Event Concept Paper

INSIGHT STRATEGISTS SOLUTIONS

PROPOSED SANAABIL KENYA SEMINAR

EVENT CONCEPT PAPER ©2011

INTRODUCTION The seminar targets to integrate the socio-economic aspect of the Somali community with the target population being the Somali business community and the service provider to the community as well as the government regulatory bodies. The seminar will seek to address needs and gaps found among the SBC, Service providers and the others parties and how best they can be addressed for mutual benefit.

The Purpose of the Seminar The Seminar will bring together Somali business community in the field with service providers, researchers and representatives from government departments, the seminar aims to provide a forum for the exchange of self-assessment in best practice on how to plan, conduct and handle business problems. This exchange should in turn impact upon practice at personal level of handling business relate problems as well as development of market oriented products for this group.

Title The title should give a clear indication of what the event is about and, as general rule, the shorter the better. A title such as “Quality Solutions for Somali Businessmen”; “Somali Businessman Reinveted’ could be possible titles

Date Our experience has shown that it is more difficult to hold an event on a Monday. It is better to hold an event Tuesday-Friday because that allows a working day before the event to ensure that everything is in place and to deal with anything unexpected. Things to consider when choosing a date: School holidays/public holiday/religious festivals; Similar events on the same topic (try to avoid direct competition). Hence the seminar targets the Somalis who are predominatly Muslim and thus the Islamic calender should come into play as well as the National holidays such as Labour and Madaraka day

Venue 2

The venue for the event is of prime importance. Remember there is often a timescale for booking the venue, the further in advance of the event the better. Many venues have 'peak' and 'off-peak' times which will have cost implications depending on the time of year the booking is made. Choose a venue which will accommodate your needs in terms of the types of rooms you need, i.e. a plenary hall, a number of smaller workshop rooms, an exhibition space. It is good practice, particularly with a large event, to visit a few venues and ask them to provide quotes in order to help you select the option which offers best value for money and even to help you bargain. When obtaining a quote you will need to consider not only the hire of the rooms, staff costs (i.e. technician, cloakroom attendant) but also furniture, catering, signage, technical assistance, hostesses, audio-visual equipment and exhibition facilities (stands, display boards, power sockets and cables, cloths for the tables). In the case of Sanaabil the venue should accommodate the invited SBC, service providers and the government regulatory bodies’ representaives confortably. The venue should be central probably in the CBD. The exhibition area should be ample and presentable

Guidance Data This guidance data should be collected by Sanaabil Kenya to form primary source of information for analysis from the Somali Business Community and selected service providers as agreed by the officials of SBC to form the bases of the seminars’ discussion. The data collected should be vital as it will inform the seminar agenda, sponsors to be approached as well as the general funding of the event. The data should be collected in such a structured manner so as to meet the targeted intention such as identifying challenges that need to be addressed in the Seminar, the gaps that exist in the expected systematic chains. The approachable service providers, the possible sponsors exhibitors and participants.

Content of the Seminar Sessions will be presentations by experts on what affects the Somali business community in Kenya. Four major points will be discussed on length from data collected these are; 3

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The performance of Somali business community, against due processes, compared to other business communities or established set of standards.

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Identification of Somali business community priorities. A large list of needs for training, enhanced awareness and development, career development other interventions is generated.

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Identification of performance problems. Reasons and justifications why some of the highly prioritised needs cannot be implemented then or later.

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Identification of possible solutions

Delegates It is important to target the audience for your event, in order to ensure that maximum benefit is gained from this dissemination/valorisation activity. The audience will be those individuals and organisations who have the potential to carry forward the activities, lessons and outcomes during the lifetime of your project and into the longer term after the project has finished. Therefore, the types of activities undertaken need to be tailored to the needs of your target audience. The attention and care of delegates during all key stages of event.To facilitate this, it is useful to identify a specific contact person and to create a specific email address for delegates.Brief the contact person regularly and in detail and follow whether there are any issues to address.Reply to queries from delegates as soon as you can. If unsure, do not hesitate to ring delegates to help them clarify their queries. The Sanaabil Kenya event is intended as an opportunity for Somali business community, service providers, government regulatory bodies and other interested parties

Event Funding The event budget will be mainly catered by the event organisers. The organisers have various options to raise the event funds. These include but not limited to:-

♦ Partnership-

The organisers might decide to partener with another organisation or

Insititution that has the greatest interest in the subject matter and whose interest will be4

directly catered in the event. In this case Sanabil should seek any partner that they feel interested in the Somali Business community directly

♦ Sponsorship-

Through the guidance data collected prior to the event the Seminar

Organisers will be in a position to identify possible sponsors that can be approached. The sponsors need to be clearly shown how their interest will be catered in the event. In this case Sanaabil Kenya having collected the guidance data will be in a better position to know: Who to approach? How to approach? What to say to the approached? The sponsors can be categorised into different categories such as; platinum, gold, silver and bronze.

♦ Promotions Materials. The organisers should provide an oppurtunity for the Somali Business Community, service providers and the regulatory agents to distribute their promotional materials during the seminar. In this the organisers will levy a moderate fee to do so hence contributing towards the seminar cost.

♦ Exhibitions- The organisers should consider setting up an exhibition area where the SBC, service providers and government regulatory bodies can have a stand to showcase their products an even sell them to the participants. This exhibition stands should be given out for a higher fee than the promotional materials.

♦ Registration Fee- This depends with the type of the audience targeted but mostly for the type of event intended by Sanaabil Kenya it is not advisable to ask for a registration fee and again being the pioneer event it better first to show the participant what Sannabil Kenya can offer and thereafter have a price tag.

Agenda The agenda diverse, varied, and interesting; it should be designed to increase the visibility of your project results by reaching out to as many potential users and stakeholders as possible and to meet delegates’needs. An agenda will normally include most of the following elements: •

Registration/reception;

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Opening speech (someone opens the event by recapping on its purpose, introducing the panel if there is one, going through the agenda for the day and any housekeeping rules);

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Presentations;

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Question and answer sessions;

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Workshops (presentations/ sub-group discussion and reporting back/ with small groups, introducing themselves);

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Event conclusions/ closing panel discussion; and Coffee/ lunch breaks.

Duration Some options: half-day; whole day; several days; breakfast/ lunch only meeting;reception only; training event; conference plus evening reception; evening reception(drinks and/ or food). The combination will depend upon a number of factors such as the purpose of the event, your target audience and budget. The target audiunce being Somali Business Community one day event due to the busy schedule of the audience is convinient and exclusion of the of the evening reception.Sanaabil being an organisation on the formative stages should also deal with a leaner budget to achieve its objective

Speakers It is good to make an initial approach to a potential speaker on the telephone. During this first call it is important to present the key information:

♦ What the event is about; ♦ That you are looking for a speaker to talk about topic x and their experience is really relevant;

♦ Date and location of the event; ♦ Audience targeted; ♦ What exactly you need them to do (e.g. prepare a 30 minute presentation and take questions from the audience during a panel discussion at the end of the day);

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If you are able to pay them a fee or are able to cover their travel and subsistence expenses;

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Whether you will arrange and pre-pay their travel and accommodation or whether this is their responsibility; and 6

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Inform them about the person they should contact; explain that a more detailed briefing note will be sent to them nearer the event - if applicable.

Media Intervention At this point in the preparations it's a good idea to consider whether you will court publicity in the run up to the event and for coverage on the day. This is particularly important if your project tackles issues that could be deemed as 'sensitive'; where a sensational angle or negative headlines could be created (e.g. Somali community immigration policy). Retaining editorial control will help to avoid your project being reported in a negative light.

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