The do’s and don’ts of LINXS activities

Åsa Grunning is LINXS Science Activities Manager and responsible for organising all LINXS activities together with the theme and WG leaders. Here she talks about the do’s and don’ts of how to organise a successful event.

– The first thing to do is to create an activity! Create many activities! It’s really important that you are active as a WG. I can help you by acting as a sounding board and give input to your ideas and thoughts.

– Another thing to remember is that organising an event entails more work than just having the event or activity in your head. In other words, it takes hard work! The input from other members in the WG is crucial.

According to her, it’s important to see that people sit on different strengths. Some people will sit on the networks and contacts for the activity, whereas other people are good at organising.

– I need to liaise with someone who can take care of both the small details and the actual content in order to help you in the best way. But before I meet with the WG, you have to meet internally to decide on who should be responsible for what. And don’t forget to draw up a time table.

Åsa Grunning is responsible for adding the activity to the LINXS calendar, for catering, and for booking travel and accommodation for keynotes.

– It’s better to send me too many emails than none at all. Especially when it comes to money and travel issues. Then you avoid misunderstandings later. And the sooner you have information which we can publish online, the better. Then we can disseminate it to the right people and contacts.

It’s never good to do things last minute says Åsa Gunning, since she often has to divide her time between a range of different activities at LINXS.

– At any one time, I can work with up to ten different events. I like to plan my work and not have to chase people for information.

As a final advice, she suggests that WG leaders talk to other WG:s about their experiences of organsing events, and also about what kind of activity might suit the science best.

– Lastly, I would like to recommend you to leave time in the schedule for social networking. People really want to talk to each other when they meet. More interactive events are also good, we tend to organise very packed programme with lots of talks rather than discussion, she concludes.

Read more about what to do before a LINXS activity in our handbook.

Åsa Grunning, LINXS Science Activities Manager.