International Days

Day 1: Holly Cybulshi Rolling out the red Carpet,

Keys to Event Management Success

Day Wednesday 3rd May 2017

Time 3 pm
Animator Seveca College, Toronto
Duration 1h30 min

Summary

The reason why I selected this seminar is because of my interest to have my own
business and Canada is my next country for studies after my Diploma. So,
understanding Event management, the challenge and excitement involved about
organizing big as well as small events will improve my way of thinking in
business.
The lecture was mainly about how to make an event successful and become a
great event manager.
Base on Forbes report on the 10 most stressful jobs, we discovered that stressful
jobs always have something to do with datelines and event planner was one of
them coming at the 5th place. Time management has never been an easy task.
The lecture made it clear that although the goal is to satisfy customer, but you
cannot satisfy everybody and we should expect criticism and pay attaintion to
every details. I talk about celebrity and VIP because this is actually the domain of
the presentation, and she was conducting the presentation based on her
experience in organizing events like the red carpet where many and very famous
celebrities in the world were invited.
Being an Event manager is a very challenging job but there are also many
principles that can help him/her to have some control and to succeed his job and
those principle are transferable to any other type of event:
1) The WHY factor
It is about defining a clear goal why you organize an even. organising an
event must be a reason for it. If you want guest participation then you must
convince people to see the need for that event. If people dont understand
the reason behind the event and the benefits for such an event the turn out
will not be reasonable.
objective
2) The 10% rule
The 10% rule means preparing for 10% error. To go over the initial budget,
while making agreement with the partners and financers of your event, you
have to take into consideration 10% extra budget. Tis 10% helps you to
compensate in times of errors.
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3) The virtue is in the detail

As the manager of the whole event, you have to pay attention to every detail.
The most important one is to make some researches to know who is your
guest and what will make him happy. The followings are different ways to
make the guest feel special and important to you:
- Host each guest: putting on a smiling and welcoming face is very
important and treat every gust like celebrity.
- Personalize your event: is about thinking about little things that can make
people feel special when possible for if you make your guest feel special
they will be happy and giving you a successful event.
- Attack the senses: taking feedback from your guest is very important,
what are they going to think and smell that will make them surprised,
enjoy and most importantly remember about your event.
- Proactively define and reinforce a social media policy to avoid that things
that are not supposed to be published about your guests finally get easily
accessible on social media.
- Create contingency plans in case something goes wrong or something
unexpected happen during the event. It might be for instance the
main(prepare umbrellas), electricity
- Think about the VIP experience, make them feel that they are VIP by
serving them differently without neglecting the rest of your guest of
course.
- Create memories, safety is very important make sure the event is safe for
every participant.

4) Building relationship
Having a good relationship with your partners and every person involve in the
planning is of great importance as it gives you a more promising future.

5) Measurement
After gathering information from guest and partners a good reflection is very
important for a better future event. You must also be able to measure the
success of your event from the number of attendees, the reaction of people
through the social media, revenue and the feedback from your guests and
partners.
And Thank your guest in an individual way.
We also talk about the characteristics of a good event which are the following:
- Being flexible to cope with the unexpected when it happens.
- Being creative to make your event special, something new.
- Get obsess with the details.
- Making sure that you have a precise time management.
- Being resourceful, stress resistant and positive.
- Manage the expectations of your guests, media, partners and team
- And most importantly enjoying the moment.
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Day Thursday 04th May 2017

Time 10 am
Animator Elianne Bilal Caljouw from the Hague
Duration 1h30 min

The second international day did not take place since the lecture was sick and
could not fit myself into another one on Friday since my schedule was full.

The third seminar

Day Friday 05 May 2017

Time 10 am
Animator Seveca College, Toronto
Duration 1h30 min

As an aspiring entrepreneur and an international student from Cameroon, I

decided to choose this topic because it reflects to what is happening to the local
farmers in coffee and cocoa back home. Having an insight understanding of what
is happening will be of great use to me.
The content of the lecturer
The lecturer who was from the EFICO GROUP, gave use a clear understanding
why sustainability is important and the growing concern of consumers regarding
sustainability.
Background of the company
EFFICO is a green trading company established in 1926 and ranked among the
top ten European coffee trading houses. With headquarters in Antwerp, Belgium,
and offices in Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Ethiopia and Guatemala. They
differentiate themselves from competitors by offering a complete concept
throughout the green coffee supply chain from flower to cup.
The team at EFFICO is having a strong believe in the United Global Compact
(UNGC) principles which they were the first company to sign in 2003.
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EFFICOs quest for sustainability does only rely with its product coffee, they go a
long way to ensure that all activities involve in this process are also sustainable.
An example includes their investment in seabridge, a state- of -the -art
sustainable warehouse and distribution centre for green coffee in the port of
Zeebrugge, where green and high qualitative logistics are used. They also use
panels to electrify the warehouse.
The sustainability development goal of the company o

o
ut of the 17 sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seen above, the company is
making an effective use of 5 which affects them directly to their field. This
include;
SDG12: Responsible consumption and production

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

SDG 4 Quality Education

SDG 7 Affordable and clean energy

SDG 17 Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

Activities of EFFICO towards sustainability

short reflection on why you chose each topic

The reason why I chose this topic is because it talks on sustainability which is a
growing concern for the world. Being an inspiring entrepreneur, I think it is a
great achievement to understand the trends in the market and reactions from
the environment. The reasons why I choose all the above topics rely on how the
clearly address the problem of sustainability.

what you learnt from the topic as presented here.

I have learnt that there is a growing concern for sustainable production and
services and consumers are now shifting from non-sustainable activities to
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sustainable ones. understanding this will be very important for my business

career.

apply your critical reading/listening skills (see workshop and digital

materials Time management/reflection/research)

which questions did you ask?

How does EFFICO ensure sustainability right to the level of the farmers for
example, most coffee beans farmers are closing and producing other cash
crops because of low wages. So how EFFICO solving this problem?
What was the answer.
They go right to the farmers and provide them with some sustainable materials.
It has not been an easy thing to do since the political situation in most African
countries is unstable making it difficult to bypass some Corporations with
unsustainable methods of production but EFFCO wont give up.