Top tips for running a successful eventIntroductionWhen planning an event, it often helps to follow an action plan. This ensures you keep on track and don’t forget a vital part of your planning. You can never have too much time for planning and as a broad rule of thumb you should allow at least three months from start of planning to the event itself. We outline below the key things to take into consideration when planning, running and evaluating an event. It is worth remembering though that your local Community Facilitator is always on hand to help you out.

Additional guidance exists on assessing risk, choosing a venue and safeguarding. A simple risk assessment should be carried out for all planned events and activities. Consideration also needs to be given to First Aid and help that people might need to take part. This could include sighted guiding, being met at a bus stop and so on. Again, your Community Facilitator can help work through these considerations with you.

What else is happening locally?It may be helpful to find out what other RNIB or local society events are taking place in your area. It may be possible to work with colleagues or volunteers to achieve a number of objectives from one event? Might your network be interested in attending others' events or vice versa? So, it might be possible to join with others to create an event or activity – it might be that it’s not necessary to set up something brand new from scratch.

1. Why?Establish the purpose of your event: What do you want to achieve?

You may find it easier to write a simple mission statement. Let’s say we are planning a technology event in Omagh; so, our mission statement might be something like:

“To inform blind and partially sighted community members of Omagh and surroundings about the accessible technology they have at their fingertips.”

This statement covers everything we need to do in a simple sentence that is easy to refer back to.

2. Who?What audience do you want to reach?

So now we have an idea of what we want to achieve, we can consider our audience, what age range we want to target or geographically how much of the community are we aiming to reach. This is crucial information, as it determines the type of venue you pick.

3. Where?It's important to think about what area and which venue you think would best suit the event.

First, we need to work out the accessibility of the venue for our particular audience. Some questions you might want to ask are: Is it central? Is it on a bus or train route so that it is easy to access for people

who have to arrive by public transport? Or is there a possibility to arrange a free / affordable bus to pick people up, if it is out of town and away from transport links?

Is there step-free access and accessible toilet facilities for wheelchair users?

Type of VenueFor our technology club example, we don’t want to be hosting it in the local pub, although some may want to head there afterwards! It would be best to have a quiet room with ample desk and seating space so people are able to bring their own devices along with them. Also, it would need power points and accessible Wi-Fi.

Quite often there are national organisations and businesses that provide free venues for charities and people with any kind of disability. If you know the area you want to hold it in, it might be worthwhile researching possibilities as well as asking the local Community Facilitator to let you know the list of organisations that are helpful in that respect.

4. When?What is the best day of the week and time of day for your event? Is a weekday or weekend best? What about morning, afternoon or evening? To be inclusive do you need to avoid days of the week that have religious significance?

Might your audience be busy during a week day? Perhaps they might be at work, college, or looking after children? If it’s in the winter months, will people want to be home before dark? If people are travelling by bus, will they need to start their journey after 9:30am in order to make use of their concessionary pass? Northern Ireland has no restriction on peak-time travel for concessionary pass holders but this may not be the case in other areas.

Check what other events are scheduled around the time you are thinking of: This is to make sure there isn’t a clash. Even a major sporting event could keep people indoors in front of their TVs or in the local pub!

5. BudgetThis is something that should be considered throughout, but it is worthwhile thinking about, now especially once you know the kind of thing you would like to put on, the audience you would like to attract and the kind of venue you want. That is because there may be some funding sources that you are eligible for due to the nature of your event.

In our example we might find that we have invited along several local youth groups and there is funding available from youth and children's services via the local authority / health trust.

Your Community Facilitator may also be able to point you in the right direction and also offer you some funds to get yourself going once you have gone through your event plan with them.

6. Spreading the wordSo, we have an idea of our expected audience, we have a suitable venue, it’s time to advertise.

Utilising all of the avenues you have is the best way to reach a wider audience. RNIB connect can help you to advertise through its various communication channels such as the enewsletter and Connect Radio. Staff can also help with the creation of posters and flyers. You could also consider starting a social media campaign or speaking to your local sight-loss organisations, to see if they can help advertise the event for you.

5. The Event itselfLooking back to the original aim you had, it helps to then break down what will happen in each part of the event. Things to consider are:

Timeframe Work out the start and end times. Allow time to set up before

people arrive, and to tidy up after they leave. Work out how many breaks there will be and when. If you plan to have specific sessions at specific times, what will

their themes be and will there be somebody leading these i.e. facilitators or speakers?

Guest speakers or facilitatorsIf you’re going to have a facilitator or someone who will speak or present for you, think about who will book them and how will you afford them. Explore whether they might do it for free, if you cover their travel and lunch expenses. Also, a local organisation may be able to sponsor someone for you. Again, ask for support with getting started with this from your local Facilitator if you are having no joy and need some ideas.

Plan BHave a contingency for everything if you can. So, if one of your presenters or support team can't make it for some reason, do you have the details of what they were going to do so you can still get it covered, or a suitable alternative?

Publicity from the eventIt’s really good to share with the wider community the activities that are going on and how people are benefitting by taking part. It’s pretty straight forward to record some audio at events – for example, you could organise for someone to record some informal interviews with participants. Taking photographs is an option – these can be used in post-event publicity. Always remember to obtain the consent of anyone being photographed before you take any pictures. If you record an interview with someone let them know first how the audio would be used – this could be via RNIB Connect Radio or a local podcast available to the community.

After the eventHow successful was it?You should always try to measure how successful your event has been. Work out how you will do this as part of your pre-event planning. Think back to your original purpose for the event and come up with some simple questions for your audience.

It might not be necessary to evaluate every event – for example, something which is a simple social event, or something that occurs regularly like a monthly coffee morning. However, it’s generally good practice to ask people their views on an event or activity.

Going back to the example of the technology event in Omagh, a simple evaluation question could be:

“Please tell us how much you agree with this statement: As a result of attending today’s event I know more about different ways that technology could help me:Strongly agreeAgreeNot sureDisagreeStrongly disagree”

You could ask a supplementary question: “If you are not sure, or you disagree, why is this?”

It’s often a good idea to ask people what might have made the event better, more useful or enjoyable. The things people tell us can be very helpful in making improvements for future events.

Sharing with others what has taken placeIf you’ve taken pictures or recorded audio at the event how can you use this in any publicity or community updates? A write-up of the event might also be useful to share with others who might be inspired or learn from what you have achieved.

A thank youFinally, don’t forget to send thanks to everyone who contributed to the event – organisers, helpers, speakers and so on.

Ends