A large offsite meeting is very much like a stack of dominoes. If one of those dominoes should happen to fall, the entire row simply collapses. Similarly, if you miss one critical detail, your offsite meeting can quickly unravel into complete chaos. For this reason, offsite meetings require careful planning in the preliminary stages and effective management at the meeting venue itself.

The following organizational tips should help you to keep calm focused and collected on the meeting day.

Arrive early at the venue. Give yourself plenty of time to have adjustments made to the room set-up and display if necessary.

Agree on a plan of action before the meeting day itself. Review all crucial details with participating staff. (Who is handling the registration process? How many volunteers do you have? Whom are your volunteers assigned to?) Also make sure that your staff knows the venue address, directions and time expected to arrive.

Designate a point person from your organization to coordinate with venue management, direct volunteers and manage any displays or additional set-up required. If you have multiple contacts from your organization at the venue, make sure that responsibilities are clearly defined. (For example: Bob will coordinate with the audiovisual technicians to make sure the sales presentation is up and running. Mary will oversee the distribution of presentation materials.)

Find out who your own contact will be on the meeting day itself. The manager that you initially dealt with may not be the same person assigned to your event. Make sure that venue management is fully aware of your agenda. For instance, if you neglect to make clear that you are planning a forty five minute speech between the time your lunch buffet is set up and actually served, you may wind up with a dried out and very unappetizing meal.

Make sure that facility management is aware of any outside vendors or deliveries (flowers, audiovisual equipment etc.) expected, so that they can tell you the best way to enter the building. This information should be communicated to your vendors before the meeting day.

Have a well thought out check in process. This is especially important if you are dealing with a large volume of people. You may want to consider the following questions:

-How will guests be checking in? Alphabetically? By name? By company? -How can the registration tables be placed to decrease congestion? -Do you have enough staff on hand to check attendees in quickly and efficiently? -Have you evaluated the facility layout? When attendees first arrive, is it immediately apparent where they need to go? If not, you may want to station a few volunteers to direct traffic.

Prepare a packet of all relevant information for yourself including:

-The name and phone number of your venue manager. -A copy of your catering and venue rental contract. -The names and phone numbers of your vendors and time expected to arrive. -A copy of vendor agreements and contracts, so that they may be easily referenced. -A roster of all volunteers with phone numbers and tasks assigned. -Your complete meeting agenda.

Having this information on hand will allow you to retain control over the meeting management process and more quickly deal with any crises that may arise.

Coordinating hundreds or even thousands of people for an offsite meeting may seem like an insurmountable obstacle. However, with just a little bit of strategy and organization, you can significantly cut down on the confusion factor and run your meeting smoothly and effectively.

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