they say every day is a learning experience

After the school-focused trash awareness day I helped to organize last week, these students went home with a (hopefully) better understanding of waste management.
As for me, I went home with a better understanding of event management.
Here are a few things I won’t forget the next time…

1. Start by showing up an hour early for this big event you’ve helped plan, even if you know most of your invitees will be an hour late. You might find that no one has informed the caretaker that there will be 150 people showing up for an event in half an hour.

2. Be on good terms with said caretaker as you might need him to help you set up 100 chairs in the 15 minutes before 100 school kids show up to sit in them.

3. Make sure you have plenty of phone credit minutes on your cell so you can call everyone at the last minute to find out where they are and why they’re not where they’re supposed to be.



4. Remember if you’re screening a film to test run the projector during the day before. It’s easy to forget that at night you will see the movie better because it’s already dark out.

5. Have a backup plan in mind in case your 150-person group gets kicked out of their previously arranged room because the assistant mayor had scheduled a more important (i.e. international donor-led) meeting there already for the same day and the same time but had forgotten to tell you when you asked if you could have that room the week before.

6. Double-check your budget to include contingencies. You never know when your backup plan location’s power box might burst into flames and end up with your group getting blamed for it.

7. Always carry tape and scissors. Extension cords are often flimsy and unreliable.

8. Carry a copy of the event’s agreed-upon budget with you the day of, in case of last minute questions.



9. Wear comfortable clothes so you can move easily as you will likely be constantly sent on errands to keep things running smoothly.

10. Plan to serve your group’s meal in a secluded spot, as opposed to a site where another group is already having a seminar, if you don’t want to have other uninvited people partaking of your carefully budgeted food and beverages.

11. Carry extra cash with you in case you need to go out and buy more beverages for members of your group who were shorted (see number 10).

12. Repeat. Always carry tape and scissors.

13. If during the course of your event you’re giving out t-shirts, pens, notebooks or any other “goodies”, be prepared to fend off constant demands from onlookers for such items.

14. Keep track of all of the event’s attendees, but remember that it is likely many teachers only brought their students because they were promised money for transport and per diem.

15. Remind yourself that at least they came.

16. Be glad you did not have to write up a grant proposal request for this event, and that someone else will be in charge of writing the final report to the donor.

17. Remember to focus on what went right, not just on what went wrong!