Meeting to organize?
Find here guidelines, tips, and much more

Do you have a meeting to organize? An internal meeting wouldn't be the biggest problem, especially when all your colleagues use Microsoft Outlook. But when its external, and with a large number of people, the below guidelines might be more than useful.



GUIDELINES AND TIPS
When you are the one who has to take the initiative to organize a meeting for a group of people, act as follows:

• Find out in which period the meeting has to take place, and whether there is a preference for a location. You need to know how long the meeting will take as well as the subject and the participants. The
  international world calendar might be helpful to avoid planning your conference at an unconvenient moment.
• Select 2, 3 or 4 suitable moments in which your manager is available for your meeting to organize, and block this time in Outlook (you can mark the appointment as ‘provisionally’). Especially when the meeting participants originate from different companies, you can make use of this practical meeting planning utility Meetona.
• Take care of the travel time and distance of your manager as well as the other participants.
• Make a list of the participants. Start with the most important ones, essential for this meeting. Subsequently fill in the persons with a lower priority. Write down the names of the secretaries of the persons as well.
• In case you need the meeting to organize at a specific location, take an option for the moments you desire. Keep a possible extension in mind, in case the conference takes more time than expected.
• Send an e-mail to the secretaries of the participants. In case some of them have no secretary, send the invitation of the meeting to organize to the person him/herself. In the invitation you mention:
  • The subject of the meeting to organize(mention this in the subject of your e-mail too)
  • The possible dates and times
  • The location
  • Depending on the kind of meeting, ask which presentation means are needed, and whether the persons have dietary wishes
  • Indicate the deadline of response
  As soon as you have received all reactions, make the meeting final in Outlook, including travel time. A good indication of travel time and routedescriptions can be found a the following international route planners:
  
  Local live international routeplanner
  UK map24 international routeplanner, counting in miles
  Via Michelin international routeplanner
  
  Don’t forget to take into account extra time for traffic jams etc.
• Confirm the meeting. Don’t forget to mention the date, time and place of the meeting, the subject or agenda, and the participants. Indicate whether e.g. a lunch is included. Add, if needed a route description.
• Confirm, if needed, the reservation at the location of the meeting, and ask for a confirmation. For suggestions, refer to the page Good meeting venues.
• In case you don’t receive the reaction before the deadline, call the ones who didn’t react in time.It can be useful to add important data in Outlook, e.g. the appointments with the location (contact person, phone number, prices, etc.)

Another solution might be the following: Ask your manager which persons need to be at which part of the meeting. Perhaps not all participants need to be at the complete duration of the meeting.

If you don't have the time for a meeting to organize, and that can be the case when it concerns largers events, like conferences, or international meetings, find here suggestions for a professional international meeting planner.

Gray Consulting for any international meeting to organize
Kenes for international conferences etc.
Creative Endeavors for international meetings