Event Roles

There are certain roles (see examples roles) that are needed before, during and after the event. These roles can vary depending on the balance of the event and some of the roles naturally go together. It should be noted that one has to be careful with the role allocation as some combination of roles might be incompatible with engaging in events or require local knowledge or skills, so they would only be suitable for certain types of individual.

A duties roster

For medium-sized or large events it is essential to put together a duties roster (see example roster ) before the event so those assigned different roles know what they need to be doing at different times. Scheduling duties decreases problems with communication as it’s transparent what different team members are committed to do at different times. Duties usually forgotten when creating the schedule are registration and reception.

For the EL, there may be assumptions about who should be included in the roster. For example, for CW as the premier event of the Institute, all staff are expected to attend and play a role so they expect some duties. Where this is not the case doing a call out to the organisation or even asking a local contact for volunteers may be the right way to go. PhD students helping at events has a long tradition (it might be worth presenting them with a gift for their efforts at the end of the workshop).