The ad-hoc committee puts forward the following recommendation to fund travel awards for students to the annual SFC meeting. The SFC Student Travel Award will have the following criteria:
1. Students can apply for travel awards when they submit abstracts, the awards are only available to students giving an oral or poster presentation as first author .
2. Lottery selection for travel awards. There will be ten $100 awards given (dependent on funding) and award notices will go out prior to the meeting. Students polled by committee members voiced that they would rather have a greater chance of winning $100 than a small chance of a larger amount.
3. Students will be required to work the registration desk or provide a service for a couple of hours to receive their travel awards.
4. There has also been a lot of support for naming the Travel Awards after Dr. Boschung. A separate vote will be called on naming the 1st place Oral Presentation after Dr. Etnier and the 1st Place Poster after Dr. Suttkus to recognize their contribution to the founding of the society.
There was also a great suggestion to set up a donation option during registration or through the Donations link on the left hand side of the page for members to make a donation towards the travel fund. A great tax deduction!
If you have feedback this forum can be used for discussion. We will put forward a motion and call for a vote on this online after discussion in the next couple of weeks so that we can start the travel awards this year (unless there are too many concerns resulting in a delay).