How responsible are you?
Posted on:
on Friday, July 30th, 2010
| By: Vjem
Under Health and Safety laws, every event organiser is legally responsible for the contractors they engage. This includes freelancers. If they are then found to be in breach of Health and Safety legislation whilst working on your event, you could be held responsible or even prosecuted.
It’s a good idea to ask contractors to provide a sample risk assessment for a similar event they have worked on, and a copy of their health and safety policy when reviewing their ability to deliver the service BEFORE you engage them. The aim is to ensure they are competent to deliver the services you require. However, there is no point gathering the information to ‘file’ it away. You have to assess them to determine suitability.
It’s clear then that as the organiser, you need to have sufficient knowledge of the project, risk assessments and Health and Safety laws otherwise how can you deem someone suitable (or not) if you are unsure yourself? If you don’t know, then it is advisable to employ someone that does.
This is important because even when you have appointed a contractor, it is still your job to monitor their activities on site to ensure compliance and take the necessary action in the event of non-compliance.
What to look for
There are a number of ways to check competence in addition to those mentioned above such as:
• Qualifications and certificate of competence in a particular area of work.
• Formal/informal interview (remember you have to know what you are talking about too).
• References.
• Method statement and safe systems of work.
• Management structure.
• A strong outline of the company’s health and safety arrangements in place.
This is just the start. Safety management is important and you need to know when to say no if there is any risk that Health and Safety laws will be breached. We have all heard the saying ‘prevention is better than cure’. I think that sums it up nicely!
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Monitoring and evaluation: essential for event survival
Posted on:
on Friday, July 30th, 2010
| By: Vjem
Many organisations will be hoping the spending cut axe does not fall heavily. And they have every reason to be fearful, as it is likely that a large number of community events will either see a reduction in their funding or events disappear from their calendar all together.
However, organisations that have a good chance of surviving financial cuts are likely to be those that can show their stakeholders (1) how investment has been spent and more importantly (2) the impact of this investment. How? Through effective monitoring and evaluation.
Proof of return on investment
Since the recession, event stakeholders, especially those providing funding are demanding that event organisers show return on investment (ROI).
I hear you moaning and groaning, but before you shoot me down, let’s be honest. Many of you are struggling to answer the call for proof of ROI. You know how important it is to show that your event has been effective, re above 1 & 2, but many of you undertake minimal or no monitoring and evaluation.
Negative perceptions of monitoring and evaluation
Why?
Recently, Ola Fagbohun, Consumer Insight consultant at Diverse Consultancy, had a number of discussions with a few event managers, PR consultants, social media marketing managers, and others running events or marketing projects in both the public and private sectors. They shared their thoughts on monitoring and evaluating their events, and whilst the responses were a grudging acknowledgement that monitoring and evaluation is essential, they viewed the process as a necessary evil. Their responses are summarised below:
(1) It’s (monitoring and evaluation) a nuisance as no-one reads the output anyway.
(2) Takes up too much time.
(3) As if we don’t have enough to do. It’s a stick for our stakeholders to beat us with.
(4) Who in my team is going to it? I’m short staffed as it is.
(5) Monitoring and evaluation? Oh you mean the feedback form I give out at the end?”
While the above sentiments are acknowledged, from experience of working with clients who provide money or other forms of investment to organisations running events, evidence and application of monitoring and evaluation will become one of the criteria for their on-going investment.
So with this in mind, I have teamed up with Diverse Consultancy to provide organisations that run events an opportunity to learn how to efficiently and effectively monitor and evaluate events through our Event Evaluation half day workshop on Wednesday 29th September 2010 at London Southbank University.
You should attend this workshop if you want to learn how to use monitoring and evaluation to:
(1) Provide your team with focus.
(2) Help you efficiently use your limited resources.
(3) Keep your stakeholders happy.
(4) Show you have met your desired outcome(s) and impact, or not.
(5) Celebrate areas of success and identify areas for improvement.
By attending this workshop you will receive a free half hour consultancy to discuss your evaluation plan, as well as the opportunity to share experiences and insights with other event organisers across sectors.
Article adapted and republished with kind permission from Diverse Consultancy.
Under Health and Safety laws, every event organiser is legally responsible for the contractors they engage. This includes freelancers. If they are then found to be in breach of Health and Safety legislation whilst working on your event, you could be held responsible or even prosecuted.
