Developing An Auction Dinner (Part Two - Continued)

 I have had the privilege of attending and working with thousands of auction dinners throughout North America for over 20 years. Some had several thousand attendees, while others only had fifty or so. The articles that follow are meant to give an overview of how successful auction dinners are conceived, planned and managed.

For anyone who wants a complete "Developing An Auction Dinner" package, complete with working manuals, workbooks, sample forms and PowerPoint presentations, visit my Festival and Event Planning website.

Event Planning

5. Timing

If you want to kill a great event, make it too long. Too many potentially great events becoming an agonizing failure because they went too long and attendees became bored and restless. When this happens people tend to talk and drink too much, talk over the Master of Ceremony and not pay attention or worse, they just leave the events before it ends. All of this behavior results in people spending less money.

6. Event Insurance

If your group does not have overall insurance that covers events, you should definitely contact your local insurance broker to discuss coverage. Most facilities will not let you hold an event on their premises if you don’t have liability insurance.

(To be continued)

Developing An Auction Dinner (Part Two - Continued)

 I have had the privilege of attending and working with thousands of auction dinners throughout North America for over 20 years. Some had several thousand attendees, while others only had fifty or so. The articles that follow are meant to give an overview of how successful auction dinners are conceived, planned and managed.

For anyone who wants a complete "Developing An Auction Dinner" package, complete with working manuals, workbooks, sample forms and PowerPoint presentations, visit my Festival and Event Planning website.

Event Planning

3. Plan of Action

The most important stage in event planning is the creation of a comprehensive realistic Plan of Action and Budget. These two processes give you the foundation for holding a successful event. The more effort you put into these, the easier the event become to organize and the less chance of unforeseen problems. Include a Critical Path Chart with the Plan of Action. This will help keep the committee on target in completing the tasks set out in the action plan.

4. Event Program

The event program highlights all the hard efforts the committee put into organizing the event. Creating a well organized quality program not only let everyone know about the event’s activities, but shows them what a great event it is that they are attending. As discussed previously, it’s the “small touches” that help people have a great time and want to come back for more.

(To be Continued)

Developing An Auction Dinner (Part Two)

 I have had the privilege of attending and working with thousands of auction dinners throughout North America for over 20 years. Some had several thousand attendees, while others only had fifty or so. The articles that follow are meant to give an overview of how successful auction dinners are conceived, planned and managed.

For anyone who wants a complete "Developing An Auction Dinner" package, complete with working manuals, workbooks, sample forms and PowerPoint presentations, visit my Festival and Event Planning website.

Event Planning

1. Meeting Agenda

The aim in managing a committee meeting should be to accomplish the most amount of work in to minimum amount of time. Nothing turns committee members off more than a poorly run meeting that accomplishes little and seems to last forever. The key to running successful meetings is to have an organized agenda and then to follow it Side talk on non-agenda items will kill the meeting. The other component of a successful meeting is to have complete and accurate minutes taken during the meetings. These should then be sent out to all members as soon as possible after the meeting.

2. Event Planning

When preparing the plans for your event, consider all aspects that you want to include and see how they all fit together. Your main object at this point is to make sure all pieces of the event fit together smoothly without gaps. The success of your event will be greatly determined by how smoothly it runs.

(To be continued)

Developing An Auction Dinner (Part One - Continued)

 I have had the privilege of attending and working with thousands of auction dinners throughout North America for over 20 years. Some had several thousand attendees, while others only had fifty or so. The articles that follow are meant to give an overview of how successful auction dinners are conceived, planned and managed.

For anyone who wants a complete "Developing An Auction Dinner" package, complete with working manuals, workbooks, sample forms and PowerPoint presentations, visit my Festival and Event Planning website.

Event Development

18. Payment

Make paying for prizes and raffle ticket as simple as possible. Today in our “cashless society”, charge and debit cards rule. To be successful, your event must arrange for charge and debit card facilities. You should be able to do this through you local bank or through a friendly merchant. Not having this facility will severely limit your events ability to raise money.

19. Job Descriptions

When running an event, it is important for everyone involved (committee members and event volunteers) to know what is expected of them. A simple written job description will give all your workers the direction they need to make the event both successful and well run.

(Part Two of this series, "Developing an Auction Dinner" will talk about Event Planning.)