Hosting a CUWiP -- the fun and the challenges

Louisiana State University is hosting the South Eastern Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) in January 2014, as one out of eight regional CUWiPs. As a first-time organizer of a CUWiP I will share our local experiences with organizing and hosting the conference: the timeline for the work that is involved in hosting, what we learned, and what were our biggest successes and challenges. Since the different regional conferences have different ``flavors'' and somewhat different issues, I will also briefly give an overview of the more general lessons learned with highlights from some of the different conferences. Finally, I will try to convey the incredibly empowering experience, for both organizers and participants, of being in a room with more than 100 female physicists!~