Conference Preparations

I am not sure whose dumb idea it was for me to chair a conference, but being my first one and in Africa, I felt like it was doomed before it started. I have planned and I wrote the grant back in January. But nothing here is done on time...ever!

Banners - We have an incredible guy here called Joel and he made our banners for us. He was awesome and efficient. The banners have been up now for about two weeks.

Conference Briefs - Conference briefs are usually a booklet of all of the papers presented at the conference. Many conferences at home email these, but people here still want the printed version. I had notified presenters well in advance that I needed their papers and gave them a deadline. Papers were due Friday, June 6, but had only received 2 out of 12! I changed the due date to Monday, June 9 and was still waiting for 6 papers when the day started today. I did not send the book to the printers until about 3 p.m. It was 65 pages by the time I finished. I would have felt more comfortable with the books done and ready tonight, but it just didn't happen. I will hopefully be getting them in the morning.

Supplies - Thank God I have a good team who bought supplies for me. We needed notebooks, name tags, and pens. Those are ready to go.

Food Tickets - I had to create food tickets because we only budged for so much food. Each participants gets break tea and lunch for both days.

Name Tags - Every good conference has name tags, so I got to design them.

Sound System/IT - I scheduled a person to help us out with IT needs and I finally got confirmation that the person will be available. We checked out a projector and laptop. There is a projector mounted with no speakers of course, but we had to secure the remote from the timetable office. Then, we had to order a sound system, which was a nightmare to get today. The UCU one was not available and then I could not get a vehicle to pick up the one we reserved from another company today. So, we will hopefully get it in the morning.

Helps/Committee Members - I do have a committee of four other people and about eleven education students helping us out. They will help moderate sessions and usher participants to the correct place. 

I guess we have prepared well enough at this point. Now, I just hope people come and we have a successful conference!