Glossary Term -- Agenda

Welcome to Planner's Pointer's. Planners Pointers is a blog and talk cast to help beginning event planners with their event planning. Give them ideas on planning better events, books to read and websites to discover.

Each month I would like to share words commonly used by professionals. The words along with their meaning will be from the APEX Industry Glossary.

The Convention Industry Council is the organization of 33 associations coming together to exchange information among the meetings, convention and exhibitions industry. One of the initiatives is APEX, Accepted Practices Exchange to develop practices that reach industry wide. One of the practices is a glossary of terms used in the industry. The goal of the glossary is to standardize the definitions of words used by the meetings industry.

This week's word is Agenda:  A list or plan of items to consider, decided, undertaken or accomplished at a meeting or event.  Agendas are generally formal, structured lists and may include a time schedule.

A simple agenda might look like this --

Time	Event	Location
8:00 AM	Continental Breakfast	Junior Ballroom
8:30 AM	General Session	Main Ballroom
8:45 AM	General Session -- Election of officers	Main Ballroom

Other Agendas would add speakers, topics, and length of time

Another term you hear used in place of agenda is schedule. 

Determining the agenda for any meeting or event should be done very early in the planning.  In my experience it should be done right after you set the goals of the meeting. I believe one way to show how you are to carrying out the goals of a meeting is through the agenda. 

That your Planners Pointer for today!

Website -- Eventsburgh

Attention all Pittsburgh event planners!  Looking for new website to post your events for free?  Eventsburgh  is the new on-line place to be. 

Want to post an event on Eventsburgh?  First you have to become a member.  That's free and all you have to do is complete the form.  Yeah!  I like easy.  You can add a picture of yourself if you would like, otherwise you get an avatar.

Once you have registered you can click on the big button that says "Post an Event"  and complete the form and post.  The 100,000 character description  block will cover even the most detailed event.  Don't forget to use the preview button to make sure you have all your information.

You can also push it out to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with a mouse click.  For those of us used to doing separate postings, it's a time saver.

It has a few bells and whistles that you can choose to add for a small fee. For example, an additional link to your on-line registration site, or additional social media listings but they are inexpensive and I think worth the cost.

All events are posted to the calendar and emailed to those who register.  You only receive emails for events in categories that interested you when you signed up. 

Also take a few minutes to wonder around the site to find listings or read forum postings.  The site has lots of potential.

Eventsburgh was started by University of Pittsburgh alum, Tony Hsieh (pronounced "Shea") as a way to show his friends that there are lots of things to do in the 'Burgh.  Yeah Tony!

Remember an on-line event site is only as good as those who post their listings.  Add Eventsburgh to your list of on-line calendar listings.  

That's the Planners Pointer for today!