Providing food and drink is a good way to increase participation. 

If your event is held at the conference site, you are required to use on-site catering, which is eye-watering expensive. A gallon of coffee often costs more than $100, boxed lunch (sandwich) around $50 per box.  Also know that participants are allowed to bring their own food and drink; hint hint.

When planning food and drink options, please keep inclusion and safety in mind. Please meet dietary needs and preferences.

Please keep accessibility, inclusion, and safety in mind when you design your events. We would like to offer inclusive experiences to all our conference participants. For tips on accessibility see the following resources below that provide planing support and checklists.

• accessible event planning by Cornell University

• accessible event planning by the Diversability organization

• pdf file for accessible event planning by Accessibility Services Canada

• accessible and inclusive event planning by Rutgers University

• Check in with organizing team that all logistics (catering, room and audiovisual infrastructure, facilitators) is in place

• Check with Burk Inc if you need wifi access; some conference facilities charge so much that SICB can't afford to provide wifi in the conference rooms, so you might need to use hot spots to support wifi