PLANNING A CONFERENCE IS NOT EASY AS IT SOUNDS

Hello again 

Jacqueline Monei

LUCT

Venue: The time was not in our side so we had to single source the venue for the conference and as the President was the one officiating the conference we had to choose the best venue in the city and it was quite expensive and that brought lot of chaos at our office. The financiers at our office could not approve the amount for the place, and they wanted to know why we single sourced when there are lots of places to hold the conference at and they are quite cheap. We had to write them the letter and explain the reason why we choose that place to hold our conference and they approved it after writing so many letters to them and that was of the challenges we faced from the beginning.

Speeches: Our department was responsible for writing down the President speech, and our Ministers speech, so we had to choose some people to write the speeches from our department. We chose the Director of Coal to write down the President speech and for the Ministers speech Permanent Secretary to our Minister wrote the speech for him.

 Invitations: Our Public Relations department was the one to handle the invitations, we were the one to choose who to invite to the conference and at the first meeting we only agreed to invite 150 people to the conference. The people we had to invite where local people of Botswana, clients from Africa, and China and other international people. When we publish the press release, we received lot of calls asking for the invitation and we had to include them and that means the number goes high, and also the president commanded us to invite some people. The number went to 200 and that meant the price too goes high and that brought problem between us and the financiers at our office. During the event there were more than 200 people we had to increase the number to 250 and that also meant the price go high and that we had to explain to our financers at the office.

Presenters: We were also responsible for choosing who will be presenting, from all the department of the ministry we choose one each to present and we also had to choose, some ministries to come and present. Parastatals and private sectors also had to present at the conference. We had to combine all the presentation so that at the conference they will be ready available for them.

Conference Materials: Our department was responsible for the conference materials like publications, promotional materials, and the program for the day. I was responsible for the designing of the bags that will be given to the people at the conference, the program, the folio, and to get information materials and media kits like pamphlets, brochures, programs booklets from the coal sector and some from headquarters. Two days before the conference we had to put them in 200 bags that were made.

Protocol: During the event we were ushering, welcoming guests and other people and showing them were there are suppose sit, we did the sitting arrangement a day before the event. There were three sessions the first session our minister of MMWER did welcome remarks and the president of the country gave the keynote address and the permanent secretary gave the overview. During this first session we made sure that everybody is settled before the president arrives. The second session which took place after tea break, the departments and sectors where presenting and after every presentation comments and discussion took palace and that were we were running around giving the people who wants to comments the mike to say what they have to say and after this session we directed them to dining hall o have their lunch. After lunch the third session began, in this session people got into groups and discussed what was presented before and gave their recommendations. The minister closes the event after the group discussion and the conference. After this we had to take back the flyers, posters and photo booths back to our office.

Til next tym 

xoxo :)