Dear All,
Having just struggled to get enough people to attend our
recent LPSS conference at Stoke, I would be interested in
hearing from list members about other people's experiences.
Our society is finding it increasingly difficult to attract
our members to conferences and I'm wondering if this is a
general thing.
When I first organised at conference in Stoke in 1994 we
got 40 attendees, we got a similar number in 1996 but only
25 in 1998 and about 20 on Saturday. This is part of a
general trend in LPSS and even conferences in London at the
Institute of Historical Studies have seen dramatic falls in
the numbers attending.
So, I would like to ask two things: -
(1) Is this a general trend experienced by others in the
field?
(2) If it is a general trend, why is it proving difficult
to attract members?
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On the later point a number of points come to mind.
The quality of TV programmes has improved considerably
recently. BBC Knowledge, Discovery Civilization and the
History Channel are all first class.
Teachers and academics are simply too overworked to attend.
Lack of money to attend conferences. (My own university
simply cannot afford to send many people to conferences now
and colleagues must pay there own expenses).
Difficult to get to venues. In my own case I would really
like to attend the next AHC conference at Queen Mary
College, but the thought of such a long tube journey from
Euston after a 2.30 hour train journey is a mega
disincentive (I hope the organisers will not take offense
at this comment. I know from experience how much hard work
conferences are).
I really would welcome the views of list members. In the
case of LPSS it's debatable as to whether we will be able
to hold any more conferences.
David
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Dr David Alan Gatley
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Staffordshire University
College Road
Stoke-on-Trent
ST4 2XW
Phone: 01782-294780 (Office)
01782-415340 (Home)
Fax 01782-294760
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