Progress Report Event Organization
Dear Mr. Stanford,
I would like to begin my communication by thanking you for your ongoing support and collaboration in organizing the annual environmental festival, and for your operative guidance and coordination in coming so – far with the planning of the activities included in the project.
In this report, I would like to set a clear image on the milestones reached in the project and o the activities that needs further attention.
The project is developing according to the initial plan, with minor adjustments and although there are several organizational challenges, the planning teams are highly enthusiastic and committed to achieving the milestones imposed in the organization of this event. The teams involved in the project have already established the themes of the event, which are disseminated through environmental sustainable activities, such as:
- The economic and political implication in minimizing the organizations’ impact on the environment, in the current global economy that affects the natural resources and the quality of life;
- The relation between environmental sustainable causes and the interdisciplinary aspects contributing to the awareness of the significance that environmental protection has upon our lives;
- Environmental sustainable priorities and progress registered through social responsibility causes and previous events;
Regarding the event operational aspects, I am happy to report that we have prepared the event materials (flyers, posters, YouTube clip for social media use, Facebook page), we have identified speakers, trainers and other human resources required for the success of the event, we have arranged the travel details and booked hotel rooms, we have sent out invitations for the guests and registered the confirmations and we have taken care of other administrative and clerical activities, regarding receiving approval for our activities.
More specifically, we have created the layouts for the flyers and posters and printed out 3000 flyers and 500 posters. The flyers will be delivered through direct marketing activities in mailboxes and on streets and the posters will be placed throughout the city and nearby cities. For the YouTube clip we partnered with a local theatre band composed mainly of theatre students and the production was created in – house, with our own resources. The Facebook page was created two weeks ago and it currently has 230 likes but we are making efforts through promotional activities to push this number to more than 1000 likes in the following month.
Regarding the speakers, as per your recommendations, we asked public figures to get involved in this activity, in order to have a high impact on the audiences and to determine them to adopt a pro environmental approach. Moreover, we have requested the participation of environmentalists with significant activities in protecting or sustaining the protection of the environment. Likewise and equally important for the relevance of this event, we invited political and economic figures for participating in the activities that will be organized within the event, for sustaining a balanced and transparent debate about the environmental responsibility in the current socio – economic and political context. The invitations we sent returned 80% confirmations, therefore, we managed to cover the human resources part of the event organization.
In addition, we obtained approvals from the City Hall for the activities that we will be organizing in the city center: the conferences, the eco – cross (scheduled on 20 kilometers distance), the eco – food fair or the tech eco – friendly exhibition. We rented the exhibition space at full capacity, both for the food fest and for the tech eco – friendly exhibition. Actually, for the tech eco – friendly exhibition the participation interest was high so that we needed to extend the exhibition space.
As we discussed in the initial stage of the project, we managed to attract mass media institutions for sustaining our purposes and for promoting our event. Therefore, we have closed nine media partnerships, which include two national radio station, one national television, one national newspaper and three regional radio station, two regional televisions and one regional newspaper. The media partnerships include pre and post promotion of the event, in order to achieve a high awareness and impact among public opinion and private actors.
In this stage of the event planning, we have also managed to set the program of the activities included in the project, which consist in:
- Institutional clean up
- Presentation on conservation and food
- Presentations on renewable energy
- Presentation on globalization and environment
- Presentation on technology and environment
Therefore, compared to the initial planning of the event, the new activities include also a presentation on the relationship between technology and environment, which will impose a complex discussion about the impact of technology and its resources consumption on environment, and which will imply the intervention of local IT companies in an open description of their activities for examining the impact on the environment and for identifying ways to reduce the technology’s impact on environment.
At this point in the event organization, the planning team is facing logistical challenges, which refer to finding suitable suppliers for assuring the good organization of the event, in optimal conditions. The local suppliers are proposing unjustified budgets, which overpass the pricing guidelines agreed in the beginning of the event planning. Our solutions to this challenge are to find external contractors (which we already started looking for) or to propose partnerships to the local suppliers, which would cushion our expanses within the course of the year.
Reaching the budget subject, so far we have managed to fit in the initial budget considerations, so that the transportation, accommodation, material production, renting event and conference rooms are according the initial established costs. The predicted costs include increasing the cost for the suppliers that assure the logistical equipment needs: the carpet map print of the carbon footprint and the waste areas that require urgent attention through economic and political intervention, the eco food and drinks required during the event. Regarding the eco – food suppliers, we are thinking, as a solution for solving this problem, to partner with one of the companies that will be exhibiting within the eco – food fair, so that they would provide the catering services for our needs in exchange of additional promotion. We are currently negotiating this with several eco – food companies, searching for professional catering solutions.
These being said, I would kindly like to ask for your support in managing our current challenges, offering your recommendations or if possible specific information on how to approach them, and I would be very interested in receiving your feedback regarding the current organization of the project.
I would like to restate my appreciation and gratitude for sustaining us in this event preparation and I am positive that this will be a success that we will be celebrating together.
Sincerely,
Organizer
