Event Operations Manual
Software for Club Treasurers

Event Team Meetings

Meetings are a crucial part of managing an event team. The number and frequency of meetings depends very much on the scale of the event, the mix of paid or voluntary personnel in the event team, the geographic distribution of the event team, and the time duration before the event commences.

Normally it would be expected that meetings would increase in frequency as the lead time diminishes. In the early planning and organisation phase, the frequency of meetings might be monthly. As the competition nears, meetings may become weekly and in the final few days before the event, meetings may occur several times during the week.

However in situations where the majority of event team members are volunteers, it may not be possible to run meetings as regularly as would be preferred. In such circumstances, the Event Director has to substitute face-to-face meetings with Skype meetings or telephone contact with individuals.

One way or another the Event Director must know about what team members have accomplished and what problems exist.

Event Team Meeting Agenda

The agenda for a team meeting might be as follows:

It is important for the Event Director to know who has attended meetings, and who has not. This information helps to guard against the possibility that members of the event team are uninformed about critical information.

As new team members are appointed/hired, it is important for the Event Director to introduce them to other team members and explain what their role is. Everyone in the team has to know who's who, and what everyone does.

The Event Director should inform the team of any important developments since the last meeting e.g. sponsorships won or lost, venue bookings and problems, equipment ordered, updates on numbers of participants, advice receieved, etc. The Event Director does not and should not do this him/herself alone but by asking people in the team to speak about important developments in their area. This is much more inclusive and sharing of leadership.

The Event Director should encourage members of the team to raise any issues, concerns and difficulties experienced. As with any team, the objective is to utilise everyone's strengths and help people where they have difficulties. The team will possess much knowledge and team meetings are the best method to share it around.

A very important aspect of Event Management is to identify any and all risk to the success of the event and all people involved. The Event Director should continually encourage all team members to identify risks and bring them to the attention of the team, even if not within their own area of responsibility. If the whole team is working in this way, the chances of something going wrong is much diminished. (see more about risks associated with events)

Meeting Format

It is very important to consider that frequent long meetings where the Event Director is talking most of the time will discourage people from attending. The Event Director provides leadership and chairs the meetings but the ideal situation is for team members to speak and contribute. The Event Director can direct discussion by asking questions. It is always a good approach to take to ask questions.

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