Event Planning Web

Forming a Committee

One of the other aspects of planning a successful event is to surround you with people that can each play a part in helping that event succeed.

You have to delegate responsibility and let everyone use their own special skills to make the event a success.

The easiest way to delegate tasks is to divide the biggest task (organizing the conference) into smaller areas of responsibility and then assign individuals to these categories.

Below is a suggested list of areas of responsibility to which you can assign committee members.
Accommodations
Food and catering
Speakers and presenters
Audio/video
Exhibits
Marketing
Printed Materials
Supplies
Registration
Sponsorship
Decorating

Each of these committees will basically follow a hierarchy of overall project manager (you) and subordinate supervisors (each committee head).
A plan for the committee should plan for the overall manager of the project or event, it is your job:

to watch everyone else doing their jobs
to assist when needed
to monitor budgeting costs
to make the lead decisions for the committee members through your approval of their actions; and
to monitor the overall performance of the committee members in general.

As you can see, you will be the busier person in the end.

The best thing that you can do as organizer is to ensure that each responsibility goes to the person that is most qualified and dependable to do it.

With each of these areas covered, the task of organizing the event should be far easier. The purpose for many conferences and seminars is generally to gain some sort of profit.

For example, a business conference is usually designed to woo a potential big client to your company and a seminar can be held in order to raise funds for a charity of some sort.

With this in mind, you must also consider your budgeting expenses because you do not want your money spent to be higher than the money received. There will be more on the budget in the next section.

When you want to form your very own event committee you must not only choose the right areas of delegating responsibility, but you must also be very much on top of things yourself. You are more of the supervisor to the other people.

You should ensure that you give people tasks that they are comfortable with and that they can perform with minimal supervision.

You should also be certain to have regular and continual meetings:
on the subjects of the tasks needed to be performed
the money that is needed to do each task (to ensure that you do not go over budget in any area); and
to discuss regularly any problems that have or may come up in the future.

Regular meetings are the best way to keep your entire committee in the loop. You should also be sure to get all of the contact information from the committee so that you can get in touch with them whenever needed, and give yours so that they can find you when needed.

The easiest way to ensure that your committee does the best job possible is to keep in constant communication with each other and make sure to share any and all vital information about the tasks being performed, even if all things are hunky dory.

The next thing that you should be aware of when forming your committee is that each committee member regularly keeps vital records of everything that they do and all of the expense money that they spend.

For example; have each committee member make copies of and give over receipts to you personally so that you can keep an accurate record of all things that are going on.
This information will be required eventually by a boss or superior sooner or later and it is best that you keep on top of this as the project manager because if things get lost or no accurate records are available, it will your butt or career on the line.