BEFORE THE CONGRESS:

• Please familiarise yourself with the programme, session and speakers.
• Please prepare some backup questions.
• If there is additional time left in the session, you are welcome to allow additional time for each presenter at your discretion.

AT THE CONGRESS: BEFORE THE SESSION STARTS

Please arrive at your session hall about 5-10 minutes before the session.

Approximately two minutes before the start of each session, please ask people to take their seats, encouraging them to sit towards the front and centre. You should announce each speaker and supervise discussion from the head table using the microphone provided.

One minute before the first scheduled presentation:

• You and your co-chair/s (if there are two chairs or more) should introduce yourselves by name and affiliation.
• Announce the title of the session.
• Ask people to set their mobile devices to silent and request that they do not take photos of the presentation slides or record the session.

DURING THE SESSION:

As the session chair, you are responsible for the time management of the presentations within your session hall:

• Please introduce the speaker and presentation title as indicated in the Congress App which will have the most up-to-date programme details.
• Please follow the schedule closely.
• It is essential to adhere to the scheduled start and end times of each talk. This is so that people can move from one room to another and find the talks as announced in the programme.
• Please announce a two-minute warning so that a speaker can time the end of their presentation and not overrun.
• The presenters were instructed to include 2 minutes for Q&A in their talks. If a presenter doesn’t leave 2 minutes for Q&A, it is at their expense.
• If the presenter is speaking too quickly and cannot be easily understood, please ask them to slow down.
• Please ensure that the speaker uses the microphone.
• If there is a long or complicated question from the audience and/or if the speaker does not understand the question, please summarise the question for the speaker or ask for clarification.
• Notify the in-hall AV Technician immediately of AV equipment problems.
• Expect the unexpected!
• If a speaker fails to attend the session, move to the next speaker.
• If there is additional time left in the session, you are welcome to allow additional time for each presenter at your discretion

If the session gets ahead of schedule, do one or more of the following:

• Solicit questions from the audience and lead a discussion.
• If you finish before the allotted time, you are welcome to allow additional time for Q&A, or you may let the session out early.