Event Planning 101

While it would be impractical to list all the advice I have about event planning, I thought it might be helpful to some to share one piece of wisdom that keeps going through my head as I prepare for Thursday's educational event: "Think Global, Drink Local."  If I've learned one thing about event planning over the years it's:

DO AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AS EARLY AS YOU CAN. 

In other words, don't put anything off until the last minute. 

For example, a very important thing a lot of people forget is thank you cards to send out after the event.  The day after the event, you're going to have a lot of thank you cards to write.  That's why I like to prepare them in advance by making sure I have them, writing return addresses, making a list of who to send them to, and writing some basic verbiage that can be changed for each note.  This will save me a lot of time (and stress) the day after when I want to get the thank you cards out within 24 hours of the event.

One note: thank you cards really mean a lot to people but isn't using paper not very environmentally friendly?  Buy post-consumer recycled cards!  If you don't have an address for someone and need to send a thank you by email, I suggest using http://www.care2.com/ecards/.  They give a donation to save the rainforest for each card you send!