For 7 months I have been planning the RISE Conference. The conference was focused on empowerment and inspirational development. My vision was to impart my experiences through story telling and through observation of those things that challenge us. My vision was big and I wanted to share it with everyone.
City Hall was to be the location of the conference, I selected speakers who I thought would be impactful and would share my desire to empower and inspire. These ladies Jacqueline Hinds, Dr Sylvana Storey, Frances Trought and Cherron Inko-Tariah were my chosen speakers. What was amazing was when I reached out to them they all said yes without any hesitation. They saw the vision and they wanted to come on the journey with me.
My next task was to find people to provide services to support the conference. It was very challenging. My frustration level went sky high but I persevered. Two of the service providers restored my faith, Jahrome Scott-Brereton, freelance videographer and producer at Global Swag Pictures and Tony, Black Ink Photo gave there time without a blink of an eye. These are the things that made me realise I had to carry on.
The latter part of 2017 saw me connect with Tunji Akintokun MBE. He wasn’t an MBE when I met him but he was a great inspiring person. It was Tunji that saw the vision and wanted to be part of it. His amazing organisation Ilesha Charitable Trust became a sponsor of the RISE Conference. He may not have know it at the time but Tunji gave the Conference wings.
In January 2018 Frances Trought, Deputy Vice President of Pearson College and I had a meeting to discuss how Pearson College could support the Conference. It was there that I met 3 dedicated students Danyul Khan, Clive Nyawo and Lily Meanwell who became an integral part of the conference. The students took care of the delegates and helped with IT on the day, they also supported the Q&A and assisted with a speakers’ request for assistance to demonstrate a particular situation. There participation in the Conference was truly invaluable.
26th March was the day the RISE Conference was born. The Conference was all that I wanted to be informative, empowering and inspirational. These are my words but these are also the words of the delegates. The response has been truly amazing everyone took away something from the day, including me as the organiser and a speaker. The other speakers also said they had taken something away too. They felt the energy of the audience and valued the conversations that took place on the day.
After the conference I sent out a survey to the delegates about the event. This is a snap shot of the analysis that was gathered. The question asked was; Overall How Would You Rate The Event?
You can see by the result that the feedback for the conference was very positive. We scored highly on in every area, particularly of interest to me was How Engaging Were The Speakers, a large majority said extremely engaging.
Organising this conference was hard work but I am very glad that I made it happen. Some have asked, will there be another one I say watch this space……..
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