CHAPTER 1-GETTING ORGANIZED

CHAPTER 2
Getting Organized

BY
MOHD AZMIL BIN MOHD YUSOF

FPP
UITM MELAKA

SELECTING LEADERS

 Leadership characteristics such as :

 Qualites
 Reliability
 Capability
 Commitment
 Willingness
 Enthusisastism
 Pro-active
 Etc

Committee Members

 Program Director
 Assistance Director
 Secretary
 Treasurer
 Promotion/Marketing
 Sponsorship
 Refreshments
 Logistics/Facilities
 Registration/Opening Ceremony
 Transportation, Supplies/Distribution
 Technologies and Communications Systems
 Prizes
 Protocol
 Etc

What to do first?

 Initial stage of getting started depends on what kind
of activity going on, or the objectives are (primary
and secondary)

 Events can be:

 Personal
 Leisure
 Cultural
 Organizational
 Sport
 Charity
 Etc

 May be organized volunteers or professionals.

 Getting started partly depends on what we know
about the event and who will run it.

 Questions:

 What events
 Who will run
 When
 How
 Which
 Whose
 Why
 etc?

Who Will Do It

 Mostly a group of people will be involved.
 Some groups may already exist (clubs, associations,

students, expert or non expert and etc.)

 Advantages:

 Know each member for their strengths and weaknesses.

 For special events, may add one or two extra members as
advisors from those who have experience of similar event.

 Or may form smaller sub-committee

 Useful size for committee is about 6 key people.

 Group size vary, but larger group may cause
difficult to achieve an integrated approach.

 Even with small group there may be problems of
cohesion or getting people work together.

 Forming new organizing committee from scratch is
not easy.

 Due to the range of expertise needed and not always
available.

Important Points in Finding Suitable
Candidates

Consider the followings:
 How much time will organizing the event need from each

person – can they spare this time to do the job properly?
 Have they any background of doing it before – have they

done similar project, have good reputation for good work?
 Good working relationships with other people – do they get

on well with others?
 If they have some particular weakness in organization, has

another member of the committee got that as a strength, so
that the committee has a balance of expertise?

Composition of Committee

 Needs to be able to deal with key jobs

 Organizing
 Marketing
 Finance
 Finding resources
 Recording, or
 Just plain ‘being enthusiastic and keeping things going’

 They will need to be able to achieve the
requirements of the job.

Event Organizational Structure
Development

 Organization of event vary according to how an event has
grown.

 May originally a one-off volunteer-organized event
 May have grown as annual and organized by professionals.
 As this happens, organization possibly changes, including

the culture of the organizing body; for example:

 From informal to formal
 From amateur to professional.

 Change may lead to conflict on how event is to be run.

Development of Organizational
Structures in Events

Origin of the event idea
\|/

Creation of an informal organization or committee
\|/

Emergence of a leadership structure, with some professional help
\|/

Establishment of a formal organization
\|/

Professionalisation

Source: adapted from Hall, 197

Example of an Events Management
Committee

 1 Chair/President
 2 Operations Officers
 1 Finance Officer
 1 Marketing Officer
 1 Health, Safety and Legalities Officer
 In addition, various other people might be invited to attend

some of the meetings, depending of the type of event and
the agenda of the meeting:

 Representative from the venue/license holders/sponsors/police/first
aid/fire service/local council/local associations related to, or
attending, the event/ bank manager/Chamber of Commerce
member/Insurance Advisor/Professional /specialists etc.

Exercise

 Page 67
 Read Case Study 16 (Changing Organization at the

Salzburg Festival)
 Answer all questions
 Submit your answers

Event Feasibility:
Finding and Testing an Idea

 There’s a need for a systematic approach
 Systematic helps us:

 When we have limited expertise
 When time period is quite short
 When we have to rely on volunteer labor or community

support

 In major events, feasibility means:

 Get into intensive methods of assessment

 E.g cost-benefit analysis or investment appraisal

 In more common type of event, feasibility means:

 A relatively straightforward series of tests in form of
screening

Three Screens or Filters

1. Marketing Screen
2. Operations Screen
3. Financial Screen

 All are intended to sort out less viable ideas and help to identify the
ideas that will work the best when tested against the objectives or
criteria set.

 However, in special event, there’s no “perfect fit”.
 Screening may end up with several acceptable ideas or non at all.
 Additional to the screening process, the agreed upon idea of event,

the first of many planning activities must begin called “Lead Time”
 Lead Time: (is it enough time to organize?)

Does Personal Event require feasibility
process?

 Typically you obviously don’t feasibility test a dinner
party, but you do think about what is needed to get it
right.

 Yes, but not as a formal process as special event.
 Informal feasibility process

Example of Screening Situation

 Marketing screen, operations screen and financial
screen over the following list of ideas of what
scouts could do to raise money for new roof for the
Scout Hall:

 A car wash day
 A theatrical play
 A sponsored swim
 A sale of pledges (gift contributed, then auctioned)
 A table-top, jumble or car boot sale

 Criteria for what to do for this very basic kind of
feasibility process which include:

 What event was a successful (in the past)
 What can be organized
 Given the resources of the scout-pack, what might earn

the most money

 For larger-scale, public and organizational events,
there may well be an issue of how to choose from a
range of possible activities for, say, fund-raising, or
for a product launch, and how to screen the choices
to identify the one most likely to be effective.

Screening Process

 Very important process
 Event must be possible to be carried and able to

attract support to be successful
 First Stage of screening:

 Come up with initial concept/set of ideas to be tested.
 Better range of ideas might be obtained by brainstorming

a long list of rough, typical or ridiculous events in serious
way through a series of criteria to evaluate.
 Example of evaluation criteria that can be used are:

 such as cost-benefit analysis
 concept screening.

Generating Ideas

General Process How the scout might do it

Idea of objective To raise funds for scout
\|/
\|/
General nature of event
\|/ Needs to be a public event

Purpose of event \|/
\|/
Needs to raise money for the roof
How should it operate?
\|/ \|/

What benefits are there to Should operate as simply as possible
participants
\|/ \|/
Concept(s)
The locals should get something out
of it

\|/

Various ideas

\|/ \|/ \|/ \|/ \|/

Car wash Play Swim Pledges Jumble
Sale

Concept Screening

General Process The scouts

Many concepts or ideas Car wash Play Swim Pledges Jumble
\|/ Sale

First screen: marketing \|/
\|/
Too many sponsored events locally,
Second screen: operations locals not very interested, so screen
\|/
out swim and pledges
Third screen: financial
\|/ \|/

Remaining concept(s) and choices Play needs very complicated
organizing and long time to

arrange, so not ideal

\|/

Jumble sale didn’t make much
money last year

\|/

Remaining concept: car wash

The Marketing Screen

 Process whereby organizers can sort out what
concepts will be most suited to the target market

 Implies the good knowledge of the target market:

 Type of people, demographic or social profile, age group,
familiar activities, past experience event, size of the target
group etc.

Operation Screen

 After the marketing screening, there might probably still be
a large number remaining ideas.

 However, organizer needs to consider what is achievable.
 All events have various resource needs, based on how

adventurous, ambitious or limited the ideas are, what
expertise and staffing available, venues available with
capacity at required dates, what time scale and technology
or equipment needed, license, legalities, insurance, permits
for activities.

2 operation styles

 Volunteer – no experience (only have friends to go
on)

 Professional – Event Mgt. Company, consultant
(organizational, sporting, cultural and some
personal events)

 Sometime (have parts of both)

 The level of expertise available is , then an issue for
operations screen (which indicates what event can be
done within the style of organizations preferred.)

The Financial Screen

 Financial issues are cost-oriented.
 Financial screen is all about identifying which

possible events from the shortlist could achieve it.
 Two or three likely events might be compared

using an outline budget
 For this purpose, organizers need to come up with

some basic financial information, both in term of
revenue and in term of cost.

Progressing the Idea

 In many respects, choosing event, through the
outlined process above, is the easy part.

 Sequence of brainstorming and the then filtering
ideas to see if an event is appropriate can be quite
enjoyable.

 Serious financial and operational feasibility, if this
were a major project, would then follow from the
screening phase.

 Having found the preferred concept, the organizers
might then wish to review the proposal again in
light of the objectives, and ask if the proposal still
meets those objectives.

 Possible to have additional, subsidiary objectives,
such as to educate, or to make money, or to leave a
useful legacy.

 Draft proposal containing:

 overall objectives
 Several aims
 Component parts of the event

 Even simple event may have component parts
 How do we put these together?

 Who will be doing the organizing
 Who is responsible for what
 Where will the event be held (several venues

approach?)
 When? Suitable dates available?
 What materials, supplies and equipment needed?
 What transport, parking or access?
 Time schedule? Deadline?
 Critical path?

Are you ready???

 Start Your Engine!!!!