Thank you everyone for your kind messages over the last week. It is really nice to know that I have such amazing readers and just emphasises how supportive assistants are of each other… I always knew we had each other’s backs! Some of you have asked if I will continue the blog and I can confirm that I certainly am and actually will be able to spend a bit more time on my writing as my new employer is very … click to continue
So I have some big news to share with everyone today…. are you ready? Okay, well… I’ve just quit my job! *Gulp* On top of that I’ve just informed my landlord that I am moving out of my house *gulp gulp* and I’ve just told my friends and family I’m going to be moving out of London *sweaty palms*… I don’t normally spend a huge amount of time talking specifically about myself on the blog, I’d much rather share my … click to continue
Over the last few weeks I’ve been writing a series of blogs on events, well more specifically how assistants can organise and run great events within the context of their role. I wanted to give you a quick round up of the issues discussed and some additional tips that I think you will find useful when running your events. Here are the links to my previous blogs: How to negotiate when planning an event Site visit and other venue considerations … click to continue
Most of us will be involved in organising an event at some point in our career particularly if your company does not have a dedicated events department. When I first started as an assistant I was helping with events fairly quickly and one of the first tasks I was asked to complete was writing and sending out joining instructions for in-house training courses. This was a fairly basic task at the time but was helpful for the person conducting the training to … click to continue
Organising an event is a tricky tricky thing with lots of moving parts and details that have to be well managed. In this blog I want to share some tips on two aspects of the event management process. Here are my top 5 tips on putting together an event schedule and dealing with speakers. Event scheduling Programme content will depend on the event itself but there are a few rules that are universal. The content should be sufficient for the … click to continue
Earlier this week I wrote about the initial stages of organising an event, specifically the first meeting you should have with your colleagues involved in the event. One of the issues I said you should discuss are the event objectives. I wanted to spend a bit more time talking about objectives because I believe if you are going to organise an event you do need to make sure you know the objectives before you do anything else. As the saying … click to continue
How often do you organise events? Considering this task is not the staple part of our profession I can still imagine your answer to be ‘quite often’. We are asked to arrange all sorts of events including anything from a team training day through to the company Christmas party and other large scale conferences, exhibitions and dinners. Many of us are asked to organise events without much thought from the person that has asked you to organise the thing… sometimes … click to continue
Yesterday I attended the BNC Global Event Show and on a number of occasions I was asked if I work in the event industry. I do not work in the events industry but a strange voice irrupted from my month with the answer ‘yes…well sort of… I’m an EA’. With that answer I had a few knowing people nod back because they understood that assistants organise a lot of events and you know some of us take that side of … click to continue
I got back from my holiday last week to discover over 200 emails for me to read, delete, action and generally sort through (I’d only been away for 4 days and that included the weekend)! As with any administrative task I crack on in a ruthless manner because I just want the job completed as soon as humanly possible – in other words I take no prisoners. I hate, hate, hate having a cluttered email inbox and always have a … click to continue
Pin It I was chatting to a friend of a friend the other night and was asked that all important question ‘what do you do?’ I went with my usual response of ‘I’m an Executive Assistant’ only to be slightly more probed with the follow up question ‘Oh right… What do Executive Assistants do exactly?’ As I had a few drinks and wasn’t really in the mood to talk through my CV and current skill set my off the … click to continue
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