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hosting a regional event FAQ

This version was saved 14 years, 8 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Jason Lee
on July 30, 2009 at 10:52:39 pm
 

So you want to host a regional CITRT style event eh? :-)

 

This doc will serve as a helpful guide for those wanting to host their own regional/local CITRT event.  Nothing is written in stone, but here are things we've done in the past that have worked well.

 

Schedule

The event itself looks something like this:

Evening before - optional meet-n-greet dinner (xbox/wii gaming?)

Day of - 8:30 registration.  9:00 roundtable session.  Noon - lunch provided. 1:00 roundtable session.  4:00 closing/evaluation.  5:00 roundtable ends.  6:00 optional dinner.

 

Costs

Make it as cheap as possible, but cover all your expenses (food, room, mailers, photocopies, snacks, etc)...try to engage local vendors to offset costs (especially vendors not familiar with CITRT)

 

Promotion

CITRT leadership will promote from our venues (twitter, facebook, personal blogs, citrt.org postings, citrt.org subdomain and wiki page if needed (see GCC's example), etc), but you'll need to find ways to reach IT peeps in your area not familiar with CITRT.  Mailers, personal phone calls, whatever you can do to reach out .. do it!

 

Registration

  • Online registration works best ... hey, we're all geeks right? :-)
  • Set a fair price, cover your costs but don't make it so cheap that its not a "value" that people commit to.
  • If meals are to be included note that on the registration page and be sure to allow attendees to note any special diatary needs.

 

The Day

Opening

  • Welcome
  • Prayer at some point before discussion starts, A challenge or devotion time lead by a local leader who "gets church IT people" and has a passion for the church is a great start to the day.
  • Go over RT Guidelines with the group .. download a copy of the Guidelines
    • REMEMBER - key is that nothing is written in stone ... be flexible and have fun!
    • Vendor participation? 
      • We encourage vendors to particapate in the discussions, but NO SALES PITCH!  This is worth repeating more than once!  To help with this you could give each vendor a 10min? timeslot during lunch to pitch to everyone while they eat ... especially if they helped cover your costs.
      • We all can recognize a pitch, the host isn't the only person who can simply say 'i think this information should be provided at a break'
  • Collecting discussion topics ... several options you could try ... FWIW, here's a huge list of past topics to jumpstart thinking
    • Capture topics/questions before the event via online survey
    • Capture topics/questions on the fly .. spend 10mins max writing down topics/questions from the audience
  • Identify atleast one person to take notes, most people get caught up in the converstation and then later ask for links or names of tools or products, it has proven very helpful for one person (or people rotating) to take notes and publish those notes for the entire group to go back to later.

Closing

  • Take a group and individual photos!  We're trying to create a CITRT database and the more info we can collect the better.  Putting a name with a face is helpful down the road :-)
  • Push people to connect with other CITRT peeps on twitter/facebook/IRC chatroom/podcast/etc. 
  • Fill out the Church IT Survey

Door Prizes

  • Everyone loves a freebie even if its just some silly swag donated by a vendor.

 

Post Event

Email everyone and thank them for attending ... again promote CITRT.org and encourage them to connect with other peeps online.

Send CITRT leaders a copy of your registration and pictures ... we'll add it to the database.

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