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ICBL
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> So you want to hold a landmines conference - |
participants/guestsAsk members of your campaign for their contacts, other NGOs and networks/campaigns in the region, the ICBL Co-coordinators, etc. Campaign contacts in each country are on the ICBL website: www.icbl.org - and the co-coordinators have an ICBL database and are happy to help you. The ICBL database is maintained in Microsoft Access - if you have the same, or set up a similar database for your participants, we can easily share information, give you potential contacts as well as follow up with your participants after the event. When you have answered some of those questions and determined who to invite, draw up a list of invitees, including their addresses, tel/fax/email - all those you would like to invite to attend. Make as complete a list as you can. Obviously who you invite will depend upon the programme content as well (see next section.) sponsored participants and guests: If you plan to raise funds to sponsor some participants to attend your conference you must think (when you prepare the budget!)
When we have organized a regional event, we have often said, for example ’two people per country’. Perhaps we have agreed to fund one representative of an existing landmine campaign, and one new person/organization. For international events, with many people from many countries, we have often said ’one per country’. We have prioritized funding guests from the ’South’ and asked non-South participants to support themselves or find their own sponsors. When you issue invitations to potential participants, some of whom might require funding in order to participate, indicate directly on the invitation letter - writing something like "some funds might be available to sponsor some participants. If you wish to apply for funding please complete the form below and return 31 January 99." See Appendix A for a Sample Application for Sponsorship Form. Write your invitation letter. Try to be as specific as possible in your letter, including the title, place, dates of the event, who it is organized by, the objectives, draft programme if it is ready (or just broad headings of the discussion) and a deadline for replying. Include the personal name/address on each letter so participants can use this letter of invitation for visa purposes, and avoid faxing back and forth for new letters later. Include what languages the event will be held in and if translation services will be provided. Tell them what they will be expected to pay for and contribute what you will cover. If you set up your database in MSAccess, you can write the standard letter in MSWord, and use the mail merge function to print individual, personalized letters with the name, address, fax no. of each participant (other programs have this function too!). It is an efficient way to print off lots of letters quickly. If you cannot use it ask a computer expert nearby! Or read the help tutorial, or ask us for further help. See Appendix B for a sample invitation letter. For all guests, sponsored or not, provide registration forms to avoid back and forth faxing for all of the information required. See Appendix C for a Sample Registration Form and C-1 for a Sample Confirmation Form. Obviously you need to spend a lot of time in organizing logistics from guests from the very start. First you must make some decisions. Will you ask participants to purchase their own tickets and then reimburse them upon arrival, or will you purchase pre-paid tickets to be delivered/collected by them? We have most often in ICBL conferences opted for having guests purchase their tickets at home and then be reimbursed. For this, you need to inform them early that this is expected of them, so they can secure the funds required, inform them you can only fund an economy class ticket, and inform them EARLY enough so that they can purchase an economy ticket. We have found it is easier for participants to make their own travel plans. The times we have booked tickets for them we have found it takes an enormous amount of staff time to do so, communicate with all of the participants, who often wish later to change dates, routes, airlines, stop off somewhere for another event. It gets very complicated and time consuming. Instead, ask guests to purchase their own tickets - they can select their own airlines, routes, dates - and then reimburse them. Most participants have been able to advance the funds. But remind them what you expect from them from the start: an economy class ticket, a receipt and copy of the ticket upon arrival. Make sure you find out from your government what the visa requirements are for people entering your country for nationals of all of the participants’ countries. Find out the list of embassies/consulates/ missions abroad. Speak to your government colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or relevant ministries about facilitating visas if necessary. Can they send a letter to all embassies/missions informing them of the conference and asking for assistance in facilitating visas? Can they facilitate visas at the airport for nationals from countries where no embassy exists? Ask for a counterpart in the ministry to provide assistance with all of the visa issues (Don’t underestimate them! They can make or break a conference!) This person can notify embassies abroad and help when problems arise. Maintain contact with them on a regular basis. Inform the participants of visa requirements early and help secure them by issuing letters of invitation promptly, providing addresses of embassies, and tell them early if you need copies of their passports or other details to help them from your end. Don’t forget to tell them of neighbouring country visa requirements if they need a transit visa from a third country in order to arrive in yours. As mentioned before, if you use a database (MSAccess or any other kind) it will save you time in making additions and keeping updated records of who will attend, their contact information, arrival/departure dates and times if you need to organize transport, passport info, hotel, etc. You can then later print a list of all those arriving on day x, and do other various queries with it. If you are not familiar with databases you can ask for help from a colleague or computer expert or read the help tutorial or of course just use word or whatever you are comfortable with. It is worth the time invested to learn or have a colleague or staff member learn how to use a simple database as it will keep all of the information most efficiently with limited time spent maintaining and updating it. It can also help you by organizing the kind of information you need for various purposes. You can organize it by name, alphabetically, by country, by arrival date, whatever, but it will help eliminate time-consuming searching through unorganized data for a name or fax number you need. It can help you for every step of the way - hotel books, airport pickups, presentations, reimbursements, participants’ list. For the participants list during the event itself, you can print the contact details of all participants, have them correct any errors while there, and then make changes and print an updated one for participants to take home with them. It will facilitate follow-up work and networking if the participants can leave with one another’s contact information in hand. |
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