GUIDELINES FOR HOLDING CONFERENCES/WORKSHOPS/SEMINARS BY LASA MEMBERS

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Laboratory Animal Scientists’ Association (LASA), India has been organizing conferences since 2006. The first LASA conference was organized in Hyderabad in 2006. Till 2020, LASA have organized nine conferences in different cities in India. Reports/ representative photographs of each conference is available on LASA website at http://www.lasaindia.in/conferences.php .

Since enhancing professional knowledge of the members of the ‘Association’ is one of its mandates/ objectives, LASA wish to continue the activity of holding annual conferences. However, in order to provide opportunity equally to all zones in all parts of India to showcase their strength and also to streamline this activity, a set of guidelines are needed. LASA India also promotes regional workshops/ seminars in different parts of the country. These set of guidelines would also serve guiding force for the regional workshops/ seminars too.

Executive committee of LASA proposes following guideline document for holding the conference/ workshop/ seminar by any member.

  1. Host member of conference must hold continuous membership for last 5 years of LASA India.
  2. For holding a conference, member must have attended at least two meetings in last five years.
  3. For holding a regional workshop/ seminar, continuous membership of LASA at least for last 12 months is must but attending two LASA conferences is not mandatory.
  4. Member should have approached their employer and obtained written permission from the employer to host the conference regional workshop/ seminar in their organization before proposing to the EC/ AGM. Approval letter from the office need to be submitted to LASA for record purpose. Once declared, the meeting will not be called off except for the reasons of unavoidable circumstances and justified to the LASA EC.
  5. Member must declare the Chairman, Organizing Secretary and Treasurer, whichever is applicable, to hold the conference and communicate to LASA along with the proposal. In case of zonal/ regional meeting/ workshops, it is expected to submit the name of atleast Organizing Secretary.
  6. Team and venue of LASA Conference once decided will not be changed without the pressing reason. The change will have to be approved by the EC. There is no scope to change the venue of zonal/ regional meeting/ workshop,
  7. In case more than one proposals are received for holding the conference in a year, EC shall consider following criteria’s
    • Preference will be given to a new zone/ city where conference/ workshop has never been held.
    • Credentials/ potentials of the Organizing team will be ascertained by the EC. Revised January 2020
  8. In case of zonal/ regional meeting/ workshops, the selection will be based on the first-cumfirst- serve basis along with application of criteria set in point no. 3, 4, 5 and 6. Only first two applications will be entertained in a financial year.
  9. In order to provide equal opportunity to all zones, the organizers will not be eligible for next funding till next three years. After fourth year too, the funding will be judged based on the criteria set in point no. 8. However, in case there are no fresh proposals received in a given financial year till last day of the December, LASA EC may decide the funding for the repeat organizer even if the funding is given to the organizer for last financial year, provided LASA EC has received the application from repeat organizer before the last day of December.
  10. LASA shall provide refundable seed money up to Rs. 3,00,000/- (Three lakhs only) for the conferences of which non-refundable seed money will be up to Rs. 25,000/- (Twenty five thousand only); and non-refundable seed money up to Rs. 25,000/- (Twenty five thousand only) for the zonal/ regional workshops or seminars. The organizers are free to raise additional funds from any other sources.
  11. For conference, refundable money can be released three months before the date of conference; whereas the non-refundable money for workshop/ seminar will be released four weeks before the workshop/ seminar.
  12. In case the organizer of a ‘Workshop/ Seminar’ have additional funds left at the end of the event, then they may voluntarily refund the non-refundable amount (partially or fully) as this may help LASA to support additional organizers to hold such events.
  13. Non-refundable seed money will be provided to maximum two different ‘zonal/ regional meeting/ workshops’ in a financial year preferably from different zones of the country.
  14. Members wishing to avail the seed money for holding zonal/ regional meetings/ workshops, must submit the proposal to the ‘President, LASA India’ at least three months before the date of meeting enabling the LASA EC to discuss it and also analyze the no. of proposals received to be approved for funding.
  15. Member must return the refundable seed money within 3 months or by end of the financial year, whichever is earliest.
  16. LASA EC must be kept in loop by the Organizing Secretary for development at all stages like coming out with first announcement, final announcement, selection of speakers, funding status, final program etc. so that it can also be pasted on the LASA website for the information of the members. Suggestions given by the LASA EC may be mere suggestions and not mandatory for the Organizing team to accept.
  17. The Organizing secretary of the LASA conference should arrange a meeting of LASA-EC at the place of venue for transacting routine business of LASA at least 3 months before the scheduled program. The LASA EC can also help the organizing team to finalize the theme of the conference, scientific program and list of the speakers etc. in this meeting.
  18. Expenses towards travel of the EC member for such meeting will be borne from the LASA account. However, the organizing team will take care of local hospitality of the attending EC members.
  19. The President, LASA India shall decide the committee in consultation with EC for screening the prizes for poster/ oral presentation based on the attendees in the conferences.
  20. Certificates of the conferences must have the signature of President and Secretary beside the signatures of the Organizing Secretary. For this purpose, draft of the certificates has to be circulated to the President and Secretary before finalizing.
  21. Complete list of members who attended the meeting, report of the conference/ workshop/ seminar along with representative photographs must be submitted to the ‘President, LASA India’ by end of March or no later than 3 months of holding the conference/ workshop/ seminar, whichever is applicable.
  22. Organizers of zonal/ regional meeting/ workshops are expected to raise the new LASA members from the participants of the events.
  23. In addition to the refundable seed money, Organizing Secretary of the conference must try to save sizeable money from the conference and transfer it to the main LASA account maintained at the LASA secretariat immediately after settling all the conference dues.
  24. In case the Organizer is not able to close the bank account and audit the income and expenditure of LASA Conferences for want of clearing the outstanding bills, LASA shall take care of the pending bills provided the unspent money are not less than the liabilities. The Organizer will have to close the bank account and transfer the unspent money to the main LASA account.
  25. Organizing Secretary of the conference must get the accounts audited by end of a financial year of holding the conference as mentioned in point no. 21 enabling the LASA Secretariat to file the income tax return in time. Audited report and statement of accounts must be submitted to the LASA Secretariat for record purpose.
  26. Organizer of the workshop/ seminar must submit the ‘Utilization certificate’ of the account to the LASA Secretariat within 3 months of holding the event.
  27. Bank account opened for organizing the conference/ workshop/ seminar must be closed immediately after settling all dues. Closure report with supporting document must be submitted to the LASA Secretariat before auditing the accounts.