) app. Search the Google Play Store or Apple Store for "Australian ETA" and download it. The process only takes a few minutes. You will need to have your valid and eligible passport on hand and to take a photo of yourself within the app. The visa application costs $20 AUD and, assuming all of your documents and responses are in order, verification and approval arrives within three minutes to your preferred email. Please do not forget this process and take care of it ASAP! Learn more at the Australia ETA site.
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MOBTS "Dress Code"
Please be aware that our group and organizational culture is quite informal. We want you to feel comfortable. We want to strip away the formalities that may inhibit interactions and discussions. We want you to focus on the content of the day, to have in-depth discussions with one another, and so forth. Worrying about what clothing you wear does not contribute meaningfully to those goals, therefore the only dress code is that there is no dress code. Now, that doesn't mean you show up wearing your best Cobbler's Beach garb (I had to Google to find that reference...I recommend you not do so...), but do feel free to wear a t-shirt, shorts, sneakers, etc. The most 'formal' anyone will be is business casual with a polo shirt and khakis. We discourage jackets, ties, etc. The point is we believe learning should be fun and relaxed, just as we are sure you do in your own classrooms.
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Conference Programs
There are still some minor adjustments to be made to the program; however, we do not anticipate any major shifts at this time.
Please note that MOBTS no longer prints full programs. Rather, we rely on (1) daily grid printouts that you can pick up at the registration table each morning, and (2) our online programs.
For those of you that will be physically attending the conference, we recommend you use the Mobile Program. This is an app-like program that works fantastic on mobile devices. It provides in-depth information of each session, presenter lists, and additional useful information. This app will be populated with conference information in its "About" pages over the next two weeks.
Virtual attendees will be best off using the Program Matrix. Please note that the virtual/hybrid program is a condensed program of those sessions that are purely virtual and those that are hybrid (physical presenters with both physical and virtual attendees). There is at least one (1) session during each time slot for virtual attendees.
For our presenters, if you see "Hybrid Session" listed in your programming box, it means that you will be conducting such. Sessions with out "Hybrid" or "Virtual" will be in-person sessions only. We received many more sessions open to hybrid engagement than we had capacity for, so we thank you all for your interest. We will strive to increase our hybrid session capacities in future conferences!
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Social, Dinners, and More
If you are bringing family with you - or are local and would simply like to bring a guest - we would love to have them with us at our opening social, either of our two dinners, or anything else that the group informally puts together (outside of normal conference operations). If you do have a guest or guests who you'd like to bring along, please email me at brandon@mobts.org and we can get you situated with any costs associated with the opening reception, the dinner on February 1st, and/or the dinner on February 2nd. Please do be aware that in some instances capacity is limited, so there may be a cut off as to how many guests we can bring with us. If interested, I recommend you reach out sooner than later.
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There will be much more information to come! If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me via email or reach out to me on WhatsApp at +1 843 855 0301 (please be certain to state your name). We would love for you to bring colleagues to share in the conference experience. Do feel free to forward our conference information page and registration link.
Looking forward to seeing you all soon! I'll be back in touch with more info next week.
Best,
Brandon Charpied
Executive Director, MOBTS
brandon@mobts.org
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