Registration enquiries and student volunteers

Enquiries have started to come in about registration fees and the conference programme.

CCN Conferences have always aimed to provide a strong conference that is good value for money, and  members of the CCN pay a discounted rate. It is planned that the registration fee for the 3.5 day conference this year will include morning and afternoon teas, lunch on the first 3 days, welcome drinks, attendance to all sessions, and a practical 'Neuropsychology in Action' conference backpack and drink bottle (to facilitate your brain-enhancing walks around Launceston and Tasmania). There may be a small charge for attendance at workshops, but this will be decided when the programme composition is known.

We will not be able to set the registration fees until we have finalised the conference program. However, for the 3.5 days of this year's program, we are confident that the early bird rate for CCN members will be less than the member rates for the APS2011 and College of Clinical Psychology conferences,  (early bird $695 plus >$100 for workshops at APS 2011, and $780 for CClin members at their conference in 2012).

We hope the early-bird  registration fee for CCN student members will be no more than $200 for the whole conference. This compares to $395 for student members of the College of Clinical Psychologists to attend their conference this year, and $310 for APS student members to attend the APS 2011 conference. The CCN student registration fee is heavily discounted, to encourage student participation and presentations which enrich the conference programme with contemporary research and developments in our field, and to facilitate broader student learning from engaging with the wider professional community.

Student volunteers
Students are very important to the CCN - you are the future of our profession! We want you to be involved with our professional community, and the annual conference is one forum where we value your input, through formal presentations and also as volunteers to help make the conference run smoothly.

Student volunteers will be needed at this year's conference, but unlike previous years, the conference is being held in a state without a postgrad neuropsychology program, which have usually supplied resident student volunteers. I've already received several email queries from interested students, which is fantastic! However, to be fair to everyone, we will need to have a formal volunteer selection process.

Before we can call for volunteers, our conference committee will need to consider how many volunteers we need, what we need them to do, and if we will offer them free registration at the conference, or a subsidised registration fee. We will also need to consider the selection criteria - e.g., should we set a cap on the number of students from each course, so that students from each course can have an opportunity to help out and to meet each other and develop a sense of camaraderie?

School holidays are about to start in Tasmania, so we will not be meeting as a committee to discuss these issues until after June 18th. Rest assured that we will be calling for student volunteers in July or August.