Association Voice
Group
Effort
AEV director Rachel Parker discusses
her organisation’s working group activity
B
“This year there
has been an even
greater focus on
wellbeing and
mental health.
We have built
relationships with
various mental
health awareness
providers who
have presented at
a number of our
working group”
meetings.
52 — November
ack in the summer, our association met
in Manchester under the banner of ‘New
Horizons’ at the 2019 AEV conference. I won’t
dwell too much on what a roaring success that
the conference was, not to mention the cocktail
party that followed, but suffice to say it gave us
all a great deal of food for thought about the
future of events and venues.
But, whilst writing this in mid-October, even
the best economic augurs are unclear on what
will have happened by the time you’re reading it
in November’s edition of EN. The only certainty
seems to be that we have quickly learnt to plan for,
and live with, uncertainty about the immediate
future. Our members, whilst predominantly based
in the UK, include a number of European venues,
so we are following the situation very closely, and
remain committed to strong and active links with
Europe.
But we haven’t been scrutinising our future
relationships with Europe at the expense of other
activities, and it’s worth looking back at 2019
to see great progress being made on issues like
mental health, recruitment and training, health
and safety, and security.
Our ongoing collaboration with Manchester
Metropolitan University (MMU) and its course
in event management, continues to capture the
imagination of young people with their sights
set on the industry. Up until now, the AEV has
been involved in open days through the Event
Managers Working Group, which has attended
MMU events and in turn invited students to
special Working Group meetings. MMU is now
exploring the production of an event venue
management textbook, both as an academic
resource for MMU, and as a training resource for
event professionals and venues.
We held several working groups in Manchester
the day after our conference, including the Event
Managers Working Group, and the feedback from
this decision was overwhelmingly positive. With
so many event professionals in town, bringing 92
of them together into five working group meetings
had a very positive effect - not just on attendance,
but in terms of output and ambition too.
This year there has been an even greater
focus on wellbeing and mental health, we have
built relationships with various mental health
awareness providers who have presented at a
number of our working group meetings. I am
proud that we have seen so many of our members,
engage with the importance of mental health care
within the workspace, with several completing the
course to become MH first aiders, alongside our
own AEV project manager.
The Events Industry HR Working Group
has been the catalyst and has created a mental
health toolkit for all our members to help event
professionals understand and support their own
mental health and that of their colleagues. There
was a very successful soft launch at the O2 on 2
October, with colleagues and event professionals
conquering their fears (or otherwise) with a walk
over the top of the dome. We look forward to
releasing the project in February 2020.
2019 has also seen the public discourse
swing positively towards sustainability, the
environment, and the climate. Our cross-
association Sustainability Working Group has
been developing pledges, working towards
putting a definitive and consistent base level of
sustainability performance for our members.