Events are a fantastic way to promote your club in the community. They are a great opportunity to get people involved and have fun at the same time. Most of the work for an event is in the planning.

Planning your events

Planning is about deciding what kind of event your club wants and making it happen. This planning can be carried out in four stages: planning, preparation, presentation and evaluation. The following action points will help:

• have a meeting to decide what kind of event your club wants to have and how it might work
• know the purpose of the exercise - is it to raise money, increase membership or reward volunteers?
• prepare a timeline - what needs to happen before, during and after the event?
• identify resources - what will you need (people, equipment, facilities)?
• work out costs - do you have a budget for your event?
• know your goals - what are the aims and the benefits for your club?
• how will you measure your success - it helps to know what is to be achieved, who it is for, who can help, what is it called and how much will it cost?

Preparation

This part of the process details the 'what, where, how, who and when' parts of your event. Ensure you:

• make the necessary bookings (travel and transport, accommodation, venue hire, equipment etc)
• make the phone calls, write the letters and send the emails
• confirm all bookings and arrangements
• send out the invitations
• confirm all resources and people (staff and volunteers) - depending on the size of your event your may want to give your volunteers an Event job description (DOC 28KB).

Event checklist

Also set and work within the budget. It will help to write an event checklist (DOC 47KB). Write a running sheet for the event. This lets people know who needs to be where when, what they are doing, and when they’ll be doing it. Don’t forget to put in contact phone numbers for people on the day.

Contingency

Plan a contingency if possible. If it’s an outside event is there a wet weather contingency? Plan for your guests and VIPs – what they require, any special considerations.

Managing volunteers

Good volunteers can be crucial for your event and they can provide valuable assistance from the planning through to the delivery stage.

See Managing event volunteers (DOC 232KB)

Marketing and promotion

Make sure you put the event on the club website, promote it through posters or flyers if relevant, and don’t forget the media if it’s a big event. The Marketing and promotion section of Clubkit has more information about how to do this successfully.

Once you have all of these things taken care of, you’ll be well prepared and ready to go!

Event presentation

On the day of your event remember to:

• arrive in plenty of time to check everything before guests or attendees arrive
• remember to do a health and safety check
• alter your running sheet if anything has changed and advise people accordingly
• advise people if there is a change of plan or if you have to revert to the contingency plan because of bad weather
• take note of things that were done well and thank everyone for contributing.

Evaluation

Get together and evaluate what worked really well and what could be done better next time. Take the time to review your event and think about any changes that you could make for the next one. For example, ask yourself where did things go wrong? What were the successes? How could it be improved? Finally, did the event achieve its goal or purpose? This is also a great time to acknowledge and thank everyone for their efforts.

More information

Your local council may have guidelines on running events in your area. Visit their website or call them for more information, resources and training. Other resources you can use to plan and run your events include: