The 2018 RASNZ Conference will be held in Christchurch from Friday May 4^th to Sunday May 6^th and promises to be an exciting meeting. VSS will hold the 5^th Variable Stars South Symposium immediately following the conference on the Sunday evening and Monday May 7^th.

Registration for both the conference and symposium is through the RASNZ Conference website (http://rasnz.org.nz/conference). It is not necessary to register for the conference if you only wish to attend the symposium.  An online form can be found here: http://rasnz.org.nz/groups-news-events/conference-registration.

The conference venue is The Arts Centre and the symposium will be held nearby in the YMCA conference room. Both venues are centrally located and within easy reach of accommodation, pubs and restaurants. For accommodation suggestions please refer to the conference brochure (http://rasnz.org.nz/images/articleFiles/Conference/2018/ConferenceBrochure2018.pdf).

Symposium Paper Submission

Those presenting papers must be registered for the symposium.

A preliminary program is available here. There are only a limited number of time slots available and several papers have already been submitted. Therefore, as soon as possible, email me ([email protected]) to indicate your intention to present a paper with a provisional title and brief abstract.

Please note that the symposium organisers will close submissions when they determine that the program is full.

We will accept poster papers right up to the time of the symposium.

A final timetable for papers will be available some time prior to the symposium, and that will be adhered to as closely as possible.

Speakers will be asked to provide a copy of their presentations (Power Point or Adobe) prior to the start of the symposium so that they can be pre-loaded on the symposium computer.

Those wishing to use their own computer must check well in advance of their session that it works with the venue’s AV system (you may need to provide your own cables/adapters).

Speakers are asked to provide a brief biographic note that the session chair can use when introducing the speaker.

We propose to make all presentations available for viewing on the VSS website sometime after the symposium, if presenters consent.