When considering what kind of event you should run you will need to define the goals and objectives of your event clearly and understand exactly why you are planning to run the event. This ensures that your event fulfils the needs and expectations of your club, and this helps to support your event to succeed.
The points you make during this process should be continually referred to on your journey of planning the event. This ensures that your event stays on track and fulfils what your club set out to achieve.
Define Your Event
A really important part of creating a successful event is to define your goal and then understand, firstly at a very high level and then in detail, how you intend to achieve the goal.
- Goals – Define your goal for the event. This is what your club would like to achieve. This could be based on fundraising dollars, participation, community profile, relationship building or any other goal your club has. For example – Raise $3,000 by the start of the season
- Strategies – Once you have defined your goal then what strategies are you going to put in place to achieve it (at a high level). For example:
- Strategy 1 – we will hold a preseason tournament and invite 6 clubs who will each pay an entrance fee which we expect to raise $1,000
- Strategy 2 – during the tournament we will run a canteen and sausage sizzle which will raise $1,000
- During the day we will run a major raffle and fun competitions relating to the sport throughout the day which we expect to raise $1,000
- Plans – Once you have defined your strategies of how you are going to achieve the goal then you need to recruit people to help on each strategy and create a plan of how they will successfully complete the strategy.
From these goals and objectives your club can then consider what event might suit you best. If your club is looking to make $3,000 you may need to run a larger event such as a Carols by Candlelight event or a Fete but is you are hoping to increase membership it may be a family fun day and skills clinic.
For lots of ideas about different events your club could run and how to run them, click here. (Link to Fundraising Pages)
Due Diligence
Once your club’s goals are set and you have a clear idea of what event you wish to pursue, you need to undertake a reasonable investigation of what is necessary to take place. This is to evaluate the requirements prior to confirming the event will go ahead and start carrying out the elaborate planning involved.
This includes looking at council and local authority involvement, licenses and permits required, insurance and venue availability, just to name a few.
