A break-even chart was created in order to see just how successful the Christmas Fair would have to be in order to start making a profit once expenses were taken out. The stalls are the main source of income and therefore been put into the break-even chart. This means we are measuring how many stallholders would have to reserve stalls before we begin to make a profit. When charging £15 per stall, we only need to sell 9 stalls to break even taking all expenses into consideration. This break even can be found in Appendix -.
- Risk Assessment
A risk assessment was taken into precaution of any difficulties that might arise. Potential hazards have to be examined. Potential victims, the likeliness and severity of hazards have to be looked into. This therefore links to the ‘Health and Safety Act 1974’ and the ‘Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations’. This will make the day a lot safer, and mean less chance of people getting injured during the day. If the risks are too high the event is not likely to be feasible and is therefore a very important aspect of planning an event. A risk assessment includes identifying the potential hazard and those likely to be exposed to a hazard, evaluate the likeliness of the hazard occurring and recording the findings. The final stage of the risk assessment is to monitor, review and revise the assessment. They are important documents as health inspector may ask questions about the risks taken and will limit the risk of any action for civil liability. It also shows that legal requirements have been understood, put into action and followed.
All hazards identified seem unlikely to be a problem for us on the day. However, Food Hygiene is one of our most important regulations as a lot of our profit will be from serving refreshments. Therefore it is extremely important that food is prepared carefully and by someone whom holds a Food Hygiene Certificate, as this means they are aware of what they are doing and may be more professional in the situation. This would therefore minimize the risk of there being any hazard.
A stall layout was created in order to place all stalls within the area of the venue and to ensure that there are no stalls blocking any fire exits. The stall layout also enabled all staff and stallholders to locate all fire exits in case of an emergency. By letting customers know where the exits are located and by doing routine checks to ensure they are always free, the chance of any harm coming to anyone is very small.
As there is likely to be small children coming to the event, and possibly some elders there is a risk of tripping on stairs, or near tables etc. As this isn’t unlikely as anything could happen by chance we will prevent this by making sure all stairs are marked with a luminous tape so people are aware. We will also make sure that the layout is clear, ensuring there is no confusion. This therefore will limit the risk of harm coming to anyone at the event.
We have listed all possible risks that could be of an outcome on the day. This including:
- Winter weather
- Blocked exits
- Poor food hygiene
- Injuries
- Theft/Assault
Specific actions have been created for all in order to make the day secure and running as efficiently as possible. A copy of our Risk Assessment can be found in Appendix 5.
- Resources
There are many physical resources needed in order to make the event successful and available for the purpose proposed. Physical resources include both the premises and also the equipment needed to be able to run the event as efficiently as possible. Without physical resources, it is hard to stage an event. Human resources are the people needed to run the event and make it as efficient and easy as possible. Usually when events are a ‘one-off’ equipment is rented or hired and therefore would reduce the amount of expenses. One of the main physical resources is the venue. The venue for our Christmas Fair is Meridian’s school dinner room combined with the hall. It is very open and spacious venue that caters to all needs including disabilities. By having the event in the school hall, we are saving money due to discount. The choice of location is very important as issues as the size of the event, enough parking, fully connected utilities available, enough fire exits and door exits and furniture equipment we may need to use. The Meridian School Hall and Dining area interconnect which makes the area even larger, it can also hold up to around 300 people at a time. There are also toilet facilities available as well as the teacher’s staff room to access equipment for refreshments. There is a large car park available as well as an extra area on the basketball court where cars have permission to park if needed. However we doubt it will be needed, as it is a local event, we are expecting most people to walk. In addition as the location is a school, many fire precautions have been taken such as fire extinguishers and a fire plan. Water, electricity and gas are not an issue either as we are not likely to have many problems with those factors. There are a large amount of chairs and tables in our reach; therefore we can keep our customers and stallholders happy by providing them.
Other equipment that will be needed on the day will be equipment for the Grotto when taking children’s pictures. However our photographer Ashley Tompkins will use her own camera and photo printer that she owns and bring them to the event. The only material we need to supply Ashley Tompkins with is ink for her printer, which we have bought in advance.
The other materials needed for the event are refreshments, decorations, chairs and tables. Refreshments will be bought before the event and stored in school. Another expenditure is the Santa’s Costume, which will be hired from K’s Costumes. This will cost £35. Originally the school were willing to pay for the costume as they wanted to use it the day after for the school’s Christmas dinner at lunch, however we found out we couldn’t keep the costume another day as it had been rented already. Therefore we needed to give the costume back straight after and the school was not able to use it. Therefore we had to pay for it out of the business. Chairs and tables are provided by our school and will be set up in the setting up times of the event (8:30 am – 11 am). Individuals of the organising team will provide decorations. We decided to use decorations we had at home to cut our expenses. A table was created to show all physical resources that will be needed, this can be found in Appendix 6.
No event can be organised or successful without a team of people contributing towards planning and using their skills and attitudes. Using a team of people is more efficient than having individuals carry out a number of tasks alone. The Christmas Fair has a large amount of members in the organising team, as well as having three helpers who worked for no charge on the day. A team is also likely to support and motivate each other when conducting tasks. A table was created showing everyone’s input leading up to the day and their status on the day. This can be found in Appendix 7. Before the event, we joined together for a final brief and people were reminded of their responsibilities and duties of the day. Some of the tasks during the day will need people to have some training requirements. For example, the refreshments table will have to have somebody dealing with food; therefore they will need a Food Hygiene Certificate.
An important part of the planning process is getting all tasks done both effectively and efficiently meeting deadlines. Charlotte Roser took the responsibility of a leader figure. This made it easier for communication to happen, and jobs were easier to allocate. We all took a vote to who we thought would most encourage and motivate us, and nominated Charlotte. We then created a Gantt chart to help arrange the tasks needed to be done, and who would set out doing them.
Andrew Cooke was mainly involved in finance and therefore collected and counted all money during the planning stages of the event and staging the event. He also updated the cash flow forecasts and relevant other accounts regularly to ensure we were getting closer to meeting targets and we had structured evidence to keep us organised with who had paid, and which stallholders had not.
There was not an individual who took sole responsibility of advertising, although Molly, Michael and I took leading roles in creating advertisements and distributing them. The whole team had an equal effort with distributing leaflets and other sources of advertisements as well as the final input of designs. I contacted Milli Pooley, a school friend who has great experience in Graphic Design to create our advertisements. Together as a group we concluded what information we wanted the advertisement to read. In addition we created eye-catching e-mails to send to students, staff and parents of our school community as well as creating business cards to distribute around the school during Presentation Evening. The use of all members enabled us to hand out advertisements in a quick amount of time, all taking a select area of Royston to overcome.
- Gantt Chart
Gantt charts are effective planning tool for any event. This is because it represents the timing of tasks required. For example, it was necessary to carry out all research at the start of the planning and therefore it shows this on the Gantt chart. Each task required doing takes up one row of the chart. The dates run along the top of the chart in days, weeks or months depending the length of time needed to plan the event. Different tasks can be done at the same time. As the planning progresses, shading is used to show how much has been completed on an individual task. Completed tasks lie to the left of the chart and unfinished tasks are towards the right, due to time. The tasks t the left are completely filled, as they are completed tasks.
There are many benefits to using a Gantt chart and are the best choice for planning time effectively and visually. Listed below are other advantages:
- Time is crucial and shown very clearly
- Tasks are visual for everyone to see
- Deadlines are shown clearly
- Progress can be seen by shading of colours
- It gives structure to an event, allowing members of the event to be more organised
There are also drawbacks, which I have also listed beneath:
- It does not show whether certain tasks can be completed, before completing other tasks before them.
- It only focuses on time and does not take other factors into consideration such as resources when in the planning process.
- It fails to shows the critical tasks. Critical tasks are those that hold up the completion of the planning process for an event if they are delayed.
We created the Gantt chart during several meetings. All organisers in the event, decided what needed to be achieved during the planning process up till the event. After this, in further meetings, these tasks were put in suitable orders and then assigned to different organisers to carry out. These meetings helped organise and communicate with each other, it was also a good measure of the time we had left to complete them which helped motivate others to complete deadlines. Our Gantt chart can be found in Appendix 8.
Time lines are used to clarify the order in which tasks should be undertaken in the planning process of an event. It put all tasks in order and shows which tasks should be completed first. These tasks are put along a straight line. This means that all tasks when applied to a planning process for the event will be put into sequential order in an easily and understandable structure. Time lines can be represented on either horizontal or vertical lines. I have listed a number, of advantages and disadvantages below.
Advantages:
- They show how long an event will take to plan
- They show deadlines for each task
- They are easy to draw, little effort is need to construct
- They are easy to understand
- The show a clear order in which task needs completed first and last
Disadvantages:
- It is unable to identify how long each task will take to complete
- They do not show a current status of a task, meaning it can be easy to fall behind as you are unable to identify if you are on or behind schedule
- You cannot tell the progression of a task, therefore you will not be able to identify if your planning if efficient
Also known as a network analysis, is a planning aid, which overcomes the problems associated with Gantt charts. A Critical Path Analysis can be used to calculate the minimum amount of time if will take to complete the whole planning process. It identifies tasks that are critical to the completion of the planning process and identifies tasks that can be delayed without delaying the completion of the planning process of an event. I have listed the advantages and disadvantages below.
Advantages:
- They provide a visual image of the planning process
- It forces people to look at all tasks associated with planning
- It identifies clearly which tasks are critical and which are not
- It can also help conserve money as it shows when materials are needed, avoiding you to buy them until just before it is needed.
Disadvantages:
- The construction of the diagram does not guarantee that the planning process will go smoothly as tasks must be completed by an exact time and not go beyond schedule
- Data inputted in the diagram has to be accurate. If not accurate results can be false, and misleading.
A flow chart is another visual method showing the planning process of an event. It contains information about tasks, decisions and out comes that will be used in the planning process. The information is shown in boxes and linked by arrows. The order in which tasks must be completed has to be known, for a flow chart to be used. All tasks must be drawn in order of completion for a flow chart to be accurate. I have listed advantages and disadvantages below.
Advantages:
- Visual image of planning progress
- Task is shown and described clearly
- The order of the task is shown
- Outcomes of decisions are shown during the planning process
Disadvantages:
- There is no time scale
- No quantitative data is shows, for example, the duration of a task.
- Hard to determine deadlines, holding risks of running over schedule
A Gantt chart was chose over these methods for this planning process as it is quick and easy to set up. It shows how much of the course is done and whether things are going to plan or over scheduling. It also creates an easily understandable and visible graph as to what needs to be done and when. A Gantt chart also seemed like the best option, as it could be accessible to all members of the team on our school system. It was also a good source of communication as meetings were essential to make sure there was no confusion between the organisers and schedule of the Gantt chart.
- Insurance and Legal Constraints
When staging an event, organisers must ensure that certain legal requirements have been met and taken into consideration before going ahead with the planning preparation. Legal constraints are likely to add to the overall cost of an event. It may also restrict some activities that may be involved during the day due to health and safety constraints.
This is one of our most important legal constraints as it makes sure everyone from organisers; customers, visitors, volunteers and stallholders will be safe while the event is being taken place. Laws and regulations are designed to protect peoples well being and protect them from any danger. All injuries that are possible on the day of our event need to be taken into consideration when planning the event and avoided as much as possible. One of our issues was for Health and Safety, was the refreshments. Due to food hygiene, it is imperative that any food made or handled by someone are those who only posses a Food Hygiene Certificate. This means a member with a Food and Hygiene Certificate has to prepare the refreshments.
Planning and organising an event may involve organisers creating and entering into contracts. A contract is a legally binding document, which acts as an agreement between two or more people, or two different groups, for example, businesses.
A contract is only legally binding when:
- The people concerning the contracts have entered into it voluntarily, without any force from outside influences.
- The contract has to contain mutual considerations. Both parties have to be involved in gaining something from the contract
- It is signed by authorised parties
- It is created for legal issues only
Once a contract has been signed, organisers will be obliged to fulfill their part of agreement. A contract was filled out on renting the hall in order to make it official and law abiding. We had written a contract in order to show formally that we bought it and the payment for it would be paid after the event had been taken place. The public liability insurance is the put in place through the school as this process is an added 5% of the price for the hired payment. This means that the school organise all the relevant insurance and enables us as organisers to spend our time on other necessities for the event, such as planning. Public liability insurance covers us against claims made against us by members of the public who attend. It protects us from any damage to someone attending due to the negligence or if we are at fault. For example if an attendee had tripped over a box of decorations left by a member of the organising team and injured them. This protects us from any injuries at risk. Public liability is very important to our Christmas Fair as it means we can be prevented from being sued or any claims against us due to a member of the public being injured. This therefore will save us a lot of money and hassle with legal constraints if something were to happen.
It is possible that something may not go to plan at the event, and people could be injured. For example someone falling over could result in them making a claim for compensation. If this were to happen blame for the incident is likely to fall back on us as organisers as we are responsible and associated with the event. However, as we are covered by Public Liability Insurance means there can be no charges made against anybody. The insurance is obtained through hiring the hall. This means the organisers have failed to act responsibly for all the people and therefore seen as having a lack of involvement and deemed negligent. If the organiser is under the age of 18, the school may have to take overall responsibility. Due to the negligence and potential compensation claims, it shows how important a risk assessment is for the running and effectiveness of the event-taking place. One way for someone to avoid risk of claims of negligence is to take out insurance. Another legal issue we could face is due to the Santa’s Grotto for children’s entertainment. As one of our main feature for our event, it is essential we have a Santa impersonator for the day. However it is extremely important to make sure the impersonator is CRB checked in order to make sure they are safe around children. Due to the event-taking place at school, we had a teacher who was willing to help on the day. Mr. Reeves, the impersonator was researched and found to have a successful CRB check and is therefore safe to be around children attending. A copy of our CRB research can be found in Appendix 26.
Some activities at events need a license before they are able to take place or be a part of the day. Some licenses can be from the council however the majority must be obtained in a court of law. If licensing is refused, the planning and staging of that activity must be cancelled as the law restricts any event having such an activity with refusal of a license. Some of these include:
- The sale of alcohol in public or private places has to have authorised licensing. However, this is not an issue for our Christmas Fair as no alcohol is being sold as refreshment or on a stall and therefore licensing for such an activity is not needed.
- A public entertainment license may be needed is an event involves public music or dancing of any kind.
- An activity involving sport such as boxing, wrestling, karate or a similar sport must be licensed.
The Christmas Fair does not require any licenses. The license that was originally going to be considered was the alcohol license; this was because we thought we could sell mulled wine to add to the festive season. However, the event was during the day and is catered for children and adults. Therefore it was unnecessary for our Christmas Fair to need any license.
When organisers are staging events it is important that relevant insurance is taken out as it makes it possible to get financial compensation if something is to go wrong. One type of insurance necessary to take out for our Christmas Fair is Public Liability Insurance. This insurance covers us from being sued, if any claims are made after any incident or harm coming anyone on the premises, it also covers the school. This also means we will not lose any money as the insurance covers any claims for compensation. This Public Liability Insurance was set up and put in place by Meridian School. This is because it was a compromise within the price of the hall. This was formally settled through the contract made with the school on the hiring of the hall.
As part of the marketing for our event, we decided to place banners that we had created from our design coming into Royston and the Royston Tesco Supermarket. We placed them here as they were places that many people drove by regularly, therefore, they will remember when, where and what event is taking place. However, in order for us to do this we have to get hold of the Hertfordshire Highway Agency. They told us we could advertise at the side of the road, as long as it was not too disturbing and we cleared it up when they were no longer needed. We had to do this as it is against the law to do any advertising on the roads without consent.
- Cash Flow Forecast
A cash flow forecast is often used in the planning of an event. They are constructed as a spreadsheet and gives visual information as to how much money has been spent and how much money is being earned over a future period of time. A cash flow forecast has been created in relation to the months of planning the event, the month of the event and a few months after the event. This is to organise the flow of money coming in from certain sources such as stallholders, the money made from the event and things we have to spend on such as refreshments and raffle tickets. A cash flow forecast helps identify in advance whether organisers of an event are likely to run out of cash during the planning process and staging the event. It also forces the organisers to look ahead and identify problems before they occur. Cash flow forecasts monitor the cash flow in the preparation for the event. In the event of a needed loan from a bank, a cash flow forecast supports the application for borrowing money.
A cash flow forecast has been created to help the organising of all money come in to the event and going out. The cash flow forecast covers the months of June to May. This is because the planning process started around June. The first purchase we made was in July for stamps costing £27.
HELP NEEDED.
- Contingency Plan
If an event is planned accurately and in great detail, the likelihood of the event being successful is very high. This also depends on whether it is funded accurately. However, it is always possible that something may go wrong during the planning process leading up to the even, or on the day the event is taking place. Certain aspects and unforeseen circumstances could become a major problem in the successfulness of an event. For example, what would happen to the Grotto if Santa did not arrive? Therefore, in order to avoid any of these unexpected emergencies, a contingency plan should be created. The definition of a contingency is an event that is liable but not certain to happen. A contingency plan therefore outlines all these possible problems and the actions that should be taken up in case such crisis does occur. The first stage of creating a contingency plan is to identify all the possible mishaps that may occur in relation to the event. These could include whether stallholders do not turn up, power cuts, etc. Information gathered through the creation of a risk assessment is very helpful when discovering potential contingencies. Once all risks have been identified it is possible to create a course of action that should follow in order to make the running of the event as efficient as it can be.
Some possible mishaps that could arise during the course of the Christmas Fair are situations such as power cuts, not enough stall holders, Santa not attending, no photographer or not enough raffle prizes. Ways to overcome these and other potential problems are identified and therefore make the risk of the event going wrong less likely. The most important problem that could arise during the day is a fire, however the venue of the event is a school hall and a number of extinguishers can be located and are also guaranteed to work. A copy of our contingency plan can be found in Appendix 11.
- Suppliers
As there are chances of competition to get certain suppliers to attend events, contracts with these suppliers are likely to be needed. Suppliers are very important, as an event is hard to stage without clients. The Meridian Christmas Fair clients included all the stallholders. We also had to get in contact with a large number of businesses. This included a variety of businesses within the same industries, such as Body Shop and a number of other beauty companies. By contacting a number of different people it limited the risk of not being able to have a stall within a specific industry. As the business were contacted mostly by post or e-mail it was possibility that they would not turn up or other events with a similar nature were interested about them too. In order to reduce this risk we needed to make sure we had guaranteed a reservation from all stallholders. We included in all letters and e-mails sent to stallholders a request of £15 to be sent back to the school with the slip of a donated raffle gift from their company. A copy of this can be found in Appendix 12. By making sure the stallholders money was collected as soon as possible, it meant the likelihood of them not turning up without a valid reason, or going to do another event was very little, as they would have lost £15. In addition, by sending them the terms and conditions letter it notified them the terms on which they must accept to if they wished to attend the event. This meant all risk of them agreeing to attend and then not attending, leaving us with an empty stall, was minimal. We also bought most of our things directly from Tesco as we could purchase them immediately avoid risk of anything not getting delivered on time for the event. All products purchased from Tesco had 10% discount. This is because we had a worker discount due to one member of the organising team working as an employee at Tesco. By using his discount card on all products bought, means we saved more money than originally hoped and all contributed to the less expenses. We also used Hertfordshire Supplies to purchase plates, serviettes, and cups for both tea and coffee on the refreshments stalls. A number of plates and cups were ordered from this website and were expected to be delivered a number of days in advance to the event. However, we realised we had not ordered a tablecloth, and purchased that the day before the event when we purchased the refreshments.
- Working Practices
In order for the planning process of an event to run smoothly, a number of procedures will be required. These systems and procedures are known as working practices for example, ‘the way the job is done’. Working practices must be designed and agreed for them to be effective. They also must be established fairly early on in the planning process as they are designed to encourage effective communication, problem solving, reporting and the handling of finance. Once they are created it is essential that all organisers and those involved with the planning for the event use them.
Working practice constraints include booking methods, recording data, meetings and communication.
A number of bookings have to be made and therefore booking forms are necessary for the recordings of all these to be done. We used a standard format spreadsheet to record all bookings with stallholders. This meant that all businesses that were contracted were placed in a spreadsheet, and all those that requested a reservation were then moved onto another spreadsheet with their individual data on it, such as the business name, nature of the stall, contact details and also whether they had paid or not. This created a structured over view of all bookings made by the stallholders and organised this information to keep us up to fate with the planning of the event. The spreadsheet can be found in Appendix 17.
Working practices will have to be established for the gathering and recording of important data. These include:
It is essential that purchases are made in order to make the Christmas Fair successful, or even able to run. Purchases such as stamps for stallholders letters, present for the children that visit the grotto and refreshments for those that wish to purchase food at the event, are all necessary for the running of the event. However, all of these receipts must be kept, as all purchases must be supported with appropriate documentation. This also helps to create certain financial accounts and makes it easier to see if the event makes a profit or not. A lot of financial information if recorded in the Cash Flow Forecast, however all expenditure must be supported by its relevant documentation. A number of receipts can be found in Appendix 24.
As the Christmas Fair is dealing with a number of different businesses and representatives, it is essential that all are recorded in order to see if the objectives are being met, to keeps us up to date with who has paid and to ensure that we have a variety of stalls. Therefore it is essential that record all clients’ personal details in order to contact them when needed. This can be found in Appendix 17.
As the event is running from 11am-4pm, in order to make as much money from the raffle as possible, the winning tickets will not be called until just before the event finishes, 3:45pm. However, as those that turn up at 11am will not want to stay at the event for 5 hours, it is essential that personal details are taken such as the customers name and number in order to contact them if they win anything. However, these tickets destroyed after the event and no data will be passed on or shared with anyone for any reasons a part from the legitimate reason for it being left in the first place. This is in order to comply with the Data Protection Act.
Certain risks must be identified and recorded in order to reduce any risk of injuries on the day. All this information must be presented in a risk assessment. The Christmas Fair, like any other event, holds many risks such as the fire escape being blocked, spillage of food or drinks or tripping over electrical wires. Therefore it is essential that all of these are recorded in a risk assessment in order to reduce the risk of any of these becoming an issue in the cusses of the event. A copy of the risk assessment can be found in Appendix 5.
Meetings are needed in the preparation of any event. The Christmas Fair requires a lot of time spent together in meetings in order to make it as successful as possible. An example of meetings being held for the Christmas Fair included the creation of the Gantt Chart and the deciding of the nature of the event. This is because; all information must be established and discussed as a group, in a meeting. A copy of the meetings can be found in Appendix 14.
Communication is essential in the planning process of an event, and all communication between organisers and others relating to the event is crucial. Proper channels of communication must be established to ensure a free flow of information. The Christmas Fair uses letters, invitations, notices, and face-to-face communication in meetings, Internet, e-mail and other methods. All these methods will be used to communicate with each other, stallholders and directly to our target audience.
- Importance of Management of Information and Communications
Communication is all about the sending and receiving of information. It is essential that all organiser’s and people involved with the planning of an event communicate with each other on a regular basis. This is called internal communication. External communication must also take place. This is when an organiser must communicate with people and organisations outside the planning team such as the local community, the media and other businesses. The planning process and event itself will run far more smoothly if there is a great deal of good communication during preparation. Good external communication will help to win the support of outsiders and may help in the giving donations for the raffle and attendance on the day. Internal communication helps to avoid mistakes due to misunderstanding or lack of communication; it may speed up the completion of tasks if people work together for vital information or help; it also improves motivation, as people tend to work better when they understand what’s happening.
There is a wide range of communication methods, the majority of it taking place face to face or over the telephone. Some communication is visual through body language, signs and images such as photos or diagrams. There are also electronic methods including email, television, surveillance cameras and electronic notice boards.
A letter is a formal and flexible source of communication. It is written communication and is used mainly for external communicating. Letters are usually created using word processor as presentation, grammar, punctuation and spelling can all be checked. This makes the letter more accurate, professional and formal. Some word packages also include standard formats for letters that can then be personalized. This saves time as a lot of letters are sent out during the planning of an event and in relation to an event. We used letters to communicate to outside businesses in order to make them aware of the business and ask them whether they would like to hold a stall or send a donation. We created these using the letter format found on Microsoft Word Processor. Due to this, it was easy to mail merge letters and send in bulk to a number of people. It was also easy to then send a contract letter after the confirmation of any donations or stall reservation requests. This letter can be found in Appendix 16. This helped the event as it was not very time consuming and it means that time saved through using mail merge could be put to better use. This also means all other tasks could be undertaken with more effort and the likelihood of the planning process going wrong is limited. It also influences good communication as letters could be sent to all businesses regarding donations or stall reservations. Therefore, without letters, the event would not have been possible to run, as there would be very little stallholders or donated raffle prizes, also resulting in a lot more expenditure due to the purchasing of all prizes.
Many event organisers use invitations. This is because certain members of the public and VIP’s are wanted to attend. Invitations can either be sent out as a personal letter, however when many are needed this is too time consuming. For the Christmas Fair, invites were sent to all local and surrounding schools, varying ages, in order to invite all families to the event. This is because it appeals to the target audience and therefore makes all members of the target audience aware of the event and its information. These invitations were printed like tickets and had all relevant information present on it. On this invitation the information it included.
- The nature of the event: Meridian Christmas Fair.
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The date of the event: Sunday 12th December 2010.
- The time of the event: 11am-4pm.
- The event venue: Meridian School Hall.
- A list of activities: Stallholders and businesses attending, raffles and refreshments.
Invitations were used for the Christmas Fair, as it is a formal way of advertising the event and making the public more aware. It also increases the chance of people attending as they have been invited. The invitations were also a good method of communication as they are aimed and given directly as the target audience. This is also good as those people then have a physical reminder of the event and have all necessary information present for whenever they want to read it. This means they are less likely to forget about the event and the risk of them being confused over the nature, time, purpose of the event is very limited. All schools were contacted on the amount of pupils that attended in order to send them an exact amount of invitations. This was to ensure all pupils had a copy, but there was not a lot of time wasted on invitations and therefore could be used for another purpose, such as sending to another school. This means all schools were given a precise and specific amount of invitations in relation to the amount of pupils. Copies of the invitation provided can be found in Appendix 18.
By placing a notice on a notice board creates an extremely cheap method of communication. It is good for internal communication as vital information can be places on the notice board for all members to see and pass on what they read. It also creates a good method of external communication as a notice may be placed in a shop window or local community to give the public information to then pass on to their friends and family. However, it is possible that a lot of people may not see the notice and the information are therefore not distributed as effectively as hoped. Notices may also be removed, damaged or defaced before the information has been passed on to many people. Notices have been put in numerous places around the school to ensure that all students and staff know about the event and can let their parents or friends know. A copy of this notice can be found in Appendix 18. This is therefore beneficial to our event as it increases awareness of the event and influences more people to attend. It also gets more people involved. Other notices used on the day include toilet signs and relevant information to constantly keep the attendees happy and fulfilled and to limit the chance of any confusion or unsatisfactory service.
The Internet is a huge source of information collection and is extremely useful for people that have access to a computer. Due to the launch of Broadband, images and text on a website can be opened and loaded very quickly and enables the information to be downloaded if need be. The Internet has been used a great deal during the planning process of an event. It helps us to search for potential business stallholders. It is also being used to conduct secondary research in which many websites of schools and surrounding event that link with the Christmas Fair could be looked at to help make decisions surrounding the event. The Internet is a very useful tool in organising an event, as it is an easy way to find out whether there are any clashing events that affect the success on the day. We also used the Internet to advertise the event as a copy of our advertisement was placed on Facebook so members of the public could see. This should be beneficial as all students that log on to the website are mostly friends with our team members, and therefore will not miss the advertisement. This means a lot of people will find out about the event and targets those that will be most interested as they are involved in the school. A copy of this advert can be found in Appendix 18. The Internet was therefore very helpful as it was our main source of information such as contact details for many businesses and individual crafts people, other shopping days in the surrounding area and other people’s information they used.
Almost every business, individual and organisation has an email address. They are very useful when creating an event as they allow organisers to communicate with each other and surrounding businesses and other organisations instantly. E-mail can distribute text, images, graphics/charts, audio and video material with very little effort. The e-mail is sent to a server which is a computer dedicated to storage and network facilities. This means that the email will stay unopened and available in the receiving recipient’s inbox unless it is told to do otherwise. It also means that the e-mail can be picked up wherever the recipient logs on to their address; for example, they could either open it at home, school, or work. We have used e-mailing to enable communication with surrounding businesses in order to ask them whether they would like to take part in the day. It costs no money and is sent and can be received instantly. This means it was an extremely useful tool as it was essential that a large amount of businesses were approached. An email address was created specially for the event, which meant that all emails that were related to the subject was sent to the same address in which all organisers could open and use. This therefore meant that no email was left unanswered for a long period of time. Emailed helped dramatically in the communication within the organising team and also to other businesses and individuals regarding any information we needed or they did, such as prices for stalls, contact details, and information surrounding their businesses representatives. The school also used e-mail to contact all parents of pupils in Meridian. These e-mails included whether any parents would like to donate a prize to the raffle and the other e-mail reminded them of the date and time of the event in order to limit the risk of them not attending or being confused of the time and date of event.
Databases are useful to store and handle information. This is because a database is another name for an electronic filing system. It allows large quantities of information and data to be stored in one document. The data can then be stored, updates and recalled instantly when needed. A database holds files in which data is stored. The collection of common data is called a file and a file consists of related records. Each record and its information are places under headings called fields. These fields can be surname, first name, address, age, gender and so on. We used a database to hold a record of all businesses and individuals. This database held their name, address and nature of their business or trade. This database was then updates and used to show which people had replied to the letter and people were attending. Once this was created, another database was made to show which stallholders had paid and which hadn’t. This therefore helps the event as all information was organised and processed. This meant it was easier to keep up to date with relevant payments and income, as well as how many businesses had replied and the nature of all replied. This was necessary due to the information given to us from Tina Filby about including a wide range of different stalls. The database was created using Microsoft Excel as it enabled fast and easy structured information, as well as good organisation and manipulation of data is very simple and requires very little time to do so, as well as limiting any human error in calculations. This database can be found in Appendix 29.
A spreadsheet contains certain types of numerical data. It is all presented through a spreadsheet and allows a user to enter, store and present information in a structured grid on the computer. Numerical data, when placed on a spreadsheet can then be manipulated and can aid organisers of events with their decision-making. The most commonly used and well known is spreadsheet software is Excel. When entering information, if an entry is changed or altered, the corresponding numbers that relate to it will change automatically to make the information accurate. This saves a lot of time and limits the risk of human error. Spreadsheets were used a number of times when planning and preparing for the event. A predicted and actual cash flow forecast was produced using Excel in order to present all money flow. This is because the control of cash is essential to an event in order to reduce the risk of going into debt or failing. These cash flows can be found in Appendix 9 and 10. A break-even chart was also created using Excel in order to present the total number of stalls needed before we started making a profit. This was to measure how successful the event would have to be in order to start making a profit. This is because if the event is not financially viable, there is not much point in holding it due to the unrealistic and impossible chance of making a profit. This break-even chart can be found in Appendix -. Spreadsheets are clear and very structured and therefore shown in an ordered way. It is also easy to use as editing numerical data takes little effort due to the automatic changing of other data. This makes it very easy to correct mistakes and change the information present. This means the accuracy of the accounts used to measure the financial stability of the Christmas Fair was very accurate. A lot of information can be copied from one spreadsheet and can be placed in another meaning that very little effort is taken to create spreadsheets and then manipulate them. All numerical data can be manipulated through adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing and the overall total is calculated automatically. Excel was also used to generate graphs for the recording of the results from the primary research. All answers were tallied up and placed on a spreadsheet and the information was then generated into separate graphs to show how successful the answers were. This therefore helps the event as all information is processed with very little inaccuracies and information is more likely to be correct, as well as formatted and presented in an understandable and structured way.
- Calendar Software, Booking and Reservations, Monitoring
Monitoring is very important in the planning and days leading up to the event. This is because it is important to see what tasks have been completed and which still need finishing. It is also important; in this case, that a list of stallholder’s names and payment status is recorded in order to see how many stalls will be present and which of them have paid. Some tasks are critical and if not completed on time, will hold up the event and the finishing of the panning process. A Gantt Chart was used to monitor these tasks sand the time constraints during the planning process of the Christmas Fair. A Cash Flow Forecast is often created to monitor the flow of the cash. For the Christmas Fair to be successful, it is essential that we do not go in debt by spending too much of the money donated by stallholders. Therefore, using a Cash Flow Forecast is a necessity. This helps the event as it helps to show the consistency of income and how much money we have and helps us to avoid going into debt.
- Contracts
On the day of the event, all the planning processes and decisions come together to make the day successful. The success of the event can also come down to whether the contracts are fulfilled and reduce the risk of a disagreement, dispute or conflict. One of the most important contracts and the only contract of importance to the Christmas Fair is the one for the hiring of the hall. A contract is essential as it means there is a guarantee that the school hall will be available on the date discussed. It also guarantees that the school hall will be used on that date and use, as organisers, are not allowed to cancel at the last minute the information processed on the contract with the hall includes:
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The date and times of the event: 12th December 2010, 11am-4pm.
- What will be used: the school hall and dining room.
- Payment Information: £50 after discounted.
- Contact details: an organisers name, number and address in case of any difficulties.
A copy of this contract can be found in Appendix 15.
A contract was also made with the stallholders with the use of a terms and conditions letter sent to all those that has accepted a reservation and planned on attending the event. This was to make sure all people that agreed to attend do so and cannot cancel in short notice. This limits the risk of any stalls being left unattended by stallholders and no money being argued over or has any confusion between the organisers and the stallholders. This terms and conditions letter can be found in Appendix 16.
- Marketing Event
The success of an event relates directly to the quality of the marketing use on it. The main part of marketing when creating an event is promotion. The amount of promotion depends on how much budget there is to spend on it. For events that involve people donating, paying for entertainment or services, such as the Christmas Fair, promotion is a crucial aspect.
Most event organisers have little choice as how they will advertise their event as large businesses have enough money to choose from a wide range of media. The type of advertising we used for the Christmas Fair was newspapers, posters and banners and public relations.
Milli helped us with out advertisement. She is a friend who creates publications for clubs and events around the UK whilst studying at university. I contacted Milli through e-mail, told her about our event and it’s purpose and what kind of theme, colours and information we wanted represented on the advertisement and she created it for us free of charge within a number of days. We were then able to contact the listings again with out new advertisement, asked if we could change our advert that we had previously sent and we were told it would be perfectly fine to do so. We decided to change our advertisement as Milli created something fun and professional which would give our event a better image. A copy of this advertisement can be seen in Appendix 18, as well as the advert printed in the listings in Appendix 19 and The Listings proof of purchase in Appendix 20. Due to the event being local and intending to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital, it seemed very essential to advertise to the community surrounding, it is also a good play for advertisement as the magazine gets distributed to around 20,000 people in the surrounding area. Putting an advert in a magazine or newspaper is a relatively cheap method of advertising and people can refer back to the advert and details of the event can be communicated effectively. Due to magazines having to advertise may things there is a risk our advert will blend in with the crowd. They also lack sound and movement; however they get the details across in a clear and concise way. It is also available to the public whenever they want to refer it.
Notices are another form of advertising and used to promote the Christmas Fair. They are useful for passing on short sharp messages and are seen repeatedly. They are also directed at most groups, which is essential as the day is aimed at families and people of all ages. It is a cheap method of advertising, however due to their lack of information it is hard to measure how effective they are. The advertisement used in the magazines is also used for the notice and will be placed around Meridian School, in shop windows and around Royston Town. The notices were also put around local schools in order to increase awareness and therefore likelihood of the event being a success. This is so that we keep up event awareness and all advertisements can be linked. This increases the risk of people remembering the event and makes the advertisement and marketing campaign very professional. It also saves time as no more time was needed to spend on the design of another advert and could be spent on another important aspect. A copy of the notice can be found in Appendix 18.
Invitations were created and handed to all surrounding schools for children to pass on to their parents and guardians to help promote the event to the local families and was therefore fairly efficient and fulfilling as method of promotion. A card the size of ¼ of an A4 sheet was covered with information and is double sided. Information including the event name, date, time and place were placed on the invite. On the back included a list of stalls that have agreed to attend and other activities such as Santa’s Grotto, raffle and refreshments. This therefore gives a great deal of important information about the event and is aimed directly to the target audience. Invites have been distributed to surrounding schools of all ages including Greneway Middle School, Roysia Middle School and Icknield Walk. We contacted the schools to ask how many students were present at each one so we know how many leaflets to give out in order to make sure all students received them but we did not produce too many and waste them. This means they were given a specific amount of invites in relation to the amount of students that attended. This is a good method of advertising because a lot of information can be included and aimed directly at those the vent is aimed at. This also means they have a visual reminder with all relevant information that is available to them whenever they wish to see it. This invitation can be found in Appendix 18.
We also decided amongst ourselves in a meeting that creating a banner would be extremely effective for our advertising. We used the image created by Milli on the poster she made us, so that it would tie in with our marketing campaign and hopefully trigger people’s memories if they had seen another advertisement of ours. In addition the image was also fun and professional and made the banner more interesting, we also included ‘Meridian School’ in large bold letters, as well as the date, time and entry fee as people would be driving past the banner. It needed to be eye capturing and simplistic to catch peoples attention when driving past. The cost of a banner was expensive but we knew it would be effective, and the business department offered paying for one banner when purchasing two as they can use the banner for next year. A design of our banner can be seen in Appendix 18.
On the day of the event we also placed a sign with balloons at the end of Garden Walk where the main road was located to draw attention to our Christmas Fair. This would maximise our customer arrivals.
15. Operation on the day
Leading up to the event can be an extremely busy period. A lot of minor details that are significant to making a success of the event can only be done a few days before, and in some cases the day before the event or the day itself. Organisers of the event are likely to feel anxiety of how the successful the event will run. However this will build motivation for them to ensure the event runs smoothly and that they fulfill their job role. This means they will be focused in striving an achievement, and likely to exceed in their abilities. There are a number of different roles that could be given on the day of the event. These are listed below:
- Looking after customers and clients
- Dealing with issues which may arise involving customers or clients
- Cleaning during the event, to ensure professionalism in the work place
- Supervising customers, some may be children
- Keeping a record and safe handling with money you take in
- Ensuring all members of events are fulfilling their duties
- Being a key member in participating at the event
Organisation, communication, customer service, problem solving, contingency planning and final adjustments are the vital areas surrounding the running of an event. Each member of our event was given a role on the day to carry out in order to fulfill all aspects of the event and to help it run as smoothly as possible. We decided amongst ourselves that it would be a good idea if we had a job rotation every hour, this would allow us to use all of our different skills in all of the different areas of our event. In addition it would be a long day, and members would not remain motivated if they were doing the same job for 5 hours. Add theorist. On the day I was mainly involved in the refreshments department, and on the door, inviting people in. This meant I had to serve customers as well as serving our clients. It is important that we had great customer service, so that our customers were in a good mood to shop and feel welcomed. We decided that every stallholder would be given a complimentary mince pie, and coffee or tea. We notified them before the event, however most had forgotten so a team member and I went around asking individual stallholders. Each stallholder is a shareholder in our event. Our actions affect them as well because; customers will associate the event with the stallholders. Therefore it is compulsory that we have a good relationship with each stallholder. A copy of the Job Rota that was given to all members on the day can be found in Appendix 30.
Organisation
Organisation is the key to any event running smoothly. This is because it means everyone knows that they are doing during the day, and lessens the risk of confusion. As a team we were allocated individual roles to carry out during the planning process of the event. We stuck well to these roles, however we all had an input with all areas of the event and took roles in other departments of the event. Listed below was the role of each member:
- Meera Patel (myself) – Human Resources
- Charlotte Roser – Human Resources
- Michael Lobb - Advertising
- Molly Brookes - Advertising
- Andrew Cooke – Finance
However on the day it is important people know exactly what they are doing and what is expected from them. To inform this, we had regular meetings leading up to the event and on the day of the event to discuss what needs to be done and who will cover a certain area on time with deadlines. Nonetheless, it is also important that the organisers enjoy the event just as much. To ensure this, multiple breaks have been allocated in the Rota, people in each pair can discuss with themselves when and who will take which slot off as their own time this will mean time will be organised well. For example, Molly and I were working together on the refreshments stall, when the stall reached its peaks we were both hands on and contributed a team effort. But when it became less busy, one would be able to have a break and look around whilst one was minding the stall. It is crucial that someone is covering a stall at all times. We were able to do this by knowing the responsibilities we had assessed in our regular meetings prior to the event. This improved communication between all of us as a group, and implemented our organisational skills. A stall layout was created in order to make sure how many stalls we were able to allocate in the hall, and then once again another one was created in order to be efficient when setting up on the day of the event, this also made it easier for us. A layout of our event can be found in Appendix 28.
Communication
Effective and efficient communication is essential to the successful running of any event. As the venue is a small school hall and dining area, communication amongst the organisation team should not be hard. Face-to-face communication is not hard to do, and as we were meeting regularly it helped us remain organised. With the individual roles and breaks, communications between members are easier as the venue is smaller. A number of matters were discussed before running our event. This helped us remain professional; here are a select few of the things we aimed to orchestrate if things began to break down.
- A contingency plan was prepared incase any problems occurred, we would be able to recover promptly and effectively.
- Have a clear leader so everyone would know whom he or she is able to account a problem to.
- Never to argue in front of customers or clients, and remain professional at all times. If we did not, we could ruin the atmosphere for people who are enjoying the event.
All communication is also easy as we had a number of extra helpers that could exchange any message from one person to another. These helpers included Ryan Darcy, Kiera Lobb and Brad Jones. They were able to help in any area that needed help at any time, however allowed to move around freely during the event to look around and enjoy their time. Joe Stack was also available to move around regularly as an elf to improve the Christmas atmosphere at our event. With all of these people available, communication was not a problem during the day due to the amount of members in a small venue.
Customer Service
Our Christmas Fair consists of a number of stalls including refreshments, the entry and raffle stall and stallholders businesses. This means all members of the team are in direct contact with customers and clients. Everyone that comes in direct contact with either customers or clients must understand the importance of customer service. Those members of the team in charge of the refreshment and raffle stall are in a fair amount of direct contact with customers and clients whereas people on the door will have less contact with clients than they will with customers. Charlotte was allocated to greet stallholders and direct them to their stall, which we named in order to be efficient and organised. Molly and I who worked on refreshments and Jamie Gibbs and Brad Coote whom worked on the raffle must realise the importance and effectiveness of customer service. Our job roles entail us to look after customers and meet their needs and wants. To help customers enjoy the event. All organising members should exceed customers’ expectations. I have listed below what I believe is offering good customer service:
- Making sure customers are receiving a good amount for what they pay
- Behaving professionally, but also being friendly, helpful and well-mannered to customers
- If problems occur, deal with them in an understanding and helpful manner
- Make sure all customers feel they are being cared for
- Always having what the customer wants, trying not be in a situation where something may run out
- Serve them in good time, and try not to make them wait
All organisers knew that we were to act professional, polite and were told that the customer is always right. This will avoid us being in any direct conflict with customers and keep customers happy. We also made sure that we tended to customers needs throughout the venue, helping them find things they may like. All members of the event were dressed professional in black and red clothing with Santa hats or Christmas related pieces so that customers could easily identify the organisers incase they had any questions or needed any help. This improves customer service as all aspects are taken into consideration to ensure all customers are happy, satisfied and at ease throughout the event and can easy access to information.
Problem Solving
During the event most things are expected to go to plan, however some problems may arise and we must be prepared for the worst so we don’t disappoint. If this happens it is important for us to remain calm and notify other members to help fix the issue. If we panic during a problem it is more difficult to solve a problem, as our heads will be unclear. If at anytime during a problem we are in direct contact with a customer it sends a positive message if we act positively. If the problem is small, such as running out of certain refreshments we had Joe Stack who could go to Tesco’s at any time and solve the problem. However if something larger were to happen, for example a pipe were to burst in the Santa’s Grotto, we would have to have more people help fix the problem and look at the health and safety issues that this could conflict with.
Listed below are only a few problems we experienced on the day of the event:
- A couple of stallholders did not turn up with any warning. Because of this we quickly removed these tables, as we did want to give a bad image of an empty stall. In addition we were able to make the area less congested.
- At last minute we decided to change a few minor details when setting up the hall, as we wanted customers to move around freely without any issues.
- We had to move chairs out of the hall as there were many stacked across the walls and was giving an unprofessional vibe.
- We had to change some prices of the refreshments last minute as we felt some prices were unfairly charged for the size of what was being offered.
Contingency Planning
Contingency plans are created as a backup if any problems were to arise and are drawn up during the planning process of an event. Our contingency plan consisted of multiple things from Santa unable to attend to the power cutting out. Due to the plan we had created it had been made easier to solve a problem if it were to arise with ease. On the day we did have to minor changes, for example, as we had no access to the schools kitchen we had to use the staff room for water and refilling up jugs. However this did not affect the running of our event and despite the inconvenience our event still ran smoothly. A copy of our contingency plan can be found in Appendix -.
Final Adjustments
It is possible on the day that last minute adjustments must be made. An example that occurred for us on the event was when a couple of stallholders failed to arrive without any warning. The adjustment was minor but had to be sorted out with good timing. Adjustments like these should be consulted with members in meetings. Therefore when this occurred we were able to deal with it effectively as it had already been discussed in both the contingency plan and in meetings. We also had to change the layout of a few stalls, as when looking at the layout when presented in front of us, it seemed congested. However we kept our raffle stall near the entrance of the door so that as soon as customers would walk in they would be able to buy raffle tickets and see what the prizes contain.
The event ran smoothly and efficiently on the day as all departments were covered in advance and everybody had confidence is what they were handling. We obtained great customer service and regularly cleaned our working areas during the event, fulfilling our objectives.
- Equality of Access
Equality of access is a vital issue when staging an event. This means there should be no discrimination when it comes to participating in the even or attending it. Nearly all forms of discrimination are illegal, such as race discrimination, gender discrimination and disability discrimination. There are severe consequences for breaching such legislation and therefore organisers should go to extreme lengths to ensure that this does not happen on the day. This means they must make it accessible for all types of people. Some ways in which this can be done are:
1. Ensuring that wheelchair users can enter and get around easily with or without assistance, for example, lifts or special parking spaces to enable little mobility. For the Christmas Fair, both doors for the entrance were left open in order to allow wheel chair access. Large spaces were left between stalls for them to move around freely with little problems. Also the event was held in Meridian School, which is already designed to have easy access for the disabled. This means any disabled people attending the event will have very little problems getting around or accessing anything, such as toilets.
2. Those with hearing impairments must be able to understand the event. This could be by providing easily accessible signs, large fonts or someone to speak to them in order for them to lip-read. Numerous signs were places around the venue to enable those with hearing difficulties to understand what was happening. Also, on entry, a leaflet covering the raffle, and event activities were given to each person. This also gave additional information to any person with hearing problems.
3. Provision must be made for pregnant women or women with little children to go and have fun. Due to many attendees being children it is essential that activities suit their needs. Santa's Grotto was produced for children to enjoy and go to when they wished to have fun. Seating was also available in the venue for people to sit down and relax, and enjoy refreshments.
Equality of access was taken into consideration by all organisers on the day of our Christmas Fair. No person was discriminated against and no legal action or complaints were made. Therefore, it shows that all organisers and members of the team worked professionally and constantly catered to the legislation put down to avoid any risk of discrimination against any person.
17. Security Measures
Most events involve spending and receiving money. This means it is a necessity that someone takes responsibility for the recordings of takings in orders to stay up to date and accurate about all financial transactions. The details of any loans made or any incoming cash must be taken into consideration as well as details of all purchases and the cost for that purchase and also details of all cash receipts. In the planning process of the event many purchases were made in order to buy necessities such as raffle tickets, refreshments, stamps and grotto presents. These must be kept as proof of purchase and to provide proof that the money is being spent for legitimate reasons. Copies of receipts for such purchases can be found in Appendix 24. Incoming purchases on the day of the event also need a record. This includes the selling of the raffle tickets. The amount of tickets sold should be recorded and also who purchases them in order to ring or get hold of those customers in relation to whether they have won a prize or not, and if they have their address for delivery. Also, at the beginning of the planning process of the event it was established that our main source of finance for the event would be the money incoming from the stallholder's reservation payments. However, in order to contact these people stamps had to be purchases in order to send the letters to these potential stallholders. Therefore, the business department at school offered us a small loan of £30 in order to buy our stamps and the money was repaid when money started coming in from the stalls. These financial transactions may be organised and summarised to produce certain documents including cash flow forecasts or profit and loss accounts. A copy of the cash flow forecast can be found in Appendix 9.
As the Christmas Fair was dealing solely with cash and cheques, it was essential that once the event was over, all money was put together at central point, calculated and then recorded. A member of the organising team was put in charge of calculating the money and recording the totals. He had more than one witness in order to show he was not committing fraud or taking any money out of our profits. This precaution was taken out in order to limit the risk of any allegations against her. A total of £690.83 was calculated and witnessed. This money was the put in a safe place in order to keep it all secure. If the money was not kept in a secure and safe place, there would be a risk of someone stealing the money or it going missing. In order to prevent these risks, all takings, once they were calculated were locked in the business department safely out of reach. This meant that if someone did want to use the money for their own purposes, they would not be able to, as they would not have access.
This also meant that nobody else had access and the chance of anyone stealing the money was very little. As the Christmas Fair was dealing solely with money and cheques, it was essential that once the event was over all the money was put together at a central point, calculated and then recorded. A member of the organising team was put in charge of calculating the money and recording the totals. In order to make the total of cash easier to work out and also make it easier to tell if any has gone missing. Therefore when calculating all incoming cash from the stallholders, a spreadsheet was created using Microsoft Excel in order to record the amount of accepting businesses, how much money they owed and they had paid. This meant we were able to see how much money we had made, a detailed view of the amount of stalls we had and also reduced the risk of loosing any money due to not knowing who had paid and who hadn't. The organisers of the Christmas Fair were given a couple of jobs on the day. Some were put on the door to collect entry fees, some were on the refreshments stall to collect money for refreshments, and raffle tickets and one was designated at the Grotto, as he was an elf. In order to reduce the risk of money being miscalculated, lost or forgotten about, each person has to make regular checks on all takings being made from what stall. This meant that each stall that was controlled by the organisers had a detailed overview of all incoming cash. Once all of these takings and records were taken in and calculated they were locked away safely in the business department so no one was able to gain access to the money without permission.
18. Health and Safety
On the day of the event it is essential that the people involved with it or people attending were not at risk. The health and safety of everyone at the event is always of great importance. During the planning stages the risk assessment would have been carried our as well as identify certain laws, regulations and that the appropriate provisions will have been made to ensure the day is as smooth running as it could possible be, with very little risk of danger.
Different aspects must be taken into consideration in order to make a safe event possible. This includes first aid availability, a sufficient amount of stewards, accessible fire exits and toilet facilities.
Many events require first aid facilities or paramedical help. If large crowds are a possibility or are expected then chances of injury or illness to a person or oganiser is more likely to occur. It is also necessary that emergency vehicles, in the chance of an accident, can gain access to the venue easily. This was taken into consideration on the day of the event as neither the entrance or exit was blocked all gates were opened foe emergency vehicles to gain access to the site instantly and easily upon arrival. There was one qualified first aider within the organising team. This was important in case any customers or stallholders or people within the vicinity hurt themselves or became sick. We also had a member of staff, Mrs. Hamilton and the schools caretaker present on the day, who had taken part in a first aid course and therefore had the basic knowledge on what to do in an emergency and how to help those that need it.
It is important to ensure there is sufficient amount of stewards and supervisors on the day of an event in order to cater to everyone’s needs. If organisers achieve good stewarding, the safety of others is improved. Stewards can help people find out where they want to go and how much a certain activity is. They also give out a lot of important or required information. This was achieved with the Christmas Fair as around 17 people were used to supervise and help all stallholders and visitors with their needs. A leaflet was produced and handed to visitors upon entry in order to help them find their way around the event and to give them some potential required information. A number of organisers and team members walked around the venue in order to cater to anyone's needs as soon as possible. Also, a stall layout was produced for stallholders to find their stall and others as well.
Close attention must be paid to the likeliness or threat of a fire. Whenever a crowd or group of people is put together in a confined space, suitable fire exits must be shown and easily accessed. In many cases, if the event is held indoors, a fire plan is already made out and fire exits are labeled. It is important to make sure suitable fire fighting equipment is available and some members of the team are aware of how to use it. This was achieved as all fire exits were sufficiently labeled and none were blocked or obstructed in any way. Also, on the stallholder's layout, fire exits were shown in case of emergency. This therefore meant that awareness of the fire exits was known. Also, fire extinguishers were available in the venue all day.
Event organisers will be obliged to provide toilet facilities for all people that may attend. Some guidelines are created in the provision of toilet facilities. These include:
- Toilets should be sited correctly on even ground, to make it easily accessible for all people.
- Enough toilets should be provided.
- Toilets should be clean, hygienic and have running water.
The toilets in the venue were opened and were placed away from any main attractions. A number of toilets were available for many people to use. The toilets were also thoroughly cleaned leading up to the event in order to make sure they were as clean and hygienic as possible.