thank you!

Thank you for registering for the Appalachian Public Interest Environmental Law conference!

On behalf of all of us on the APIEL Organizing Committee, I'd like you to know that we are very excited to see you at the 1st annual APIEL conference in Knoxville, Tennessee this weekend. With over 150 registrants and counting, APIEL is shaping up to be a very successful and productive forum on many of our region's most pressing ecological issues.

Here are a few pointers and points of interest to help make your experience this weekend more smooth, productive, and enjoyable:


Payment

Please be reminded that the registration fee for this conference is $45.00. Need-based scholarships are available to attendees and presenters alike.

If you have not already paid your registration, don't fret; just pay when you check in at the registration table when you arrive. Registration will be available on Friday night at Barley's and all weekend at the conference. Cash, check or money order is acceptable.

If you need a scholarship and haven't yet applied for one, please fill one out right away. Scholarships must be applied for before the conference on the registration page of the website at www.apiel.org. Just fill out the "Fee Waiver" form below the registration form. We will ask our scholarship recipients who are not presenters for some volunteer assistance at the conference.


Locations

Friday night, 6:00pm - 10:00pm

We will hold a welcome reception on Friday night with live music and complementary dinner (pizza, salad & tea) at Barley's Taproom & Pizzeria in the Old City at 200 E. Jackson Ave. in Knoxville. Registration will be available at Barley's for those of you who have not yet registered or paid. Look for us upstairs in the back room.

Saturday, 8:00am - 4:45pm

The APIEL conference will be held at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's College of Law, 1505 W. Cumberland Ave. Knoville, TN 37996. You are on your own for lunch on Saturday. Ask at the registration table for a Knoxville guide & a map to find your kind of cuisine.

Saturday, 6:30pm - 9:00pm

A benefit dinner will be held for Knoxville-based United Mountain Defense ( www.unitedmountaindefense.org ) at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Please join us for delicious food by our chef Scott Parkin, live gyspy jazz, and the film 'Coal Country' presented by its producers.

Saturday, After party

An after party is being held in an interesting location for conference goers after the benefit dinner. Come and help us lighten the keg! See your conference brochure for directions to the party.

Sunday, 10:00am - 1:30pm

The APIEL conference will be held at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's College of Law, 1505 W. Cumberland Ave. Knoville, TN 37996. You are on your own for lunch on Sunday. Ask at the registration table for a Knoxville guide & a map to find your kind of cuisine.


Parking

The most convenient parking for the conference is only a block away from the law school. You may park in the large lot on the corner of Clinch Ave & James Agee/15th St. for $5.00 a day. A cheaper alternative is to cruise the neighborhood's sidestreets for one of the free spots.


What to Bring

Your best thoughts, an open and curious mind, something to write on, and your own reusable cup for complementary coffee, tea, and water.


Caucuses

It is our hope that APIEL conference attendees will use this event as an opportunity to spark new collaboration between activists, funders, scientists and public interest attorneys. To that end, we have provided a 75-minute session at the end of the day Saturday where 5 rooms will be available for anyone who wishes to call a caucus meeting on any subject. A large whiteboard will be provided in the common space at the law school for people to call caucus meetings and indicate their locations. Caucus meetings can be used to coordinate work and foster alliance-building on specific issues; to recruit volunteers; to hold ad hoc presentations and anything else that caucus organizers find to be relevant. Don't be shy - host a caucus!


Conference Schedule

For a detailed schedule of the conference, see the 'Presentations' page at www.apiel.org. Specific room locations will be provided in your conference schedule brochure, which you can pick up at the registration table when you arrive.


Lawyers & CLE Credit

Lawyers seeking CLE credit at this conference will need to check in both at the registration table and the CLE table upon arrival.


Presenters

Please check in at the registration table. All of your questions can be answered there, or can be referred to the CLE staff, nearby.


Website

Our website at www.apiel.org is a wealth of information on the conference. See the schedule, read about the presentations and their presenters, read about our sponsors, find contact information for conference organizers, apply for a scholarship, and much more.


Travel well, and we will see you soon!

Perrin de Jong
The APIEL Conference Organizing Committee
www.apiel.org

finishing touches

Everything is being organized for the weekend. Tables, coffee, food, schedule, t-shirts, clean up--its all being ironed out and moving forward nicely. PLEASE register if you have not. We originally thought we would have 40-50 people at this first conference--117 have registered as I type.

Bring your coffee cup! We will have excellent coffee but ask that everyone bring a cup to cut back on wasted. Additionally we are making a sincere effort to go paperless this conference--well as paperless as we can.

Bring a flash drive to the conference if you want to transfer all the materials from the workshops to your drive--we are planning on bringing at least 3 laptops with all the materials on each.

Come prepared to have fun as well. The APIEL is modeled on the PIELC conference in Oregon and the parties and the fun are often when allot of the scheming and work gets done.

registration info

Tues nights at 7pm at the second floor of Barleys is when the UMD work party meeting is. Everything seems covered. We have secured two professional musicians who are playing gypsy jazz sat night.

Please register if you have not. It only takes a moment and it helps with planning. If you are a lawyer you must register at the law school site for CLE.

Google registration apparently has eaten some of our registrations--if you have not received and email from APIEL contact us or try to reregister.

No one will be turned away cause the google robot ate them.

Coffee, name tags, workshop space, food--its all being worked on by a working group and is in place.

The first annual APIEL conference is pretty much organized--now for the fun part.