Dear X,

Thank you for agreeing to participate as a speaker in the [year] SICB Symposium [title of symposium] in [location, date]. We are excited about this symposium’s potential to share [insert text concerning core idea or purpose of your symposium]. We are reaching out to share an opportunity to further develop this symposium’s vision and direction.

First, we are interested in seeking your opinions about current, grand challenges facing [your field] right now.  Please share your ideas by completing this brief survey [insert link here] before [insert date].

Next, we hope to form small virtual-meeting groups around specific themes that emerged from the survey responses. Each meeting group will have a symposium organizer assigned to assist in overall facilitation. Our hope is that these team meetings will foster an ongoing dialogue between our speakers, encouraging cross-pollination of ideas and resources, and ultimately lead to a more cohesive and engaging symposium for our audience. We also expect these meetings will serve as an important support for writing the article associated with your talk and possible the writing of collaborative manuscript [adjust language for your symposium]. We recognize how busy everyone is and only plan to meet on Zoom two or three times leading up to the symposium.

We look forward to receiving your input via survey. We will reach out again [insert timeline] to schedule our first virtual meeting.

Sincerely,

[Your name], on behalf of the Symposium Organizers

[insert organizer names here]