Eventing

I’ve figured out that the June 25^th Town Hall Meeting at St. Edward’s University will be my 19th event to work on at Greenlights since 2004. That represents over 4,420 attendees (and nametags), about 10 different venues, and lots of breakfasts, lunches, and hor’dourves.

As part of the Education team, over the years I’ve participated in:

• 3 Board Leaders Forums
• 6 Board Summits
• 4 Crossroads Conferences
• 5 Sector Connectors, and
• 1 Town Hall Meeting

I missed the 2008 Town Hall meeting last fall as I was attending the BoardSource Conference in Washington D.C. so you can see why I’m eager to attend the June 25th event. See my blog entry about it just as the news of the recession hit.

Work on my 20^th and 21^st events is already underway including this year’s Crossroads Conference and our 2^nd Board Summit of the year. Both are scheduled for the fall.

Management of the various Greenlights events is challenging, but they are definitely much more doable with a few handy tools–even in the midst of all the day-to-day business. Two big tools at my disposal are planning and a trusty calendar. For two items to help you plan, check out the Greenlights Resource Library and download a copy of the Special Event Timeline/Checklist and the Event Marketing Plan forms.

The best advice I can offer is to document all of your deadlines (yes, many of them overlap!) into your calendar. If you’re on a system like Outlook with a reminder feature, use it. It’s not a guarantee that you’ll make every deadline, but I do guarantee you’ll know you have one coming up allowing you the time to plan for any needed adjustments.

2 down and 2 to go.