I’m a regular volunteer with professional associations in my writing and editing industry, and for the past few months, my focus has been on an event that is finally coming up quickly: the 2023 Editors Canada national conference: Editors In Real Life. Two days full of speakers and sessions on topics from conscious editing to how to start a writing podcast. Here’s a blog post I wrote about it for the association website with more info. But here I thought I’d reflect on some of the work that goes into planning a big event, and what I’ve learned along the way

Collaboration is key

I knew it would be a huge undertaking, but the conference is even bigger than I thought. That’s why I’m glad to have partners, starting with my co-chair, who has been great to discuss ideas with and throw tasks back and forth like a hot potato. We also have valuable advice from past conference organizers who provide a very useful shortcut to learning how things were done in the past. Finally, volunteers divided into their own committees from communications to sponsorship to social media help to take the load and contribute their own expertise.

Regular meetings and tools

Starting with meetings every two weeks, we switched to weekly meetings two months ago and they are so helpful for checking in with the team. We meet virtually, and it’s really useful to get the hive mind on any issues that pop up as well as to stay on top of all the moving parts. We also centralized our tools in a Google drive and we’re trying to never start from scratch when we could use a template on tasks from emails to graphics. Having past versions is also a great time saver.

Keeping the endgame in mind

With so much to work on at the conference, we are always pondering the value of each new initiative to our members. Our event is geared for editors from senior level to newcomers, so it’s been important to plan content, networking opportunities and social elements that will satisfy all. We’ve been careful to focus on our core offerings, for instance, professional development, before nice-to-have experiments, while still making the conference fun and engaging for our attendees.

Learn what you can

With each volunteer opportunity, you also like to aim for your own growth. In co-chairing this conference, I’ve learned about everything from how to book venues and catering to what to look for in a keynote speaker. I’ve also gotten to practice my existing skills as an efficient meeting chair, and my work-in-progress skill of delegating tasks rather than just taking them on myself.