Behind the scenes of LED Forum conference preparations

Preparations of the LED Forum conference on local economic development consumed most of my free time in February. This conference has traditionally been an integral part of the Master’s degree I am doing and it is organized every year in the middle of the second semester by students of MSc Local Economic Development at the LSE.

The organization team after the conference.

This year’s topic was how local economic actors respond to economic shocks, such as political turmoil, crisis or EU restructuralizing after Brexit. As the topic is very current and broad at the same time, we managed to invite a number of interesting speakers, who discussed this theme from various angles. While some spoke about how their city council addresses such shocks, others presented a comparison of strategies of different cities and some addressed general methodologies for dealing with different aspects of shocks, such as emigration waves.


The registration was done professionally.

Since the whole conference was organized solely by volunteers from our class (it was around two thirds of the whole cohort), it was essential to divide the work so that we could still manage the preparations along our very demanding course. I joined the PR and communications team and I was responsible for the visual appearance of the conference. This involved making of the logo, posters, leaflets, t-shirts and also designing the appearance of all other materials, such as name badges, programmes, banners and introductory presentations and then the placement and distribution of these materials.

This is the poster that I designed for the conference.

Although I first thought that after designing the logo it will all be easy, as I will simply insert it in the other documents, the opposite was true. I under-estimated the time necessary to create the design drafts, printing and the making of certain things, so I was consequently very busy before the conference. The unexpected details, such as cutting out of stickers, name tags, iron-on logos, posters, logos to be placed on walls took way longer that I thought they would. Luckily, my flat mate Kristyna helped me, so it was manageable in the end.

The all evening cutting marathon.

To use the budget, which was predominantly funded by the LSE Annual Fund most effectively, I decided to iron-on the logos on the t-shirts rather than ordering ready-made ones which would be more expensive. Thanks to this method I saved a significant amount of money, however the time investment was significant on my part.

The all evening ironing marathon.

On Saturday, the 18th February 2017, when the conference was taking place, we carried all the materials that accumulated in our apartment to the tower where the conference was happening. With my class mated we prepared the spaces of the conferences carefully and according to later testimonies the event made a professional appearance, which was very satisfying for us. Although I was dealing with some organizational matters during the day, I have had enough time to observe some of the lectures and I have to say that they were indeed very interesting. I would like to recommend visiting the Forum to all readers who have got to this point – the event is free and can be found under “LED Forum LSE”.

These are the things that accumulated in our apartment before the conference.

To conclude, I would like to share dialog excerpts that I had with my class mates uring the conference. I believe that they clearly show how we are all formed by the national characteristics despite our strong personalities.

09:00
Czech:    „Thanks to same saving procedures our team has £140 left in our budget. We ought to spend it somehow.”
Norwegian:    „We will naturally return this money to the fund that gave us the grant, since we do not need anything more and someone else will use it next year for a different project.“
Frenchwoman:    „We should save it for later.“
Czech:        „We should spend it before it’s too late.“

12:00
Mexican:    „By the way, our team is running a deficit, we have overspent by £100 on the refreshments.“

Everyone looks at the unnecessary over-scaled amount of refreshments…

19:00
The networking event which was held after the conference is about to finish and there are still 2 open and 3 unopen boxes of sandwiches (around thirty in each) on the table.

Czech:        „So let’s give everyone one or two for their way home and we are sorted.“
Swede:        „That would be a waste of resources. If these people are not taking them any longer, they are satisfied and they need no more. I suggest going around the block and offering it to homeless people, they will appreciate it as they are always hungry. “
Egyptian:    „I wouldn’t worry about it so much.“

 

 

 

 

Zákulisí příprav konference LED Forum
Zákulisí příprav konference LED Forum
Zákulisí příprav konference LED Forum
Zákulisí příprav konference LED Forum
Zákulisí příprav konference LED Forum
Zákulisí příprav konference LED Forum

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