PCMA Capital Chapter: What Do You Do When the Circus Comes to Town? Contingency Planning for the New Millennium Planner Workshop
I attended PCMA Capital Chapter’s planner workshop titled What Do You Do When the Circus Comes to Town? Contingency Planning for the New Millennium on September 16, 2015 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Crystal City, Virginia. The program consisted of a 2 hour educational session on contingency planning and risk management as well as a 1 hour reception. The education portion was facilitated by Joan Eisenstodt of Eisenstodt Associates, LLC. She is a meeting planning consultant with over 30 years of experience in the industry. I chose to attend this event because it’s content directly related to topics that we discussed in class and I hoped to gain additional understanding on how to implement contingency plans.
We received the session powerpoint slides the morning of the event with an email confirming the details of it. When we arrived there was PCMA Capital Chapter branded signage with directions to the meeting room by the garage elevators and in the lobby making it easy to find our way in the hotel. Joan had set each table with dark chocolate for attendees but also included signs next to them clearly noting what ingredients in the treats could cause an allergic reaction. This small detail was just one example of how important it is to think through every possibility when assessing risk and deciding how likely it is to occur and how it will be managed. While food allergies may not seem very important they are common and the signage that was included was a simple but effective way to manage the risk.
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| Some chocolate to get our brains working (The yellow paper is the sign I had)! |
The session was very interactive and asked attendees questions such as “share the worst thing that’s ever happened at one of your meetings?”. While this was a simple question for the experienced planners participating there was an unusual task that went along with it. We were asked to draw the experiences and share them with our neighbors! Touches like this made the session fun. In addition to stressing how important it is to start risk management in the initial planning stages such as site selection we learned more on how to incorporate requirements into contracts. Finally, we got a chance to respond to scenarios created by the facilitator to practice our new skills!
After the session there was a reception in the attached room for all attendees. The organizers chose a circus themed menu to go with the title of the event. I thought this was a creative touch! This hour allowed attendees to network and share their thoughts on the educational piece with each other.
Overall, I think this workshop was well developed, facilitated and balanced the education portion with a creative networking reception at the end. As a student member and first time attendee I was not only impressed with the level of education provided but at the willingness of members to network and speak with me.
To share some of what we learned I have posted a link to the powerpoint presentation with some of my notes. To see this please click on the link below.
To share some of what we learned I have posted a link to the powerpoint presentation with some of my notes. To see this please click on the link below.
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