Overview

Our financial support program has the general aims of:

• Encouraging and enabling participation by colleagues who are contributing actively to the conference
• Enabling participation by members who have potential for future contribution to the consortium but have limited opportunities and resources for conference travel and professional development
• Encouraging broad representation at the conference, across member institutions and across professional roles

We’re trying to achieve those goals through three types of support: registration fee waivers, hotel accommodations, and travel support. AMICAL members’ eligibility for each type of support depends partly on their institution’s membership category:

Travel support (airfare)

Eligibility and conditions

To benefit from travel support:

• You must be a faculty or staff member at a Full or Affiliate member institution.
• Your institution must already be funding travel to the Conference for at least one staff or faculty member (typically, your AMICAL representative).
• You must have at least one of the following conference roles:
  • Speaker (primary speakers or additional speaker)
  • Coordinating Committee member
  • Conference Resource Coordinator
  • Unit4-sponsored IT directors
• You should only request airfare reimbursement after first seeking support from your own institution, for example through local programs for funding staff or faculty professional development, travel or conference participation.

How to claim travel support

Airfare will be covered automatically, up to a limit, for the conference roles indicated above. If you are eligible for this travel support, you will receive an email confirming this, with instructions for claiming the support. These emails have already been sent; if you feel you should have received these instructions but have not, send an email to amicalconf@amicalnet.org.

Hotel

To be eligible for AMICAL’s hotel support program, you must:

• be faculty/staff at an AMICAL Full or Affiliate member institution
• register for the conference by the registration deadline
• agree to participate actively in the conference for all days for which you register

AMICAL hotel support can only cover the hotel nights surrounding your event participation (arrival the day before your first day of participation, departure the day after your last day of participation). For example:

• The hotel costs for May 2 will only be covered for members of the Coordinating Committee (meeting on May 3).
• The hotel costs for May 3 will only be covered for members of the Coordinating Committee, AMICAL Representatives (or their proxies), and those who plan to attend the workshops on May 4.

You may book additional hotel nights, but you will be billed for those.

Note that normal check-in time is 14:00; if you arrive earlier in the day than that, AMICAL will cover the cost of the early check-in as long as this falls on the day that AMICAL would normally cover for your first hotel night.

Special conditions for hotel support apply to two different groups of attendees:

Group 1: All active roles except for additional speakers

AMICAL can cover your hotel nights provided that you are both:

• a visiting attendee from a Full or Affiliate member institution, AND
• in at least one of the following active conference roles:
  • Primary speaker
    • Persons who submitted an accepted proposal
    • Panel speakers
  • Coordinating Committee member
  • Conference Resource Coordinator
  • Unit4-sponsored IT director

Though not obligatory for attendees in this group, we strongly encourage room sharing. While we will try to make single rooms available to those who request them, the number of single rooms available at the Conference hotel is very limited. Room sharing also helps toward the financial sustainability of our annual conferences.

Group 2: Members willing to share a room

For all other Full/Affiliate members (those not in the “active conference roles” listed above), AMICAL can cover your hotel nights provided that you:

• agree to share a hotel room with another AMICAL member for all nights for which you’re requesting support (you must be a Full/Affiliate member, but your roommate can be from any member category: Full/Affiliate/Network)

One exception is allowed for this condition: if you’re attending the meeting or workshops on May 4, but your roommate is only attending the main program starting May 5, your room can still be covered for the night of May 3.

Rooms can be shared between 2 attendees (or 3 if requested). If you agree to share a room, you’ll have the option of either naming your roommate(s) or letting us pair you with one roommate of the same gender. If you name your roommate, they must name you as well in their hotel reservation request. Otherwise, we will pair you with a roommate of the same gender and, if possible, from your institution.

How to claim hotel support

If you fulfill the general and group conditions above, you need only submit the registration form, including there your hotel reservation request, by the normal registration deadline. Note that attendees in Group 2 must request hotel support by checking the appropriate box (“I am willing to share a room”) on the registration form. No payment on your part is necessary if you are only booking nights within the range covered by AMICAL.

Checking for hotel coverage

1. Check the following list to see if you are automatically eligible for hotel coverage because of your conference role: Members with AMICAL 2018 financial support (Full/Affiliate)
2. If your name does not appear on that list, you are still eligible for hotel coverage if you’re from a Full/Affiliate member institution and you’re willing to share a hotel room. If you’d like to double-check whether your hotel will be covered, you’re welcome to ask for an informal confirmation by sending the following information to amicalconf@amicalnet.org with “Hotel covered?” in the subject:
   • Full name
   • Whether you’re willing to share a room
   • Desired arrival date
   • Desired departure date
   • First scheduled session in the program in which you will participate
   If you will be attending as a proxy for your AMICAL Representative: you should copy your Rep on this email to confirm that you are attending the Members Council meeting on their behalf.
   
   We’ll respond with yes/no or the partial dates for which you’re covered.

Registration fees

The value of the AMICAL Conference registration fee is $250. This fee covers break catering, the group dinner, and other local organizing costs. Full waivers will be provided for all AMICAL members who register by the announced registration deadline.