Trinidad Guardian
Sunday 21st May, 2006
Lisa weekes aims to raise standardsBy Laura Dowrich-Phillips
When it comes to events management, Lisa Ghany-Weekes wants to make it clear: it is not the same as party planning.
The corporate communications manager of Home Construction Ltd, Ghany-Weekes is on a mission to lift the standards of events management in Trinidad and Tobago and to educate professionals on improvements in the field world-wide.
Ghany-Weekes is a professional events manager with a certificate in events management from George Washington University in the United States. She is currently finishing up a bachelors degree in the subject at Leeds Metropolitan University in England. Because of her qualifications, she was allowed to complete the four-year programme in one year.
She also works as an events management facilitator at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, formerly the Institute
of Business.
Studying events management in an international arena has allowed Ghany-Weekes to see the shortcomings of the practice locally.
“When you look at how people approach the industry, it is very regulated abroad,” she explained during a brief visit home. “There are a lot of legal implications on the risk side of it and protecting the consumer, security and safety issues are very big now.”
Following a recent report on the collapse and near injury of the Soca Warriors and children at the Yolande Pompey Recreation Ground in Princes Town, Ghany-Weekes e-mailed a letter denouncing the event organisers for failing to take the issue of safety into consideration.
“I am deeply concerned that there are no legal requirements for the profession in T&T and that the area of risk management and health and safety that are now common best practices internationally, are blatantly disregarded with no concern for the welfare, safety and security of the general public who participates in these events,” she said.
She went on to identify the type of details that attention should have been paid to.
“Questions should be asked to ascertain the following, ie is the stage being used for speeches, entertainment, displays etc and what is the expected load factor required. This job requires that the contractor have some engineering knowledge which should be confirmed by the event manager/co-ordinator,” she said.
Choice of appropriate design and materials to meet requirements, the correct siting or positioning of the stage, proper planning and control of work practices and careful inspection of the finished product, inclusive of testing by qualified professionals, were her suggestions to events planners to avoid a repeat of such incidents.
Events management, Ghany-Weekes told WomanWise, means professionals need to think strategically. It’s not just about having an event. The role, she said, is no different to a manager of a business.
“Finance, human resources, corporate strategy, entrepreneurship, these are core modules in the final year,” she said, illustrating the scope of an events manager’s portfolio.
Long ago, she said, events management fell under the job description of a public relations practitioner but now, the profession has grown to become a very important part of a company’s corporate communications operations.
Events management is considered a growing profession, one in which practitioners are working to establish a specific body of knowledge, she said.
“The Events Management Body of Knowledge, made up of academics from Australia, Africa, the US and the UK, got together to put together a body of knowledge that would form the basis of standards and policies. That will set the standard for ethics, certification, academic qualifications, health and so on,” she explained.
Ghany-Weekes said her aim is to establish standards for professionals in T&T.
“As the industry grows, hopefully professionals will drive the process and we will see the value in having regulations,” she said, noting that the number of people enrolling at the School of Business is increasing. “They are mature people with experience in public relations, advertising or marketing within the corporate environment. They are seeing the need for accountability, people who know project management and can apply management tools to events. Companies spend a lot of money on events.”
Homecoming
To further regulate the industry, Ghany-Weekes, upon her return to T&T, intends to continue the process she started years ago of forming a body for those in the field. Her plan is to establish a local chapter of the International Special Events Society, the governing body of which is based in the US.
“The Caribbean is part of the Florida chapter, but I applied for a local chapter. You have to have 38 financial members to establish the chapter,” she said. “An important part of that initiative is continuing education. We will have meetings, bring in speakers, do research and collect data because you need to have quantifiable data.”
She also revealed that she also wants to set up a research and development unit in conjunction with the University of the West Indies and the School of Business.
Pointing out that there are so many opportunities in events management now, Ghany-Weekes said local people need to take advantage of those openings, particularly in the field of sports.
“You have to look at what is happening internationally. People are looking for new venues to host events, that’s why the Cricket World Cup is coming to us in 2007. Look at the World Cup in Germany, a large part of that is entertainment. Even as an entrepreneur you could create business opportunities,” she said.
She stressed that to be an events manager means paying attention to details.
“The success factor is the wow. You have to be in tune with the expectation of every single person you deliver the ‘wow’ to. Whether it’s a smiling security guard or whether a person can get parking; whether their name is spelt correctly, it’s paying attention to those things. The bigger the event, the more critical those things become,” she said.
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