easa010 Final Report
Section Two: Organising
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Section Two: Organising
Introduction
Writing a Final Report is a tricky thing in so much as you want to achieve two
goals, one is to document an event you feel personally very close to and the
other is to provide a piece of work that is both insightful and helpful to future
organisers.
In order to be helpful the report must be relevant to the problems of future
organisers. If we were to simply review easa010 the text would age quickly
– future organisers would fi nd themselves in different countries, with an
inherently different economic climate, social issues and local government set
up, as well as different laws and restrictions. It is worth noting that one of the
key features affecting easa010 was the grip of the worst recession in living
memory with the looming inevitability of a new UK government introducing
stringent cuts to publicly funded events as well as new measures affecting
private industry.
The chapters that make up this section cover the specifi cs of the work the
easaUK2010 team did to make easa010 happen. It outlines our plans, our
discussions and our thought process. It covers what we did, what we didn’t
have time to do and what we should have done. It covers the mistakes, the
successes and the dumb luck.
This section covers what it was to organise an EASA in a specifi c place
(Manchester, England) at a specifi c time (2008 - 2010), and it offers an insight
into the attitude of the team written in their own words.
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 1 - Experience and advice
As early as possible the team should meet to defi ne what your EASA is for.
It might sound odd, but EASA that meets just to meet lacks depth and can’t
reach its potential. The organisers of EASA have a commitment to the network
to not just organise a two week event, but to leave the network stronger than
they found it. The original EASA - meant only as a one off - was organised to
look at the problem of the closing dock lands in Liverpool, in 2011 the reason
for the assembly is to challenge the views of students of architecture about
development. The reason we hosted EASA was to challenge views on EASA
itself, in many ways the theme identity came from the idea of looking at the
identity of the assembly.
Of course many people have an opinion of what a summer assembly should be
and it is important to state outright that we were not attempting to organise the
exemplar EASA, to impose our vision of perfection, rather we felt that words
can only do so much, we’d prefer to make some bold decisions, decisions we
knew would cause a certain amount of controversy for us but decisions we felt
would make people see the varied potential in EASA’s forms. We didn’t dare
to do any one large out right change to the summer assembly format - we
were not looking to change for the sake of it - so we decided that for every
element of the assembly, we would reevaluate it and see if we could make it
work better for the easa010 whole.
In order to be able to do this we made sure to safe guard the under laying
features of the event, this gave us a framework which could inform all our
other choices, as explained in the Bid Section these were the four pillars -
Density, Urbanity, Integration and Legacy - along with the theme - Identity.
As the saying goes - ‘one must be supple as a reed, not rigid like an oak’.
Your team is made up of students giving their time for free, the results will
refl ect this. Obviously if things go wrong it can cause problems for you, but
Responsibility <<<<<<
Reality <<<<<<
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easa010 Final Report
we tried to stick to this simple line of thought - we don’t mind mistakes, we
do mind lack of effort. Simply put, you will get more problems from people
not doing things then you will from errors made.
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 2 - Time line
Organising an EASA is a linear process - you do it once and it is over - and it
is stretched over a relatively long period of time in your life. More over, as will
be illustrated with examples in the coming chapters, what can be organised
varies depending on the length of time until the Assembly, meaning forward
planning months, and in certain areas, years, in advance is essential to avoid
signifi cant problems.
For us there was the added complexity of established members of the UK team
dispersed around Europe and a young team in Manchester and we realised we
needed to fi rst identify the key points in the coming months and years, things
to be achieved along the way and plot a course
from INCM 2007 to INCM 2010.
To help with these issues we identifi ed 6 key phases of the organisation
process which we used to outline the task ahead. These were fi rst drafted as
part of our organisers pack, document number 050.
Phases
To aid understanding the long process of organisation that has gone,
and will go, into easa010 can be broken down into phases. These
phases, though obviously notional, are periods in the process that are
dominated by similar characteristics of attention and usually are divided
by major moments in the organisation. Ignoring minor iterations, these
phases can be seen as:
Phase one: Visibility and Believability
At INCM007 the decision to bid for easa010 was taken by two members
of easaUK. In order to successfully bid for and organise a summer
assembly a large, visibly strong team was needed. Between incm007
and easa008 the majority of the work was aimed at building a strong
team though communication leading to an EASA with a great UK
participation at all levels. Away from the network it was vital to the
success of the bid and the hosting of the event itself that the relevant
For more on the issue of integrating new members to the team and bringing in experienced EASA members see Chapter 3.
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easa010 Final Report
institutions in Manchester were supporting the assembly. These two
strands lead to the INCM008 where a respected UK team presented a
strong bid to the EASA network.
Phase two: foundations
Following the success of the bid in Cyprus the team needed to change
dramatically. The team needed to grow, gain legal status, secure an
offi ce and put in place the systems and processes that would allow for
a smooth organisation. This phase also saw the fi rst of the easa010
events, with links being forged with artists and educational groups.
Phase three: all hands on deck
The 20th September 2009 marks the day that those UK based members
of the team not from Manchester, will move to Manchester permanently.
This will see full occupation of easaHQ and a more rapid progress in the
organisation process.
Phase four: the assembly
The two week assembly stands alone in the organisation process for
obvious reasons. It could be said that phase four begins a week before
the participants arrive and ends a week after, thus encapsulating the
main periods of on site preparation and cleaning.
Phase fi ve: documentation
The end of the assembly does not signal the end of the work, but the
start of the fi nal phase. As organisers it is a responsibility to produce
a fi nal document for the network, charting the organisation of the
assembly. Beyond this, phase fi ve will also cover the production and
curating of exhibitions within the city, and also the publication of books
and journal texts covering the event.
Phase six: exit strategy
Following the assembly EASA as a network will go on, as will the
involvement of easaUK. This involvement will include participation at
future assemblies and INCMs, though with the added responsibility of
being a former organiser. Balanced with this is the ultimate legacy of
hosting a summer event, the increased interest from students in the
UK. easa010 is a huge opportunity to present EASA to the UK student
population, and following the assembly it is vital that this interest is
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Section Two: Organising
maintained and fostered.
These six phases served as a basis for our early preparation and a framework
for our planning, but in reality the phases from INCM 2007 to INCM 2010
could easily be broken into ever smaller iterations.
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Organisers document: 050
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easa010 Final Report
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 3 - Pillars of the Bid
Leading up to the bid we discussed what features had defi ned previous EASAs
and, in turn, what we wanted easa010 to be. Out of this long discussion and
thought process we were able to defi ne 4 key points which we called ‘Pillars
of the Bid’. The Pillars were a distillation of a lot of ideas - EASA is a many
faceted beast - and became one of our successes. Once written down, the
Pillars provided a reference point for the team in times of disagreement, doubt
or confusion while they also worked as a simple set of concepts to use when
explaining either EASA or easa010 to the uninitiated.
The easaUK2010 bid was based on four Pillars, which we believe refl ect
the ideals of the network as well as establishing fi rm foundations upon
which to build our assembly.
Urbanity:
To allow the assembly’s participants to experience the excitement
and diversity of life in Manchester, as well as to provide an appropriate
setting, it is essential that the sites for accommodation, workshops etc
are as close to the city centre as possible.
Density:
As a rule, participants commute on foot. For practical reasons, as well as
to create a good group atmosphere, all sites should be as close together
as possible.
Integration:
To make the most of this opportunity of bringing such a an event to the
city of Manchester, easaUK2010 is committed to integrating the event
with city in an engaging, creative way.
Legacy:
EASA presents an opportunity to create a lasting impression on
Manchester; there are many ways this could manifest.
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Organisers document: 050
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easa010 Final Report
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 4 - Theme
Each assembly runs under the umbrella of a theme, it is from this theme that
potential tutors draw up proposals for workshops to run. The theme will draw
on contemporary issues facing the profession of architecture.
The choice of theme goes hand in hand with the choice of location for the
assembly. The location will have a strong and specifi c connection with the
theme, thus allowing for relevant output from workshops.
The theme for easaUK2010 was Identity. This theme drew on the issues
facing architecture in the modern world, where information technology and
transportation systems have reduced the time
distances between global locations, forcing
locations to compete on a deeper level then
geographical birthright.
Manchester is a city with a broad history for innovation in many fi elds; since
its explosion in growth during the industrial revolution it has been the home
of, and renowned for, many subsequent advancements in science, culture and
technology. None of which, however, have singularly defi ned the city in the
consciousness. It is a city that so far has refused the allure of branding.
The theme for easaUK2010 is Identity. Identity was chosen for the
theme as it relates to urban branding, and it’s increased role in urban
planning, a shift that directly impacts architecture, it is especially
relevant to Manchester due to the city’s history of apparent reinvention
and the council’s reluctance to use urban branding as policy of urban
planning.
It was felt the theme should simultaneously be relevant to the wide
world of architecture and its practice today and specifi cally relevant to
the chosen location. This theme draws on the issues facing architecture
in the modern world, where information technology and transportation
There are a number of articles expanding on the theme collated in Section Five.
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easa010 Final Report
systems have reduced the time distances between global locations,
forcing locations to compete on a deeper level then geographical
birthright.
Manchester is a city with a broad history for innovation in many fi elds;
since its explosion in growth during the industrial revolution it has
been the home of, and renowned for, many subsequent advancements
in science, culture and technology. None of which, however, have
singularly defi ned the city in the consciousness. It is a city that so far
has refused the allure of branding, most recently with Peter Saville
refusing to re-brand the city
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 5 - Team
EASA is a network. A simple sentence, possibly said more often than any
other through out the history of EASA. On the surface it seems self evident.
Obvious. Hardly worth mentioning at all, but these four words are thee key to
understanding both EASA as an event and how it comes to happen each and
every year, they also have implications to organising that are not obvious at
fi rst. I would go as far as to say, once you truly appreciate this sentence then
everything becomes easy - to reason, plan and justify, if not in fact to execute.
Perhaps by way of explanation one can embellish the sentence:
EASA is merely a network
EASA is solely a network
EASA is just a network
even
EASA is exclusively a network
The problem with adding such emphasis amplifi ers is they all bring their own
cultural bias, so I will stick with the more matter of fact: EASA is a network.
Their are many things EASA is not - a company, institution or recognised body
of any kind. This makes it generally ineffi cient and creates initial diffi culties
for organising teams, but I will put this avenue of analysis to one side as I fear
to do the subject justice would require a complete section of the Report.
So, EASA happens because individuals put in far more than they could ever
expect to get back, this is true of NCs, tutors, participants and it is true of
organisers. Put simply - the team is hands down the most important aspect
of organising EASA.
With this key fact in mind, the fi rst job following the successful bid was to
rapidly expand the team. The reason why this was necessary has roots in the
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easa010 Final Report
Although Doc 050 remained partially unfi nished it was tremendously useful to have these things laid out and can be found in section 5
nature of the UK’s architectural education. The UK has around 40 accredited
schools of architecture and during my brief tenure as NC I felt it was vital we
advertised EASA in as broad a range of these as possible in order to strengthen
the network in the four countries. The downside of this was despite the strong
showing of the UK in Greece 2007 there were only two persons ready to bid,
and in turn the bid was delivered with a skeleton team.
Expanding the team was always going to be fraught with diffi culties, most
of which were overcome. The process began straight after INCM 2008 with
posters put around the school of architecture in Manchester to raise awareness
of the EASA name. I then drafted the organisers pack which was designed to
explain what EASA is and what was planned for the summer of 2010 - it is
essential that all new team members are engendered with an understanding
of the gravity of the task, to do this without scaring them off completely can
be a delicate balancing act. We then
produced promotional posters and I
gave a short talk about EASA and the
upcoming event in Italy as well as the chance to be involved in easa010.
It is worth noting here that at no point did we have a team structure in mind
in terms of fi nding people to fi ll specifi c roles, rather we knew some key
important roles for organising - accommodation, workshops, spaces etc. -
and for the assembly - food, built workshops, IT etc. - but largely, and to use
the old English saying, we cut our coat depending on our cloth, meaning from
the outset the team was in constant fl ux, mutating as people came in and out
and as people moved between roles as certain aspects became more or less
pressing.
Paul and I took the decision at the very out set that we would run the organisation
of easa010 with the same ideals we saw in the EASA network and at INCM. The
organisation would be non-hierarchical meaning no one was in charge of any
one else. This was massively important as with everyone volunteering their
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Section Two: Organising
time it was important that no one feel bossed around as they would likely quit
the set up or just not do the work. I see a huge value in this approach, as one
of the most compelling things about EASA is its unusual nature compared to
any other organisation you may have been involved in, it most certainly isn’t
English, but then again it can’t be said to be typical anywhere else either.
Any one who has attempted to be part of a non-hierarchical setup will tell
you that it is impossible in its purist form, the closest we could achieve was
a meritocracy - meaning the more work put in the more responsibility you
gained, if you were capable and available and willing to take on a role then the
responsibility would come with certain licence to decision making. None of
the core decisions were ever, intentional, made by an individual though.
The problems our egalitarian approach to team building produced were, in
my opinion as predictable as they were acceptable within the bigger picture.
One issue that will plague all EASA organisers is that EASA is a very interesting
prospect to non-EASA people, that is people who are happy to be associated
with the Assembly in order to promote themselves and their work, but will
exploit the setup to gain more than they put in, this is true of associates and
potential partners as much as it is true of team members. Potentially worse
though is in some cases people seek to affi x their own position with some
element of permanence or power, sometimes quite simply because they do
not understand - or perhaps appreciate - the nature of EASA and the small
place of the organising team within the larger whole.
A secondary issue with a meritocratic approach is people’s reliance on labels
or, in the terms of a team, titles. You see, when someone is putting in a lot
of effort and time it makes sense they should be getting the responsibility
and decision making freedom spoken of, and this often comes with a ‘title’
such as communications coordinator. The decision for someone to take on
a role would be suggested by someone associated with the task at present,
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easa010 Final Report
discussed and the person could decide whether they could commit the time.
The issue came if the person was then unable, or unwilling to commit the same
amount of time to the organisation process. Could someone be ‘demoted’
from organiser to volunteer status? In a team of friends where no one is any
one’s boss you don’t do that. We started out on the footing that anyone who
wanted to be involved would be welcome for as much or as little time as they
could commit, and that spirit held true in operation. Being honest, it resulted
in complaints and moaning about people not pulling their weight, and some
members of the team did less and less until they just didn’t turn up any more,
but the alternative of inexperienced people managing their peers was potted
with far more pitfalls and dangers. The way we did it left people to defi ne
for themselves what to do, and to take responsibility (or not) in an adult way,
organising is a learning experience and it will teach you about yourself and
you friends as much as about event management.
The other major issue we had came from the spread of the team for such a
long period of time. From August 2008 - August 2009 there were only 2
people who had been to EASA living in Manchester and therefore working
on EASA full time. Until November 2009 there were only 2 team members in
Manchester who hadn’t debuted that summer.
For me personally this lead to the only real problem I had. On one hand there
is a reason to hold back on major decision making so that the non-Manchester
team members could bring their experience to bear, on the other hand being
seen to act as gatekeeper to these other, never seen, team members can instill
a false feeling of control and therefore hierarchy. Another factor being that
the process of planning for EASA had started in late 2007, so at the time of
the bid 1 full year of work had been put in already and therefore some of the
larger decisions had been boxed off.
I stated already that the problems were predictable, but acceptable - and
therefore unavoidable, despite the personal pressure - and it is something
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Section Two: Organising
that I had factored in and put in ground work to avoid. As part of the bid
preparation I approached architecture practices to back our efforts and solicited
them for sponsorship in kind. Knowing that, in 2008, times were becoming
hard for practices in the UK I suggested that instead of cash sponsorship that
one of the countries largest fi rms - BDP - could instead recruit members of
the team for the students places that annually become available, to our delight
they agreed, and even agreed to a work exchange with their Rotterdam offi ce
meaning Marten Dashorst, Dutch EASA veteran, would be able to move to the
city. Unfortunately the recession deepened and BDP didn’t recruit the same
numbers that year as previously.
If those are problems we faced then there was one overwhelmingly good
decision, the inclusion in the team of a dedicated Human Resources
coordinator role. Emma Uncles, a second year who joined the team as part of
our expansion at the start of 2009, was the epitome of the team’s meritocracy
set up. Having not been to EASA previously Emma threw herself into the
organising of build up events and was involved in all aspects of the assembly
straight away. Emma took to the role of HR co-ord and it is safe to say that
without someone as committed and diligent in that role the whole exacting
process would not have been a success.
A testament to the success of the HR role is the strength of the team under
pressure as demonstrated a very particular times through out the last two
years, which we will pick up on as we go through.
It is worth remembering at all times, especially when things look like they
might go wrong, that the team is made up 100% of students, and in our
case for the majority of time by a majority of students in just their second
year of university having only attended EASA 12 months prior to hosting one.
Throughout the two and a bit years there were times when the team didn’t
perform, but there were also times when it was a beautiful thing to watch in
motion.
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For one year only your team holds the concept of EASA, with a history spanning
30 years and a network of thousands who have come under its spell. It is now
your responsibility to make it happen…
EASA is an entirely voluntary organisation. It is important to remember that
your team will be working their fi ngers to the bone to produce an assembly;
for free, out of their own time. Therefore, it is important to inject some fun
into the offi ce environment. Throughout the course of organising an EASA you
will learn a plethora of new, endlessly useful skills, many will have their fi rst
opportunities to work in a team and an offi ce environment, and you will make
friendships that will continue to blossom long after easa has gone.
For most this is the fi rst real project that holds with it expectations and
responsibilities. Many embrace this aspect and throw themselves right into the
team. Differing personalities are a fact of life, and you will fi nd there are those
who prefer to be involved from the sidelines. This is fi ne; however do ensure
that specifi c responsibilities (that are vital to the assembly’s progression)
are given to those fully immersed within the team. You may fi nd putting all
your eggs in one basket/person (and it not paying off) can cause some major
issues, as it did with us.
Starting Up:
Be completely aware of what you are getting yourself into. Organising EASA is
not purely about Architecture, it’s Business Management, Team Management,
HR, Communications… skills that you will have to learn, quickly, and then
apply in a “real-life” environment. Be inspiring, but above all, continue to be
realistic.
Team Structure & Organisation:
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Section Two: Organising
A voluntary workforce lends itself to a horizontal hierarchy. That said, you will
fi nd that certain individuals will become more involved than others, and will
therefore be trusted with more responsibilities. Quite simply, the harder you
work, the more you will ultimately get out of it.
Defi nitions of each “Role” were created early in the process of organising, to
ensure individuals knew what was expected of them. We initially split it into
three categories:
Coordinators: Responsible for a particular area, you must be aware of
the developments and future plans within your area of expertise. You
must communicate developments & delegate tasks to relevant organisers.
Understanding the dynamic of a volunteer workforce is fundamental to your
role.
You will fi nd that many organisers’ will show particular commitment, and
therefore can take on the role of Coordinator for a specifi c project/task that
they have shown substantial interest in. Additionally, do expect individuals to
drop out of the team. This is not a problem, as long as you cater for this (an
estimate of a third).
Coordinators must think on their feet, use initiative, and be fl exible. Be patient
and promote communication within your team to ensure you ease tensions.
Organisers: Members of the team who actively take on tasks laid out by the
Coordinators. They attend meetings and have an active input into decision-
making. These are generally members of the team who are unable to commit
as coordinators, but want to have input into the organisation.
Volunteers: Help at specifi c events (like the assembly) and are not involved in
meetings or discussions. They have no input into decision-making, however
are vital in ensuring large events run smoothly.
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easa010 Final Report
Communications:
Communication was vital, particularly with a large team in various locations
across the country. There was not one occasion where our entire team were all
in the same room together at any point of the organisation or fi nal assembly.
e-mailing is key. Ensure that Coordinators send updates regularly (weekly
basis) to the team. Take meetings seriously, and keep them on a regular date
and time. Ensure you have a chair and minutes taken. A HR Coordinator is very
useful hassling tool….
Management:
By pre-determining tasks & roles in advance, team members knew their area
of expertise inside-out by the time of the assembly. It also made the rota a
hell of a lot easier; you were not allocating jobs to people who did not know
what they were doing. Know the specifi cs of your volunteers, Who? What?
Where? When? (pop this all into a rota). Do provide fl exibility to cope with
unpredictable circumstances.
During the assembly it is important to have regular meetings to answer any
queries and provide updates. As volunteers become more knowledgeable,
team member are provided with more fl exibility (and more time to sleep!).
Do:
- Have socials
- Communicate
- Be willing to take on the less glamorous tasks
- Emphasise team work
- Delegate
- Be realistic about people’s capabilities
Don’t:
- Take on too many tasks at a time
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Section Two: Organising
- Rely upon those less committed for fundamental tasks
- Be afraid to ask questions
[eun]
Organisation of easa is a team game. Involvement of individuals
will be determined by outside factors, such as work and university
commitments. Some organisers will make it there full time job, while
others will be limited to a supporting role.
The level of involvement committed will greatly affect what an organiser
will get out of the process. The team works on an experience basis, so
those more committed will gain more autonomy and therefore more real
world experience. The measure of experience and understanding within
the team falls into three areas, known as branches:
EASA, Manchester, and the organisation processes.
For an organiser to be effective and gain more autonomy it is necessary
for them to have an excellent working understanding of all three. Any
level of understanding is enough to become involved in the organising
team as there are always opportunities to improve understanding
throughout the course of the organisation process.
When roles, such as coordinator, are identifi ed as needing a dedicated
member of the team to fi ll them, the main three considerations for
the role should be availability, commitment and experience. The
organiser should be available for the required workload for the period
of time required; this also means that organisers should avoid fi lling
more positions than they can offer their full attention and abilities to.
They must also be committed to the role and have shown willing and
aptitude in the organisation to date. While it is true that no one has
organised a summer assembly before there will be examples when an
individual has experience relevant to the role.
Meetings
Meetings will be held once a month up until easa009 at which time they
will become weekly events held at 7pm on a weeknight in easaHQ.
Each meeting will run to an agenda, to be circulated prior to the
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easa010 Final Report
meeting.
Meetings provide an opportunity for coordinators to update the team
on progress of each area of the organisation. As such, priority at weekly
meetings will be given to coordinators to explain progress in their area
and future progress. There will be a designated Chair for the meeting,
the Chair will be nominated at the previous meeting and is responsible
for composing the agenda and the smooth running of the meeting. Each
meeting will have a minute taker. The minutes are a legal document
and are vital to the running of the organisation. They will be issued
to all members of the team following the meeting. At each meeting
all members are encouraged to participate in issues being discussed.
All members are welcome to present an issue or propose an event or
sponsor.
Organisers document: 050
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 6 - Offi ce
Having identifi ed the importance of the team, a fact that is borne out again
and again in the story of easa010, it follows that the team needs somewhere
to be, a space, an offi ce, and as architects we should be more keenly aware of
this than most.
By its very nature and its reason for being any Final Report will be littered
tales of caution, of things that went wrong or problems faced, there will of
course be examples of things that went off just right, things we did really well
(though the unfortunate truth is you don’t notice the good decisions as much
as the bad ones), but the story of how we gained our offi ce has to go in the
column marked ‘unexpected windfalls’.
From the outset we knew we needed a space to call home, somewhere the
work could be done as an organisers front room just wouldn’t be up to the
task, but we didn’t ever have to look for one specifi cally.
Early in the organising process I approached ever major, and some minor,
developers in Manchester, ostensibly to enquire about accommodation
possibilities but also to become better known and gain letters of support for
the bid.
One of company, ASK developments, and more specifi cally Development
Executive Julian Stott, showed an immediate interest meeting with us on
numerous occasions in the early days. It was made clear to us that ASK would
be unable to sponsor us with a cash donation, but they did want to support
us, so in addition to a letter of support, at the bid stage they offered the free
lease of what an only be described as a cult Manchester icon - a two storey,
800sqft offi ce building. The offi ce was / is situated in an mostly brown fi eld
site and is within the footprint of a major development - First Street -, we
would be taking it on and offering it one fi nal lease of life before demolition.
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The contract would be ‘tenancy at will’ meaning we wouldn’t pay rent but
we wouldn’t have the right to a contract extension when this one ran out in
2010. We would pay for insurance and electricity however. Unfortunately to
sign we would need to be a recognised company which was dependant on us
winning the bid to host EASA, meaning we couldn’t make use of the space
while working on the bid.
From the beginning Julian and his colleague Anne-Marie showed great
enthusiasm and were the fi rst people fully on board with our vision for the
assembly. First Street was due for completion in 2010/11 but in 2008 it was
clear the recession was taking hold, there was a possibility that it would be
delayed or even stall meaning the surrounding car parks would be available to
us as accommodation / campus space. (See chapter on spaces).
As mentioned, having an offi ce as a base is essential. It needs to be a room
with a locking door, a postal address, large enough for the core of your team
to gather together, a place to have meetings and importantly in this day and
age it needs internet connection and a phone line.
An offi ce give you a place to store your things, it provides a setting to let
the team know that when they are there work and it allows the team to be
together making a lot of tasks so much easier.
A vital part of a successful organisation is having an offi ce to work out
of. A building allows the organisers to work together and will allow
the creation of a good atmosphere that is possible when friends work
together.
The building will also demonstrate a level of intent that the organisation
has, it will act as symbol to people wanting to become involved with
easa010.
Organisers document: 050
page 54
Section Two: Organising
Any offi ce will act as a signal of intent to prospective sponsors and partners,
simply having a unique postal address, or somewhere to have meetings
shows a commitment that will help separate you from the stigma that may
be associated with other student organisations. For us even the prospect of
moving in to 43 Hulme Street - soon to be easaHQ - represented a leveling up
of the organisation process, and provided us with momentum that we could
use in meeting other potential sponsors.
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 7 - GalleryIn our fi rst visit to the building it was immediately obvious it was both perfect
for our needs in terms of location and facilities - kitchen, shower, multiple WCs
- and much larger than we needed, this presented us with an opportunity. We
decided that the building could be split up around its central circulation core
to become offi ce / storage on one side and gallery on the other. Fortunately
the lay out of the building was perfect for this, but the condition we found
the building wasn’t quite ideal. Having been empty for the previous two years
an extremely small leak had been given plenty of time to saturate the ground
fl oor concrete fl oor plate meaning we had some immediate work to do when
we moved in. Along with drying out the carpets there was mold in many of the
downstairs rooms which had to be bleached clean and in some cases painted
over.
All in all the building was in pretty good shape
and most of the work was superfi cial. Once we’d cleaned up our attention
turned to beautifying the building inside and out. Inside we’d been left with a
questionable paint job from the previous occupants, their company signature
colour being purple at some point someone had felt it benefi cial to have it on
every door, wall and chair in the building, leaving a somewhat overwhelming
impression. Outside we decided to take advantage of the prominent position
of the building on a major route into the city centre to promote EASA and
show off our new location as much as possible.
A vital part of a successful organisation is having an offi ce to work
out of. A building allows the organisers to work together and will allow
the creation of a good atmosphere that is possible when friends work
together. The building will also demonstrate a level of intent that the
organisation has, it will act as symbol to people wanting to become
involved with easa010.
easaHQ, 43 Hulme street, is the home of the organisation team of
easa010. It is a former industrial building that received a renovating
A full list of exhibitions and events that we organised or hosted can be found in the appendix.
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easa010 Final Report
face lift from Stephenson Bell Architects. It is somewhat of an icon to
residents of Manchester, with many people aware of the building simply
by the signage of its most recent residents, ‘Moonfi sh’.
The building will have three functions in the build up to easa010:
Offi ce:
The fi rst fl oor main space will be devoted to offi ce space for the
organisers of easa010. This will be the place where most of the
organisation of the assembly and fund-raising will happen.
Gallery:
Central to the strategy for easaUK2010 to meet its remit of engaging
residents and giving a platform for local artists and community groups.
The fi rst fl oor bays will be used as a day gallery, where work will be
displayed for the public during offi ce hours.
Event Space:
On the ground fl oor, the former reception and board room will be
converted into event spaces. These will be used for exhibition launches,
strictly out of offi ce hours.
The history of the building as we have been able to pick up over the time of
our occupation runs thus - The building had started life as part of a complex
of industrial buildings manufacturing clothes. In time it was taken over by
Architects practice Stephenson Mills who were responsible for painting it white
and adding the distinctive louvres as well as adding some fantastic swinging
doors. About the time that Stephenson Mills became Stephenson Bell they
moved their practice to Ancotes, it is believed that at this time they expected
the building to be coming down just as its neighbors had. Instead though
Web design company Moonfi sh moved in and added their illuminated sign that
to many christened the building. Moonfi sh themselves merged with another
company and left the building empty once more. Two years later the building
was offered to us and we were able to breathe life into it once more, but more
than that it gave us a fantastic base from which to raise the profi le of EASA
and also to begin the process of integration as well as, though giving young
Organisers document: 050
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Section Two: Organising
artists their fi rst taste of exhibiting, creating a lasting impact and legacy of
EASA in its host city.
[cma]
When we bid to host the 2010 EASA in Manchester, we were clear that
integration and legacy were very important to our idea of EASA. We had been
to many EASA debates where the same issue kept coming up – the idea that
EASA is a self-contained event, too inward focused to be much of a force for
change. Participants, some suggested, came from all over Europe and only
socialised amongst themselves, barely interacting with the host community.
But the original idea of EASA was to change a single place, to address the
unique problems of the Liverpool docks. How could we unite event and city,
using each to drive the other to look at itself anew?
The ideas of integration and legacy were central to the plans for the two-
week assembly itself, but they could also help us in the long run up to August
2010. We had chosen Manchester as a host city partly because of its positive
attitude to artistic and cultural events and its strong cultural scene. This meant,
however, that EASA would be one festival amongst many, all clamoring for
attention, help and funding. We had to raise awareness of EASA to prove that
we had an audience so that sponsors and advertisers would be interested. We
had to show that we could organise events so that the council would support
us. Organising events in the run up to the assembly itself had other advantages
too: rather than being separate from and competing with the other creative
people in the city, we could make useful friends and contacts, and we could
also practice working together as a team on some smaller projects.
The gallery at easaHQ was a natural part of this. It was a privilege to have a
space of the size and quality of HQ so close to the city centre, and we wanted
to make the best use of it. We would use it as a venue for some of our own
events, but we would also make it available to local talent to use for their
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easa010 Final Report
exhibitions or events.
We felt that it was important that events informed people about EASA not
simply by telling them but by demonstrating the EASA spirit in the way they
were organised. Events were to be free where possible, to make imaginative
use of available resources, and to get interested people involved as volunteers.
We wanted to open up to as broad a range of people as possible; not just
architects or students, but fi ne artists, musicians, the general public and
community groups like the Scouts.
The gallery would be the focus of the most of the events, but we didn’t want
to ignore what was going on in the rest of the city and sought out other
events to be involved with. One of these was the Cutting Room Experiment, a
one-day festival intended to celebrate the opening of a new city square. The
festival would consist of many smaller activities proposed by, and voted for,
members of the public logging on to a web site. In easa010’s suggestion,
faceless identity, participants would arrive and build an ideal city by creating
model buildings using old cardboard boxes. They would disguise their faces,
and therefore their identities, by wearing a mask while they created their
buildings. The idea was that they would therefore construct their identities
by making the model buildings. The proposal was directly related to our
easa theme, and it also encouraged people to think more broadly about the
meaning of architecture and built environment in their lives. Each event at the
Cutting Room experiment was chosen by public voting, and we were able to
use the power of the easa network to obtain more than double the votes of the
next highly rated idea. We were later able to point to this success to show the
number of people that were supporting us across Europe.
easaHQ occupies a prominent position on the city’s inner ring road, next to an
elevated motorway. Offi cial statistics indicate that over 13,000 people see the
walls of the building every day. To announce our presence in the city and the
building, we proposed repainting the building. We launched a competition,
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Section Two: Organising
open to anyone in the world; by carefully wording its name and description
we succeeded in having it listed on Bustler, a popular architecture competition
aggregator. The shortlist of entries was judged by a representative from ASK,
the building owners, Visit Manchester (part of the council who we hoped to
have help and fi nancial support from) and a lecturer from Manchester School
of Architecture. The winning design was announced at our fi rst exhibition at
the gallery. The competition had created some publicity for us, launched the
gallery, produced a lot of statistics that we could tell potential sponsors, and
it had rewarded those that supported us so far by demonstrating that we had
big ideas.
Carrying out our promise and painting the winning design was a building
project in itself which served as practice for the more complex conversion
of Downtex later. Many of the lessons that we learnt such as dealing with
volunteer labour and the planning department, are discussed in that chapter.
It was not as simple as we had imagined initially. We learned that any lettering
required advertising consent from the planning department, and our initial
application was dismissed because the design was considered too intrusive.
Consent was gained, and we did paint the name easaHQ in letters nearly a
metre high on a wall facing the motorway. We did not complete the total
design, and to substantially fi nish two walls took from August to November
2009. Perhaps in thinking we could repaint the entire building we were too
ambitious. The competition phase was very successful, but the effort to carry
out the work absorbed a lot of our time that might have been better spent on
other things.
Before we invited artists to exhibit in the gallery, we established certain
principles about how it would be run and why we were doing it.
1. The space would be available for free to exhibitors, providing they were
not intending to make money from the exhibition. We had received the space
as a gift, and we wanted to pass that on. We were also inexperienced as
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easa010 Final Report
gallery curators, and providing the space for free meant that there was less of
an obligation to provide a professional service.
2. Exhibitions would ideally be related to architecture or the built
environment in some way.
3. Artists and exhibitors were to be solely responsible for installation,
curation, invigilation and removal of their exhibitions.
We were given the building rent-free, but we still had to pay utility bills and
taxes. Originally we imagined that we could obtain sponsors or funding for
each of the exhibitions that we put on ourselves, which would cover the cost
of the exhibition and the utilities. We would also ask other exhibitors to do
the same. This is not quite how it worked out in practice, as sponsors and
funders were very diffi cult to fi nd, and we had to meet the running costs of the
building by loaning the company money from our personal funds, by taking
out a company credit card, and by selling tea and cake at the exhibitions.
In litigious societies like the UK it is important to have the proper insurance.
The fabric of the building was insured by the building owner, but we needed
public liability and building contents insurance as a condition of our tenancy.
We got a good deal on this through a professional contact. It is worth
mentioning that insurance companies get very nervous about insuring works
of art, as the value is so hard to determine and can often be high. This was a
problem when easaHQ became the site of an installation of Angela Brooker’s
illuminated sign, Apollo Theatres. The sign was mounted on the outside of
the building where it was vulnerable to damage and the artist demanded to
see our insurance. We successfully argued that it was insured, but only for its
value as an illuminated sign rather than a work of art. For all other exhibitions
it was made clear that the responsibility for insuring artworks lay with the
exhibitors rather than ourselves.
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Section Two: Organising
Establishing the gallery
The fi rst exhibition in the gallery was the entries to the facade repainting
competition. We formally invited all of our contacts at the school of architecture,
the council, the universities and developers – not in the expectation that
many would come in person, but again to show that we were already doing
things in the city. For the following week, through our contacts at the school
of architecture and the Manchester Society of Architects, we had secured
the gallery as the venue for the closing party of the inaugural Manchester
Architecture and Design Festival, to coincide with an exhibition of work by
architecture students. This event was well attended by staff from the School
and some members of the Society, useful contacts for organising EASA.
These two events were instrumental in establishing the gallery amongst
architects, staff and students. A broader awareness came with An Urban
Ecology of Chance, a solo show by a fi ne artist who had already exhibited
in other more established venues in the city. This exhibition resulted from
a personal contact between the head of the school of architecture and a
professor of arts, who recommended the space to Daniel Staincliffe, the artist.
This exhibition brought in artists and students from across the city, and word
spread rapidly across all the artists in the city. The gallery was an established
part of the cultural landscape.
In talking to people in the city about EASA, we found that it was diffi cult to
communicate just what EASA was, and it was very easy to put people off the
idea, especially if they began to think it was ‘just a big piss-up’. The best
way to explain the event to our existing supporters and potential sponsors
was an exhibition in the gallery that we had created. EASA: An Exhibition
would bring together archive fi lms, photographs and whatever artefacts and
descriptions we could gather to try to present as full an experience of the
event as possible. It was timed to coincide with the Manchester SESAM so that,
on the preview night, there would be genuine European architecture students
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easa010 Final Report
A report written after the exhibition is available in the appendix.
there for visitors to talk to, and the goal of the SESAM participants was to
create an installation on their fi rst impression of the city.
The experience of putting together the exhibition would once again be an
instruction in the management of volunteers, and the diffi culty in gathering
materials from the network meant that large amounts of it had to be organised
at the last minute during the week when the SESAM participants were staying
at HQ. We succeeded in obtaining free printing from the school of architecture
and the exhibition was the largest and most impressive at the gallery to that
date. On entering the gallery, the visitor saw fi rst a wall-size map of Europe. On
this the locations of all historical EASA events were marked, and four hundred
threads from all the countries in Europe converged on Manchester. Below this
was a pile of looped TVs showing all of the fi lms that we had acquired. In
the alcove to the left the beginning of a time line that ran throughout the
gallery, from the fi rst event in 1981
and leading the visitor through time
up the stairs to the room dedicated to Manchester 2010. Along the way there
were rooms dedicated to workshops, sleeping (with a full-scale mock-up bunk
made of scaffolding and covered with sleeping bags), lectures, and a cinema
showing the three most professional fi lms on a loop.
Unfortunately, we had not anticipated the diffi culty of getting busy
businesspeople to an exhibition at a gallery they hadn’t heard of. The preview
was well attended by all our friends at the School of Architecture, the Society
of Architects, other artistic organisations, and a good few members of
the public. It was a great evening that our corporate sponsors, actual and
potential, missed. It was always going to be diffi cult, but we had sent out
professional invitations well in advance by e-mail and over the telephone. We
even had a plan for separate sponsor evenings, networking events to which
individual companies would be specially invited. Over the following weeks the
exhibition was visited by architecture students and artists. Despite the lack
of professional attendance, there were positive outcomes of the exhibition,
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Section Two: Organising
chiefl y once again reminding important people of our presence and ambition.
In running the gallery, artists would often approach us with the intention
of having a month-long exhibition. We quickly learned to avoid such long
shows. The public preview evenings were usually very well attended, and then
on subsequent days visitor numbers were low. In order to maintain a regular
turnover of events we established a compact timetable where exhibitions
previewed on a Thursday or Friday night, were open over the weekend, and
were taken down on Monday ready for the following exhibition to set up on
Tuesday and Wednesday.
Our insistence that artists invigilate their own shows should have saved us
time, but initially we still had to open up the
building to let them in, and lock up at the end.
This was an onerous task for the two-person
team on the ground in Manchester, especially with the long and unsociable
hours that many of the artists worked to. The solution was to sign a set of
keys to the artists and trust them – not an ideal solution, as there was no way
of securely sealing the offi ce from the gallery and there was one incidence of
theft. It was also very diffi cult to keep exhibitors out of our storage areas; we
would often fi nd that our furniture or painting materials had been used and
modifi ed without our permission.
In retrospect it would have been better if we had asked for a fee to exhibit at
the gallery, and also asked for a refundable deposit. A fee to cover expenses
would have prevented the fi nancial drain of the fi rst months of the organising
period and we would perhaps have had greater resources for publicity and
fund-raising. This, together with a deposit, might have made the exhibitors
have a more professional attitude and treat us and the gallery with greater
respect.
The initial ideas had been for the gallery to be self-funding, to raise our profi le
Issues of in team communication are discussed more fully in the communication chapter
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easa010 Final Report
in the city to make it easier to attract sponsorship, to generate goodwill, and
to broaden the impact of EASA on the city. We underestimated both the time
and cost that such a commitment would take. Having a gallery did not help us
with sponsorship; it is diffi cult enough to make possible sponsors understand
what EASA is as an event. Mentioning the gallery and events too seemed to
confuse the message further, while the visitor numbers were too small to be
attractive. However, the gallery was a success in other areas. It generated
a great deal of goodwill with the university and the council, and with those
organising other festivals and events in the city. The weekly previews were
exciting occasions which helped to bind the organising team together and
lifted the spirits when the work was hard. The gallery and the events, to our
knowledge unique in the history of EASA, did succeed in using the resources
of the assembly to have a sustained and positive impact on the host city.
easaUK2010 will vacate easaHQ in November 2010, 19 months after we
moved in. The demolition date for the building, originally early 2011, has
been put back by the collapse in the property market and so the building has
at least another year to stand. Blank Media Collective, an arts organisation
that curated one of the exhibitions in the gallery, had approached us earlier
in the year about the future of the space, so when we found out that it was no
longer due for demolition we let them know. They want to take on and run the
building in a very similar way to us, as a cheap exciting exhibition space. The
building owners have yet to agree, but we will do our best to convince them.
This might just be a lasting legacy for Manchester.
[tbe]
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Section Two: Organising
I’ve said before that the structure of EASA is not the most effi cient model to
have, whether this is a big issue or not is, in my opinion, a mute point - this
is what we have to work with. One of the points where it is not very effi cient
is communicating. Communicating can be conversations, it can be meetings
or a number of other things, but for an organising team it also includes being
able to fi nd documents when needed, rather than having to fi nd the person
who made it, and asking for it to be transferred to your machine. With this in
mind we set up a fi ling system based directly on the Irish model from 2008.
With so many people working on easa010, a coherent fi ling system and
professional adherence to it are vital. The fi ling system will be in two
parts, with editable documents on a web based, virtual, fi ling system
to allow access at all times, whilst avoiding duplication and errors in
saving. There will also be an offi ce based desk top tower for saving of
photos and video.
Numbers/names
Each team member has a shorthand user name. All fi les will be saved
with the date fi rst, title and name of user last; of the type:
yy-mm-dd_title_user
For example:
09-06-17_doc050_ckm
Note:
Hyphens are used within elements (as for the date). Underscores are
used to separate elements.
Documents
All documents to be issued, be it internal, network or external, will be
given a document number. This document number will relate to where
to fi nd it in the document fi ling system.
See Appendix A for the fi le tree.
Chapter 8 - Filing
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easa010 Final Report
Documentation of every aspect of the event is paramount. Photographs
from every event will be used: on the web site, on posters, in info
docs and publications after the event. With this in mind, folders for
documentation have been created for each event.
In practice though, the fi ling system, though vital to getting anything done,
wasn’t adhered to in full by the team and in the end the only sections of the
fi ling system based on an external hard drive in the offi ce that worked anywhere
near properly were the sections with photos from previous assemblies and
the section with documents produced for easa010. The result of this was a
tremendous amount of small pieces of wasted time over a long period that
affected productivity of time spent in the offi ce, but more majorly, it always
cause major slowdowns at times of big production - sponsor document,
welcome guide, fi nal report.
It is advisable to investigate means of remote fi ling too. It is hard to ignore
that the internet has made many aspects of organising EASA easier, and for
2010 we made use of some of the more simple things out there to help the
process.
One of our sponsors - AODL - set up an e-mail service with google, and with
it came the ability to use google docs. Google docs allowed us to produce
documents online that we could all access for information and update. These
were always useful for things like contact lists, but towards the end they were
also a real time saver for budgeting and shopping. Having documents stored
centrally meant that everyone was working from the current iteration at all
times.
[cma]
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 9 - IncorporationThe formation of a company to organise easa010 was always our intent, and
though we managed to get sponsorship paid to us for the bid, the two month
delay caused by not being a legally recognised organisation was all the added
incentive we needed.
Yet from beginning to research the process to becoming incorporated took
over six months. Why? Incorporating a company is a serious business, it
brings responsibilities for those named as directors and this can have serious
repercussions - we’ll talk about the impact of this in the post EASA chapter in
Section Three.
This sudden legal step will jolt the organising team out of the typical EASA
state of team interaction, and if it is not treated carefully, can add an unwanted
level of hierarchy. It is important that directors don’t take on a controlling
attitude, but it is also vital that non-directors treat the organisation and
company seriously as the repercussions for the directors can include stiff
fi nancial penalties or even jail.
At the time we were becoming incorporated as well as seemingly endless
trawling through legal documents and online advice from companies house,
Tom was working towards his fi nal year hand in and I was swamped with
team expansion and meeting after meeting to do with the other aspects of
organising. It’s worth noting we were looking into charitable status at this
time too - but that, as they say, is another story.
After gaining a good understanding of what to do, we had laid out our charter
ensuring that the company would be not-for-profi t, and realised incorporation
as a company limited by guarantee was for us. It was the actual incorporation
that was holding us up, the simple fact was we had no experience and didn’t
know what to do.
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easa010 Final Report
A chance meeting turned out to hold the key to this for us. At a friends
party I had met his neighbor, a landlady who also worked as an adviser who
connected small business to training funding, Hadil Ali.
Hadil was really interested in EASA and became involved as an organiser. She
arranged a meeting with Business Support Solutions who ran through the
forms for free with us, she then contacted HJM solicitors who agreed to sign
off the forms in return for sponsor status.
We were incorporated as easaUK2010 Ltd on 29th April 2009 with Chris
Maloney as Chairman and Tom Bennell as Secretary - the only two people
available to sign at the time we fell into the positions. Alex Maxwell and Paul
Farrell were added as directors in February 2010.
[cma]
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 10 - Finances
Regulatory and fi nancial context
As a company, easaUK2010 ltd was legally required to keep proper accounts,
to be submitted to Companies House once annually. We were also required to
designate a treasurer who would be responsible for keeping track of money in
a transparent and accountable manner.
Charity
From the outset it was our intention to be a registered charity. We felt that our
objectives were charitable; other EASAs in the past, particularly Ireland (where
the regulatory framework is similar to that in the UK) had been registered
charities. The status offered a number of advantages:
1. It is a requirement for access to most artistic and educational trusts,
depending on a successful funding application, and often also for access to
the funds of public bodies and quasi-non-governmental organisations.
2. Tax reductions and exemptions are available to charities when they are
not available to non-profi t companies.
3. Being a charity is powerful shorthand for ‘a good thing’ in the popular
imagination and would make people and companies far more likely to donate
money to us.
With this in mind, we established the company with legally defi ned objectives
that were, in our view, charitable.
Bank accounts
With the company established, we opened bank accounts in the company’s
name. The details of our paying in account, used for participation fees and the
great majority of other income, would be made very public and the risk of fraud
therefore increased. Our solution was to follow the Irish example, and make
this an account that would not have nor be ever able to have a cheque book,
direct debits or credit/debit cards. This turned out to be a savings account.
We also opened two current accounts, with the intention that one would be
used to store the bulk of our money (deep pool), and the other (operational)
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easa010 Final Report
for day-to-day transactions.
Diagram x: easauk2010 bank accounts and operation.
In the event, the setup of our bank accounts worked reasonably as planned.
Having our gateway account as a savings account had the additional advantage
that it earned some money in interest for us. The deep pool account served as
an ideal safe box for money which we knew we had to spend, such as the rent
for the accommodation, but had not spent yet. With such an unpredictable and
rapidly changing budgetary situation it gave great peace of mind to know that
we had enough money stored away to cover our essential out goings. Having
this account only accessible by the treasurer reduced the chances of mistakes.
Preliminary budgets and a business plan
After winning the bid and beginning to organise the assembly, it was important
to have an idea how much the assembly we planned to host would cost. This
was primarily so that we had an idea how much money we would have to raise,
but also because funding applications usually require detailed supporting
documents including a budget and a business plan.
The initial budget was based on the costs of previous assemblies, modifi ed
by our knowledge of local conditions and our specifi c aims. This fi rst budget
can be found in the appendixes. It informed our fund-raising work and, as
the project developed, allowed us to identify which parts of the assembly plan
were best value for money, and which were most expensive – what we could
afford to do and what we would have to change. This budget was not formally
updated until several months before the assembly itself, when we had a much
better idea of how much we had to spend and what our activities would be.
Accounts: day to day operation during the organising period
For much of the organising period, the team working in the offi ce was small
and any events that we were involved with were inexpensive. It was suffi cient
to use the operational account for most transactions, with Chris and Tom each
having a debit card to make payments where necessary.
page 72
Section Two: Organising
The SESAM in February 2010 provided a dry-run of the bank account system.
Participants transferred money from European banks to the savings account,
this money was transferred to the petty cash account, and then spent. We did
not need to use the deep pool because the sums and risk were much smaller
than in the assembly itself.
Cash fl ow chart: discussion November 2008-May 2010.
1. In its early stages, easa010 was heavily dependent on small loans from
the directors and donations from their families and friends. This money was
only paid back when the participation fees began to come in.
2. SESAM was nearly cash neutral
3. Small events like get sectioned were vital in the early days
4. We only passed the £5000 barrier, a prerequisite for charitable status,
after the participation fees began to come in. By then it was too late to become
a charity (see separate discussion).
Charity
easauk2010 was never registered as a charity. In the UK as in most countries,
company and charity law is set up with the assumption of continuity. EASA
simply moves too fast. To register an organisation as a charity takes a minimum
of three working weeks, but it also requires proof of an annual turnover of at
least £5000. easaUK2010 passed this threshold when the participation fees
began to come in, by which time it was already too late: fi rstly because the
deadline for the grant applications for which charitable status was necessary
had passed, and secondly because the participation payment structure fell
foul of the charity commission’s guidelines for charging. Extracts from our
correspondence with the charity commission are reproduced in the appendix.
[tbe]
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easa010 Final Report
page 74
Section Two: Organising
Chapter 11 - Fund raising
The budget for easa010 was one of the smallest ever for an EASA, and relative
to the cost of the location and changes in the market may possibly rank as
the most frugal of all time. In comparison to the reputed $1m of the train,
the $1.2m of Denmark or even the more recent €300,000 + of Ireland, the
£106,000 (about €120,000 at the time) turn over of easa010 really stands out,
but how did it come to this, and how did we cope?
The answer to the fi rst part of the question also come is two parts, put simply
the recession that started to cast a shadow over EASA 2008’s and had a
negative effect on EASA 2007’s fund-raising ability was a sustained reality
even before we got started. Along with this we had a number of false starts
within the team in structuring a functioning fund-raising effort.
Fund rasing takes time, lots of time. In the very early days, when the team
was just a small number of people, fund-raising was done with on the back
of identifying key partners. When the team started to expand the tasks were
reviewed in order to be better distributed, it was agreed that tasks and roles
relating to writing documents, accounts, running the offi ce, the team and
communicating with the network along with existing partners and backers
where a trusted relationship was already in place required full time attention
and therefore full time team members. Fund-raising, and a number of other
tasks was agreed to have a coordinator and was a task that anyone could
take part in as their schedule permitted. This way everyone was in theory
involved in fund-raising, and as such it was the most staffed element of the
organisation process. In theory.
Unfortunately the numbers of people working on fund-raising was not
matched with the required focus. Somewhere along the line the urgency
shown in other areas of the team wasn’t matched in the fund-raising fi eld for
a signifi cant amount of time ; fi rst calls were made to companies, but were
What went wrong? <<<<<<
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easa010 Final Report
never phoned back - there are numerous spreadsheets bearing witness to
fi rst contacts and no further information; for a long time things as simple as a
staple sponsor document were not produced, but time was put into redefi ning
the levels of sponsorship available - the next chapter will talk more about
the importance of brand stability. At weekly meetings very little feedback
from the fund-raising team was being put to the group and as a whole the
team became more frustrated and tensions began to show. It is at times like
these that people will begin to question the structure of a team which affords
all members an equal involvement, it is important to, as a team, remember
why you are doing it, what EASA is about. From a purely pragmatic point of
view any attempt to assert control over the each others roles or implement
punitive measures - whatever they might be; how can you sack someone from
a voluntary, everyone welcome, organisation? - would create more fi ssures it
the team and more ineffi ciency. Unfortunately, over time, the fund-raising
team shed members, with people just not turning up. Having been concerned
at the turn of the year (2009 - 2010) about the lack of money coming in the
team had overhauled the fund-raising effort in the hands of a coordinator, by
the end of February it was in tatters, with only full timers making any head
way. It was at this point I created a defi nitive sponsor document and took up
direct contact with team members around the UK.
The issue of recession is one that was put to us during the bid in 2008, and
I remember saying that of course the recession would make it harder to gain
funding, but as we had never had to gain funding before we didn’t know any
better and therefore wouldn’t notice the difference. The effect was easy for
us to notice though, with the long, long, long, long line of people we spoke to
who told us that “We’re really interested, and 12 months ago we could have
done something, but right now we’re having to sack people, so it wouldn’t be
right.”
The best example for both these problems comes from summing up our public
funding = £0. EU money was not investigated by the fund-raising team,
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Section Two: Organising
despite a lot of ground work going into the research between the bid Nov.
2007 and Aug. 2008, the work simply wasn’t picked up and the deadlines
passed us by. Local public funding was investigated though. At the time
there was a body called the North West Development Agency, this agency was
responsible for distributing EU funding allocated to the region - the funding
coordinator mistakenly assumed this meant all EU money possible, but in fact
it didn’t include monies applied for directly. The NWDA loved the idea, we were
advised to go for matched funding meaning that for every £1 we secured they
would double it - great! Unfortunately this advice - from a senior member of
the NWDA proved to be a little simplistic, as in fact we needed to approach a
myriad of subcommittees to gain the funding. All this was a mute point in the
end anyway, the eagle eyed reader will have spotted I have been referring to
the NWDA in the past tense. The fi nal complication to our fund-raising was
the specter of a general election in June 2010. It was clear for a long time in
the UK that the right of centre Conservative Party would win the election and
in turn it was their policy to cut public spending. This did two things, one it
made private companies nervous of the coming fi nancial climate and reluctant
to give away capital and two it meant that publicly funded bodies that may
have been a source of funding were concerned over their existence so were
similarly unwilling to entertain cash sponsorship. Before the assembly took
place the NWDA was disbanded, meaning all funding was cut, if we had been
involved with this funding stream it would have been a disaster to the budget.
Having covered ‘how did it come to this?’ I must we can move on to the more
uplifting ‘how did we cope?’ I’ve spoken to problems within the team to
create a dedicated fund-raising arm but as with all aspects of organising,
when things were not perfect there were people willing to pick up the slack
and put the extra work in - but before we get to that part, the story starts, as
ever, with the decisions made before the bid.
As this will be the fi rst time the team are organising an event of this
nature the only thing we have to take to sponsors is our words and our
What went right? <<<<<<
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easa010 Final Report
professionalism. Beyond this we have to be careful to neither undersell
ourselves nor attempt to go to the same well too often.
Sponsorship is not complicated, but it is vital to have a clear outline
of what is happening, no one should approach sponsors at any level
without it being discussed at the team meetings fi rst.
For clarity the level attributed to a contributor has been banded, relating
to the level of fi nancial backing provided by an institution:
Partners: Partner status is reserved for major contributors to easa010.
This contribution includes: a very large cash sum, a principle space for
the event, key advice and highly technical specialist help; or a mix of
the above.
Backers: Backer status requires: a substantial cash sum, a collection of
secondary spaces, material sponsorship, or key professional support.
Event sponsors: Event sponsorship costs £500. The sponsor can choose
an event in the build up to the assembly to be associated with.
Building sponsors: Building sponsorship costs £1000. The sponsor
will have their details displayed at easaHQ for the duration of the
organisation process.
Friends of easa: Friend status is available to individuals only and
costs £50. Friends of easa010 will be acknowledged in all easa010
publications.
EASA is a complex thing to explain in its entirety to someone unfamiliar with
it, so it is important to learn to simplify what you are saying dependant on who
you are talking to and why you are talking to them, this is especially true when
approaching companies for sponsorship. Essentially you are asking them to put
their companies, their bosses, money in to your idea. Obviously presentation,
documents, logos, being well dressed all help, but to get anywhere at all you
have to be clear on some key points: 1. Who you are 2. What are you asking
for 3. What do they get. It is best to treat the pursuit of sponsorship as a long
Organisers document: 050
page 78
Section Two: Organising
conversation, at each stage you are keeping the conversation interesting in
order to have more time to explain a little more, you wont get the promise
of money on your fi rst phone call, so don’t ask, you can say you are looking
for sponsorship and would they like to see some more information about the
event? You fi rst goal when contacting a company is to meet them face to face
to give them a presentation, that’s all - it’s less scary to think of it like this
than to think about the pressure of getting a set fi gure of money.
As mentioned already, when we entered into the organising of easa010 in the
midst of the recession, and as such we realised that the recent funding model
for EASA wouldn’t be enough. We had seen the problems faced by EASA
Italy in raising funds for 2009, how they had worked intensely hard on the
event but money remained tight. We knew we needed to be inventive. From
the outset we asked all NCs to help with sponsorship for the assembly and
when approached by people outside of the UK willing to help we sent them
sponsor packs and suggestions of types of people to approach and what to
say. At fi rst this yielded small success with Denmark and Ireland the only
countries to come forward with successful fund-raising. Closer to the event
we approached the network once more with the same request and this time it
was met with a fantastic response and we brought in something like £3,000
in the last couple of weeks this way - it is my fi rm opinion that the immediate
future of fund-raising for EASA will rely on the whole network.
I think by now I’ve made the point that fi nding cold hard cash in a recession
is tough, but that doesn’t mean don’t ask for cash, you might get something
else you need, which is why at the very outset we wrote the possibility of in
kind sponsorship into the defi nitions of the sponsorship levels.
Despite being a priority from the outset tools and material sponsorship was
left really late, with tools sourced at the eleventh hour and only materials
for the competition found at all. Tools are an obvious thing to try and get
for free, they are relevant to the profession and EASA has a good history of
Tools <<<<<<
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easa010 Final Report
gaining a major tool sponsor. First port of call was Dealt, but following their
initial interest and a little investigation from their UK branch, their response
was that in their opinion they had sponsored the whole of EASA in 2007 by
gifting tools permanently - so we should have them to use. Hilti were also
initially interested but this interest cooled. We eventually had success when
Christoph and Sam approached Makita’s advertising company with one of our
sponsor documents. They followed up their interest while the boys were out
of town and I supplied them with the information they needed about EASA day
and our commitment to other partners. With our support they sold the idea to
Makita, who agreed to supply our electrical tools and - to our delight - stated
that as part of the deal they wanted to do a complete safety demonstration,
fulfi lling part of our insurance obligation. Tools was a great example of
something falling through the cracks, but with concerted team work being
brought together in the end.
Cash brought in, as can be seen in the budget, was at a premium - literally
every little helped. Fund-raising is a many wondrous thing, it’s best to hear
how it was done direct from the people who did it, so here I pass the batten
here to Joe Frame to elucidate his experience, I will be back to talk through
some examples of money that I got hold of.
[cma]
CASH SPONSORSHIP
During the boom of the last 10 years it seems that architectural offi ces were
quite free with their money, but for easa010 offi ces were not a particularly
lucrative group to approach due to the economic conditions under which we
were working. I personally contacted over 60 offi ces and received nothing
from any of them, and as a team we contacted pretty much every offi ce in
Manchester and over 100 in London with similar results
>>>>>> Architecture Offi ces
page 80
Section Two: Organising
The system we used was to fi rst make a telephone call and ask for someone in
public relations or human resources, then explain to this person briefl y what
EASA is and then ask if they would be interested in a sponsorship brochure or
pdf for them to have a further look at. This sponsorship document explained
EASA more fully along with the sponsorship possibilities we were offering
such adverts in our literature, lecture opportunities, promotional materials in
the welcome pack and many other things.
Invariably people will say they are interested at this stage as they don’t want
to be dismissive, but once you have sent it the laborious task of reaching them
again and getting a defi nitive answer from them begins. Having a spreadsheet
to keep track of the status of each line of enquiry is essential; otherwise you
will be lost and make mistakes.
It can be a very boring and depressing task, being
on the phone all day, repeating yourself and repeatedly being told no, which
is why it is better to have team of people doing it.
As a team we stopped contacting architecture fi rms about 2 months before
the assembly as we decided it was not worth our time considering the lack of
successes. In a fi nal salvo I e-mailed all the contacts that I had made at offi ces
containing a thank you and the link to our fund-raising button on the web site
asking for it to be forwarded around the offi ce so people could make personal
donations if they wished. I myself have little idea this elicited any donations,
but it was a positive way of closing communications.
There a lot of charities that share aims with EASA with regards to developing
communities, promoting Europe and so on. By the time I became involved in
fund-raising it was too late for me to apply for specifi c grants from them due
to passed deadline, so I was making contact for small scale cash sponsorship
for people to come and lecture or hand out information to participants using
the same technique as with the architects; making direct contact, sending the
Charities <<<<<<
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easa010 Final Report
sponsorship pack and then following up with another phone call.
I did not meet with much success as they are charities and are not used to
people asking them to pay to talk to an audience. Obviously each country has
different charities, but ones whose aims are developing communities are the
obvious ones to research and approach, in our case The Prince’s Foundation
for the Built Environment is an example.
Building Suppliers / Vested Interest Groups for Building Materials
We as a team found far more success in approaching building suppliers and
vested interest groups to lecture at EASA in exchange for sponsorship, whilst
I personally concentrated on the vested interested groups. Many building
material companies fund groups whose job is to promote that material; ie:
concrete, glass, plastics, photo voltaic etc. Researching once again is a vital
part of fi nding these groups, as there are more than you could imagine, some
of them far more professional/well-funded than others, but all provide the
opportunity to get some money in exchange for giving them a very diverse
captive audience to talk to and distribute information to. There is always the
concern that you are selling out and subjecting the participants to lectures
from very dull people, but invariably those organisations that are interested
will have members of staff dedicated to giving presentations and should be
relatively good at it. The Brick Development Agency was one such group that
I secured to give a lecture to the participants.
Approaching vested interest groups is somewhat easier than a non-
architectural business or architecture fi rm as there is a very clear investment
opportunity for them, in that promoting themselves is what they are funded to
do. With an architect’s offi ce for example the return for sponsorship is hard to
defi ne, past getting their name known to a group of students who could apply
there for a job. During boom times it is more likely that offi ces are competing
for graduates, but the environment we were working in meant this was low on
their list of priorities. With the Brick Development Agency I simply rang them
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Section Two: Organising
and followed the same script as I used with everyone:
“Hello, My name is ……., I am calling from the European Architecture Students
Assembly which is taking place in Manchester this summer.
[Explanation of how interesting, exciting and worthwhile EASA is whilst
stressing that it will not be back in the country for possibly 30 years, so it is
now or never]
We are looking for sponsorship and we have 450 future architects who would
be a unique audience for you to inform about your area of expertise (bricks).
Would you be interested? I can send you some further information and the
sponsorship pack and then give you a call back when it is convenient.”
Once the initial commitment was there it was simply a matter of fi nalising the
details; it probably took about 5 phone calls over 2 weeks just for this one
organisation, what with people being on holiday and some confusion over
dates, but eventually we reached an agreement on the date of the lecture. It is
a long process and there is always the possibility they will change their mind.
There was some discussion as to the topic of the lecture, but invariably they
will have a set text that they will tweak to the audience. In our case I stressed
that fact that we are students, so possibly more interested in cutting edge use
of brick rather than its history or extant of usage. The fi nal part of the process
is writing the invoice to them, await the cheque and trust that their speaker
will turn up at the agreed time.
Charitable arms of national companies
Many lager companies have a charitable arm that gives money to develop
communities in a PR exercise to ally fears that they are destroying local
identities by fi lling all high streets with the same shops. Whether or not it
is a sincere concern of these companies is not particularly relevant, but the
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easa010 Final Report
chance to get some cash from them is. However, once again personally I was
too late to apply for these funds due to passed deadlines, despite me sending
the odd pleading e-mail for special consideration I got nowhere. So this is
something to start doing as early as possible due to fi xed deadlines and the
complex application processes.
Local companies / National Companies based locally
Appealing to large local companies or national ones based in the locale, even
it they are completely unrelated to architecture, is another avenue we pursued.
For example Bruntwood is the largest offi ce rental company in Manchester,
who pledged their support and all though no funds actually appeared they
were a good name to have behind us. These companies should view it as good
PR to be seen supporting such a unique and special event in their town/city,
but some just don’t care and you will never be able to actually speak to anyone
relevant.
As the assembly approached I made contact with a number of large companies
in Manchester, such as the Co-operative Supermarket Group and Stagecoach
Buses without much success. Once again I was given the impression that
companies couldn’t bee seen to be giving away money whilst they had to
make staff redundant, which was very frustrating. Also they are maybe not so
concerned with marketing themselves to 450 people who don’t live in the city
as they will see no return on that money from the participants. So approaching
them has to be very much about how EASA engages the local community and
supporting us supports the community.
We assumed as a team that international companies would be very interested
in supporting EASA as it is such a multinational group they could promote
their products to a wide range of people at once. However we began to realize
that each country obviously has it’s own headquarters, and as a result they are
mainly concerned with sales and promotion within that country, so there were
not particularly more enthusiastic than national companies.
>>>>>> International Companies
page 84
Section Two: Organising
I would recommend approaching Illy Coffee as over the past few years they have
supported numerous EASAs and the employee who sorted out our machine
told me each year there is a conference in Italy and he had seen the Irish
representative bragging about supporting EASA and showing lots of photos
of trendy Europeans drinking their coffee. As a result he wanted to compete
with the Irish Illy distributors by supporting us as well. This atmosphere of
competitiveness would only play to our advantage with certain companies who
appreciate the marketing opportunities of having photographs of EASAians
using their product. Unfortunately I cannot offer any other suggestions at this
point.
For better or for worse the Welcome Pack is an EASA staple. It is a nice way
for people to arrive, by being given a bag of presents along with promotional
material for sponsors and like. When trying to fi nd products to fi ll the welcome
pack it is important to think of companies who want to market their product to
students, young people of just anybody. We managed to secure 1000 bottles
of Vitamin water as it had only been recently launched in the UK and the
company wanted to promote it as much as possible. Other companies that we
approached but met with little success were energy drinks, design fi rms and
so on. The most bizarre attempt I made personally was ringing up Durex’s PR
company to try to get some free condoms, and trying to explain over the phone
in a polite way of how EASA can sometimes become the sort of place where
condoms are in high demand. I failed with the condoms but they are the sorts
of things that we were trying to get for the welcome pack. Even approaching
companies for branded things like lighters or whistles is worthwhile, although
it was something that fell by the wayside for us as we devoting a lot of energy
on the larger forms of sponsorship as we were in dire straights at times.
I managed to get 450 back issues of MARK magazine by taking a name from
the Ireland008 fi nal report and simply e-mailing them, mentioning Ireland and
asking for similar support. They were delivered to our offi ce a week before the
Welcome Pack <<<<<<
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easa010 Final Report
start of the assembly, we put a link on our web site and that was that. It was
the easiest bit of sponsorship ever.
Fee Pfeiffer ([email protected]) is the woman to contact for future organisers
in search of Mark magazines.
THINGS YOU SIMPLY HAVE TO PAY FOR
I rather naively thought that if we explained to companies that were providing
us a service (eg: portable toilets, refuse management etc) how we were non-
profi t, for the local community, student organization we could get some sort
of discount/ free service in exchange for promotion similar to other sponsors.
In retrospect it is obvious that you will not get something free from a company
that makes its profi t from providing that service. Toilet companies presumably
do not market themselves to the public in the same way that drinks products
do, so you cannot treat them the same way. It is a cynical thing to say, but
no one cares about EASA as much as EASAians, so there are some things that
you will just have to pay for. My only success was getting some free bin bags
from Emerge recycling (explained in the refuse management section), but this
was because they are a charity that promotes communities, so our interests
dovetailed to an extent, also Emerge employees were just very nice. Whilst
we had a huge amount of support from offi cial fi gures, there was a defi nite
lack of philanthropic attitude amongst the business sector of Manchester,
presumably as a direct result of the economic down turn.
GENERAL ADVICE
Have 2 or more people directly responsible for fund-raising. It is too important
for 1 person to deal with and it means that when it gets too depressing for 1
person, the other can take up some of their slack.
The people directly responsible should have been to previous EASAs so they
have an emotional responsibility to do their job properly and appreciate the
page 86
Section Two: Organising
reality of 450 people being their responsibility.
Create a very detailed Google spreadsheet with ALL types of sponsorship on
so that people can easily keep track of what is going on and who is dealing
with which organisation. This stops people harassing the same organisation,
everyone can contribute suggestions of companies to approach, all contact
details are in the same place and so on.
When contacting companies you should ring them up and ask for whom
to speak to (unless you can fi nd a specifi c name on the internet). Having a
specifi c contact means that person is more likely to reply. If you simply send
an e-mail/letter to a company’s general enquiries you will never get a reply.
Ask when it is convenient for you to call them back and then make sure you do
as we found that people didn’t ring back despite promising to.
Get the right people doing the calling, but also remind others who are more
reticent that the worst thing people can do is say no. In all my hassling of
people I no one was ever rude towards me.
With private institutions make contact before the end of the fi nancial year so if
you are successful EASA can be budgeted for. I lost count of how many times
I was told that we were too late as all budget had been assigned for that year.
With public institutions do a lot of research on deadlines and requirements.
The deadlines are invariably a long time prior to EASA so you have to start
researching as soon as you can. There is a whole range of institutions who will
give money to develop exchange within Europe for which EASA is a perfect
candidate.
People will often say they think they are interested in supporting EASA and
then they will never make contact or reply to you again.
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easa010 Final Report
Do not count on any money promised to you until it is in the bank.
The one yes that you get after all the rejections is an incredibly satisfying
feeling.
Try to up sell companies from the minimum cost once they have committed
to supporting EASA.
Have an up to date calendar of events to ensure you do not double book
lecturers.
Prepare a standard informative e-mail to distribute to lecturers as the assembly
approaches so that you know they have the correct location. This is because
people will not check their old e-mails and assume they haven’t been informed
and ring up and complain.
Be prepared to have some idea of lecture topics when talking to specifi c vested
interest groups.
Carefully consider which companies will be interested in different facets of
EASA. Obviously architecture is the main selling point, but it is also a lot of
students which is a big target audience for companies; building communities
which could appeal to national businesses based in the city/area; companies
that make a specifi c type building materials that they want ‘architects of the
future’ to be aware of; European development agencies who are very happy to
have so many people in one place, be they architects or not; local universities
keen to attract foreign students; local shops who want to appear cool and
trendy and so on. Basically you can twist EASA in many different ways to get
different products or types of support, and during times of economic trouble
you have to get quite creative and as much as it pains me to write such a
cliché: ‘think outside the box’
>>>>>> Partners
page 88
Section Two: Organising
[jfr]
Up to this point we have spoken at length about recession, team, tactics,
diffi culties and what not, so how about some straight forward examples? The
following are descriptions of sponsorship I worked on.
Partner status was reserved for institutions providing outstanding service,
sponsorship in kind and cash investment in excess of £10,000.
ASK Developments, as has been discussed previously, were involved from early
in the bid organisation. They provided us with free use of 43 Hulme Street,
the commercial rent on which stood at £50,000
per year, along with free parking for the offi ce.
Manchester School of Architecture, University of
Manchester (UoM) and Manchester Metropolitan
University (MMU) were included for their combined efforts. Due to the
Manchester School of Architecture being a joint course, caught between
the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University, it is
impossible to consider a venture undertaken by the school as independent -
this plaid to our advantage.
The School itself couldn’t fund us with cash, but they gave us fantastic moral
support, from the head to each head of year, meaning that we had fantastic
access to the students, who in turn had great freedom to be involved. We
were given a £1000 print budget for the build up to the assembly and a
further £1000 for the assembly itself and after. The School, as well as MMU
also gave us use of a number of spaces both in the build up and during
the assembly. The Vice Chancellor of MMU was very supportive of the event
and leant his political weight to gaining us support from the ‘who’s who’ of
Manchester and was instrumental in putting together our impressive stack of
A council is a lot of independent, interconnected departments, meeting with one department is not enough to gather all the information. Universities are the same, but each department is a separate business.
page 89
easa010 Final Report
No matter how hard it may seem there is cash out there to be got, and it’s not all about hard work to get hold of it, mostly it’s about being inventive and persistent.
letters of support for the bid. Having the VC backing was essential, thanks
to his letter of support alone I was able to secure all the AV equipment for
the assembly - Digital SLRs, Digital Video Cameras, tripods, digital sound
recording equipment and projectors. His backing was also pivotal in how the
assembly turned out and the efforts to relocate the sleeping accommodation.
Visit Manchester and Manchester City Council must also be considered
together. Once again neither were able to give us cash sponsorship but their
visible support elevated the organisation from student project to international
event. Gaining the support needed from the council came from aiming high
and rolling the support down. First we sent information packs and e-mails to
the Head of the council and the Leader of the council, between them the two
most important people in the city, and to be fair, far to busy to be hands on
with a small event like ours. Out of this I received a call from Peter Babb, head
of Planning for Manchester - here is
a man that every architect in the city
would like to have access to calling
me, he even came down to our bid launch to meet me and fi nd out about
EASA. From here I got meetings with the Events department, Cultural Strategy
and more. When it came to putting in planning permission for Downtex the
planning department and all relevant council departments put in a huge effort
to get is through in time - more on which in Chapter 7. In terms of direct
affect on the assembly we were given a Civic Reception in the Great Hall of
Manchester Town Hall and all the contacts we built up were important when
ever we approached anyone about using their space for EASA.
It is not my intention to explain the politics of Manchester, but suffi ce it to
say that the conurbation of Greater Manchester is split into ten metropolitan
boroughs. In many ways Manchester can be viewed as a twin city divided from
the City of Salford by the River Irwell. The political distinctions between the
two areas are not apparent to most visitors to Manchester so we decided early
on that for easa010 our defi nition for Manchester would be Grater Manchester
>>>>>> Cash
page 90
Section Two: Organising
but to avoid confusion would stick with the name of the city only.
I knew from EASA 2008 that the University of Salford had sponsored EASA -
£500 to have information included in the welcome pack - so I was confi dent
when I approached the School for the Built Environment that we would be
welcomed. We secured an initial £1,000 for the bid and the use of the
North West’s RIBA gallery for an evening. Following the bid we were in the
unfortunate position that the head of the school left and our replacement
contact had an unfortunate string of incidents which kept him out of work
for a signifi cant amount of time. Having turned the contact over to the fund-
raising team I was disappointed with the lack of progress and took up the
issue once more. After a series of e-mails I was able to reestablish contact and
after a couple of meetings - both at Salford and
at HQ they apologised for not being able to come
on as Partners, but offered £5,000 cash to secure
backer level. For this they received all the usual
coverage and it paved the way for a collaborative
day workshop during the assembly.
Not all sponsorship comes out of hard work on the part of the team - it is
worth ending each and every meeting by thanking who ever it is for meeting
with you and asking them to mention you to anyone that might be interested in
the assembly. For us this paid off in the shape of cold hard cash. Colin Pugh,
acting head of Manchester School of Architecture is also an active member of
the Standing Council of Heads of Schools of Architecture (SCHOSA). Though
the School couldn’t give us cash Colin took our case to SCHOSA who agreed to
fund us £2,000 on the proviso that we run some kind of event that they would
be interested in.
Which brings us to a UK only conference we ran in June. The quite remarkably
named United Kingdom Architecture Students Self Actuated Projects
Conference was a fi xture in our thinking of how to convert the energy of EASA
Remember, students are not the biggest spenders in the world, so they are not the juiciest market to sponsor. Work out how you can increase your visibility to other sectors.
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You stand the best chance of cash sponsorship is you work out in advance the audience they want to be seen by and tell them how you can achieve that.
in the UK into something permanent - more of which in Section Four. In our
proposal for the funding from SCHOSA the conference was outlined as the
primary outcome of their sponsorship. The conference was always going to
go ahead and for a long time we had been thinking about doing it for free
participation, but we changed our minds on this due to the miniscule support
showed by schools of architecture around the 4 countries that make up the
UK.
Having personally e-mailed every single school in the British Isles that ran
an accredited, or otherwise, course in architecture and posted out brochures
and letters to heads of around 30 of the top schools I had received in the
region of 5 replies, of which none were offering sponsorship (one school did
sponsor us, but that was prior to this push, and I am coming to that). So
instead I decided that we should charge for participation in the conference
and ask the students to approach
their schools for the money - which
worked, we squeezed a further £700
into the kitty, meaning the conference grossed £2,700 for an event we ran
completely in easaHQ and got free coffee for from the School of Architecture.
When looking for funding there are two ways to do it, the unsuccessful way is
to rely on peoples generosity and hope they give you money just for existing,
the other is to work out what they want and realise you are actually selling
something. To some you are selling a life style and some great photos -
Makita - to others you are selling visibility, and there are a number of EASA
staples that can do this.
The welcome pack is a very useful thing, it is guaranteed to enter the possession
of every participant, and is likely to return home with them too. Because of
this you can sell space within it. Though contacting Sheffi eld University I got
in conversation with the architecture department and with the help of one of
our team who was studying there convinced them of the virtues of EASA. We
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got £500 in return for information in the welcome pack.
Not everything in the welcome pack needs to be advertising space. A contact
of mine who works in a gallery was able to secure 1000 bottles of Vitamin
Water, 427 of which we gave out to participants on arrival.
When I talk about the ability of EASA to reach people I also put my money
where my mouth is. This year we were looking for a wristband sponsor,
and with the deadline looming for submitting the design to the fabricators
I seized the opportunity to gain some advertising for a contribution driven,
online, architecture publication - disparate magazine. Covering the cost of
fabrication, around £260.
Inventiveness in fund-raising can be expressed
in different ways, one way was to grab sponsors
interest with something they didn’t want, but have ready something they did.
In June it was clear that the fund-raising team had not been having success
approaching companies and convincing them to support EASA. I decided to
combine last minute fund-raising with two of my other tasks - the evening
lecture series and making sure the competition workshop happened. I
produced an alternative sponsor document with much more narrow bands of
options, a shopping list almost. For the lectures I was unwilling to jeopardise
the excellent quality of the content of the assembly so I went through the
highly useful RIBA product selector CPD (continued professional development)
lecture section to fi nd interesting companies, institutions and manufacturers
that might be interested in lecturing to ‘400 of the continents brightest, and
highly motivated young architects.’ I worked through the list asking to speak
to the marketing department and went from there. In the end this landed
£500 from the Stone Federation and £250 from Schindlers (lift manufactures).
For the competition I approached the UK’s largest manufacturer of plasterboard,
British Gypsum. Having created interest in the project I was told quite early
You stand a better chance of sponsorship in kind if you can take a product into an unfamiliar setting - a health drink to artists, for example.
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that they would support us with materials, what followed is quite a dull story
to recount in full - that doesn’t always stop me, so you know it must be - so
long story short, the initial contact went on holiday, I was passed around until
she got back, a heck of a lot of work was put in from her to fi nd us a local
supplier that we then need to set up an account for and the go ahead came 2
days before the assembly started and even then it took nearly a week to get
any on site.
Not all sponsor negotiations result in free money or goods, and as Joe before
me pointed out, you wont have much luck getting things for free for an event
from people who make their living from event organising, but you can negotiate
better deals for you by offering exposure and advertising. Two examples for
us were my negotiations with Illy coffee who loaned us all the equipment for
free and Kro catering who not only brought the cost of the evening meal down
from £5.99 per person to £3.50, but also stepped in during the move to offer
us a tremendous rate on beer to retail on their own premises.
To return to the question that must seem like a lifetime ago by now - ‘how
did we cope?’ Simply put we worked as hard on searching out the most cost
effective option at every turn whilst paying close attention to the core issues
of the assembly. If we had had twice as much money I doubt the assembly
would have been too much different, but maybe the organising might have
been a little more stress free.
[cma]
Apple
Approach
It became apparent from when we started reviewing the workshop applications
that there was a noticeable shift towards explorations and projects that were
much more reliant on ‘media’, - for want of a better word. Why this was I
can only speculate; whether a response to the theme and the various ways
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we represent our identity and that of our environs, or simply due to the
proliferation of new and emergent digital technologies.
It was clear we needed some top quality kit to supply some of the demands
being placed on us by the tutors. We needed, and wanted, a media suite,
somewhere in the middle of town so as to be best placed for access to the
other easa010 locations and the city as a whole. No big deal.
We were aware that Apple computers had sponsored a workshop in Ireland
back in 2008. Approaching previous sponsors had had mixed results, largely
depending on the relationship and lasting impressions between sponsor and
organising team. Due to the excellent documentary which was an outcome
of the workshop and stories of top-end systems, we guessed that it had
gone well. We got an e-mail address for the person who they had dealt with.
Interested that EASA was back in the UK, she put me in touch with her UK
counterpart, which resulted in a positive response.
What followed was a one way conversation for the best part of four months.
Weekly e-mails from myself asking for a response to my proposal were left
unanswered. Fearful of a phantom contact, and unreachable on LinkedIn and
the apple web site, I tried several combinations of his original e-mail address
until, Success! A response from a different domain! My relief was almost as
great as the joy and ease of the arrangement we came to in super quick time.
Within a week, three e-mails and a short telephone conversation, we were the
benefi ciaries of a fully spec-ed computer suite that far exceeded what we were
hoping for. What made the deal so pain free was that we were putting on an
event for people that were (one of) their key demographics - young creatives
who aren’t afraid to spend money on quality kit. And Apple were so confi dent
that there products were what the participants wanted that they didn’t want
any public recognition as a sponsor for the assembly. “The product would sell
itself”.
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Advice
Get what you are and what you do into the fi rst line of every contact or
greeting. Once I fi nally got into a voice conversation with the guy at Apple he
remembered seeing a forwarded copy of my fi rst e-mail to the Irish contact.
This positive reaction led to a (relatively) quick deal.
Be persistent. It took time to get where I needed due to technical errors/
oversight, but the action of not letting something drop if you want it enough
holds true
Be ingratiating until they give you an inch, then ask for a mile. I selfl essly put
the ball in their court, gave them a bit of time and information, told them why
they should help and what we could do for them. In truth, we would have been
happy with anything they could loan us. So when they asked what we wanted,
we told them, worked out to the ideal scenario. They came back to us with an
offer that was nearly ideal, so we were pretty lucky.
Talk early to the right people. Its possible to spend too much time and energy
talking/networking to people who will be of no use to you before the length of
the meeting. It’ll take time to learn who are the time-wasters. Make sure you
can take as well as give.
Hard facts
Loaned items:
x8 - MB953B/A: iMac 27” Core i5
x3 - Z0GP0B/A: MacBook Pro 17” i7
x2 - MC375B/A: MacBook Pro 13” 2.66
x2 - MC373B/A: MacBook Pro 15” 2.66
All with Creative Image (Apature, Final Cut Studio, Logic Studio) installed.
[ama]
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Chapter 12 - Communication
Any organisation, especially one with a network structure, would be foolish
to underestimate the central role of communication to everything they do. It
would be easy for me to talk at great length about the specifi c importance of
communication but I hope that the breadth and depth of this document alone
acts as a physical testament to the weight of value we place in it.
It may sound paradoxical for us as a team to state that we believe actions speak
louder than words, that it is easy to talk about things but more important to
do them, and that we wanted to make a statement with what we did rather
than keep talking after the event about what other people should do in the
future. But the communication we mean is not
simply talking, rather it is effectively passing
information. When you start small you need
experience to be shared with people before they are experienced.
Internal
Each area of the organisation has an associated coordinator. This allows
any member of the team to come up with ideas pertaining to any
aspect of easa010 and its build up. The organiser then, having checked
the relevant organising document, brings the idea to the coordinator
concerned. If the idea is feasible, that is to say doesn’t clash with other
work, the coordinator then creates debate within the whole team as to
whether the idea can and should be implemented. Tasks are allocated to
make the idea happen, and then it is the responsibility of those charged
with the tasks to see it happens.
To support communication within the team an account has been
created with social networking site Ning.com This site allows constant
debate and interaction over numerous subject matters. As befi ts
the organisation, nothing is ever decided on Ning it is seen as an
opportunity to fl oat ideas prior to completing a proforma and bringing it
to the relevant coordinator to discuss. Regular e-mails will be circulated,
and easaHQ itself will act as a hub for many discussions.
The importance of communication can not be overstated - it is the glue that holds any network together.
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Network
Individuals within the organising team are free to talk to members
of the network about all aspects of the organisation process, and are
encouraged to take an active interest in the EASA blog www.easa.tk It
is important to remember, though, that an element of the unknown can
improve the experience for participants of easa010.
easaUK2010 has an obligation as a future organiser to regularly report
to the network on progress. These reports start at the easa009 with the
fi nal one at easa011. Along with these presentations there are required
documents to be produced for informative purposes, such as tutor packs
and welcome guides. Further to this required output, easaUK2010 will
also be producing network specifi c information and content in the form
of short fi lms and network press releases. These will contain factual
information about Manchester, the UK and the theme, but will also allow
for organisers creative side to have an outlet.
External
From the start of the process of making easa010 in Manchester a
reality the organisation has worked within two watchwords: visibility
and believability. While it is important to gain visibility with potential
collaborators, it is equally important that all the out put for easaUK2010
be consistent. All situations of fi rst contact with potential collaborators
will be handled by experienced members of the team, supported by
standard information documents.
Media
In order to bring money into the organisation, easaUK2010 needs to
offer the collaborators something in return. As easaUK2010 won’t be
producing a commodity, the only thing that can be offered is visibility
in areas that they want to be seen. To do this we need to pay close
attention to the visibility we are generating for the event, organisation
and collaborators.
There are two sides to gaining profi le:
Internal: Generating our own media content is a simple way of raising
the profi le of easaUK2010. Through the web site and newsletters we
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can make sure that collaborators are up to date on the progress of the
organisation, as well as assuring them that their input into the event
is being broadcast to their contemporaries in the city and beyond.
Generating our own content also allows us to communicate, both in
house and to the wider network.
External: Gaining mainstream media attention will allow us to engage
people we don’t have direct contact with. This has two effects: it will
aid us in our aim to engage the population and residents of Manchester;
it will also allow potentially interested parties to become aware of
our work. Media attention will also be a useful tool when negotiating
with potential contributors about the level of attention their input will
receive.
Communication can be a very complex thing,
but once you start organising EASA you see soon
enough that the vast majority of your work - if
you’re doing it right - is talking to people, there
is not much autoCAD involved. Again, to help us simplify the task we broke
down the broad groups we would be talking to throughout the organising, and
then for each worked out what we would be communicating, from there we
were free to work out how to communicate with them.
Broadly communication broke into two groups, internal - people who know
what EASA is - and external - everyone else.
Team
For us effective communication within the team was essential. Having 40+
schools of architecture in the UK lead to a dispersed team to begin with,
added to that we had organisers working abroad for periods of the process
and even more complication is added with our open door policy for anyone in
EASA to get involved from wherever they were.
The importance of communication was two fold here, fi rst and most obvious
Before contacting anyone, think who they are, what they expect and what you want them to understand. The key to good communication is putting yourself in the other persons shoes.
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Remember that 90% of the time you want something from the other person, so build your communication around this.
was to pass information, second was to make sure everyone felt involved in
what was going on - knowledge is power, to limit what people in the team
knew, intentionally or otherwise, would leave them in a unequal position in
discussions and decision making.
The draw back with such a broad team to keep in touch with was that it could
generate an unearthly amount of e-mails. We constantly explored ways to
streamline the dissemination of information as well as promote discussion, it
wasn’t always easy and was ever changing, but on the whole the determination
to communicate overcame most problems.
To pick out just a few things we did:
Meetings. Meetings are the core for all communication in a team, in the end
everything comes down to face to
face, usually one on one, but getting
a large number of people together
in a room on a regular basis is the simplest, most effective way of keeping
involvement high.
Coordinators. We used coordinators throughout the organisation, the roles
were always open to being defi ned, introduced, refi ned, removed, replaced.
Coordinators were responsible for keeping a view on a set of related tasks -
such as fund rasing or the gallery - and relating the information at meetings,
it was a way of creating a node point for information so as to reduce the
amount of time spent explaining what was happening and more effi ciently
spreading information.
Ning. In some ways www.ning.com is like facebook, but importantly it is built
with small networks in mind. Free at the time we used it, it allowed team
members, while still far apart, to knock ideas back and forth, share online
sources and have light hearted banter. All important, but also important to
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keep out of more formal channels such as group e-mails.
Network
Our communication with the network, in our opinion, is split into two types,
presentations required by tradition and direct information about the assembly.
In terms of communication in presentations, there really isn’t anything very
new for us to say. For each we tried to be as honest as possible, we wanted to
give as many organisers as possible the chance to be part of the presentation
and to be slick without being too professional while also being entertaining
and fun.
For communication outside of presentations, we set the target early on of
being the most communicative organisation ever,
this was born out of a real desire for people to
feel as much a part of it before arrival as possible.
We felt that if people felt involved with the event
before they arrived they would take less time to
settle in and in turn would generate a real feeling
of community, a tough thing to achieve in just
two weeks, and something that wont happen without effort of all concerned.
External
As with internal communication, external communication split into two broad
types, collaborators - anyone we contacted directly to become involved in the
assembly - and the media.
Collaborators
EASA is a very large thing to explain, just look at this Final Report - believe
me this has been edited a lot - and this is just for one event. When talking to
collaborators, be they potential sponsors, contractors or talent, it is important
to remember a few things. First off EASA is a big thing, don’t try and explain
it all in one go, I must have explained EASA to hundreds of people and over
The majority of our communication to the network was with tutors, making sure we could provide materials, tools, talent and spaces they wanted. Our policy was that any communication from tutors went to the top of our to do list. Of course some tutors don’t get in touch nearly enough, and some you just can’t get rid of!
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I found the quickest way to explain what to expect form EASA in contrast to other conferences was to explain accommodation and duties - and that EASA wanted it that way.
time I developed an understanding of the things that get people hooked and
importantly what makes them understand what to expect. Start small, a one
line explanation of EASA, if they are interested a bit more, then a bit more. The
next thing to remember is EASA is not quite unique, but it is certainly unusual,
this applies to both EASA the network and EASA the event. This unusualness
is a double edged sword, but if you frame it right it should always be a benefi t
when meeting people for the fi rst time. Being unusual means that people will,
at fi rst, imagine it run how everything they are used to is run, explaining that
it is not is a pivotal moment, but a real opportunity. Explaining it is run as a
non-hierarcical network with no voting can put a lot of business people off,
explaining that this can be frustrating but is also one of the great reasons to
be involved as it gives a different perspective can get business people to think
a bit more about it - remember that EASA is fun, when they meet with you
they are having a meeting that is more fun than the rest of their working week.
Media
The media is the most tricky for an
event like EASA, it is unlikely that media coverage will translate into cash or
spaces directly, but it would be foolish to dismiss the overall impact of media
attention. Our approach was to generate media attention with the hopes that
the benefi ts would be felt by EASA 2011 - the more media they could point to
regarding easa010 the easier their period of believability building would be.
General
Having defi ned the types of and focus of communication there are some
mediums that cross the boundaries, this is communication material produced
by the team that is generally available to anyone. Our approach with this
material was to producing it specifi cally with sponsors in mind, not so much
the content of information, but the nature of the tone and language used.
Web site
The easa010 web site grew out of amateurish ready made blogs. Timed to
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Section Two: Organising
come online exactly one year before the assembly, easa010 backer AODL
built for us a site to our specifi cations, complimenting our graphics style at
the time, but it ultimately suffered from lack of updates. The fi nal iteration
of the web site, built in house, lacked some key information and due to being
built in fl ash could only be updated by one of the key organisers. Of course
this is zeroing in on faults, and a web presence is essential, especially with no
central EASA web site.
Newsletters
Another of the success stories were the semi regular newsletter updates.
Compiled as and when news worthy stories were available, the newsletter
were a way of keeping everyone, participants and sponsors alike, up to date
with progress of the team. More than this though they had the effect of
demonstrating a level of industry that was going on to get the assembly
organised. Another by product of the newsletters was the mailing list they
were sent to - more than once sponsors positively commented on the people
who were on our newsletter mailing list.
[cma]
By defi nition a web site is essential should you want to display information
to a worldwide audience, and is the easiest, but not the best, way of telling
people who you are, what you do, and why you do what you do.
The easa010 web site went through a number of evolutionary steps, at
signifi cant times during the organisation. It started as a modest blog,
primarily for the network with information on the founding and establishment
of easa010 in Manchester. A more expanded blog was launched exactly a year
before easa010, with added content, information and links that was constantly
being updated through that time of rapid development and change.
In the new year came a new look and a change in the layout - intended for
easier navigation to the relevant information - in time for the SESAM and the
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fi nal 6 month countdown to easa010.
This fi nal iteration was a massive undertaking. Rewriting the web site, with
a bloated content of information and news on our events, developments, and
releases to tutors, NCs and participants in a new language from scratch is
only for the brave, and, as it turned out, the foolhardy. Although the site was
custom made and had the easa010 design structure, it was, in hindsight, too
big a task for one person with limited skills and resources. This sometimes
slowed the fl ow of information and small front-end tweaks actually involved a
lot of back-end re-edit and work.
My advice is to keep it simple. We tried to do too much with one site. A
combination of rich media and simple text information ended up losing focus
and pulling focus from each other. If I were to do it again, I would build a site
that was dedicated to the gallery and our smaller, offshoot events, which could
have loads of rich media and inter activity within it, and a separate site for
the ‘business’ end of easa010: the assembly itself, information for sponsors,
participants, tutors, etc. These would be heavily linked and integrated, perhaps
under sub-domains of a top-level domain, for example: www.easauk.net and
hub.easauk....
A twitter account was set up for easa010 as means to expand its Internet
presence. While unused for a few months at the beginning - let’s be honest,
no-one really knew what to do with Twitter - it was kicked into life during
the INCM in Liechtenstein as an attempt to document the event. From then
onwards, it was used as a tool to quickly provide information and news about
easa010 and our various other events. With the development in the web site,
sometimes it took a longer than anticipated for information to be available, so
a tweet or two was a valid stop-gap.
It was also useful as it brought us in direct communication with a different
sector of the Internet. It has been widely documented that Twitter has had
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Section Two: Organising
a slower uptake and is used less by ‘younger’ web-users (roughly 16-25).
This happens to be the EASA age range, more or less, so messages posted
on Twitter weren’t necessarily read by the network. Instead, local businesses,
creative people, and Manchester’s art and design scene were using Twitter.
So we could target messages that perhaps they wouldn’t look for or read on
our web site, but pick up on their smart phone. This came in handy when
promoting our gallery events, and communicating with the various people we
were collaborating with in Manchester and further afi eld.
[ama]
Site Visitors - World Map (Europe missing)
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Site Visitors - European Map (UK missing)
page 106
Section Two: Organising
UK site visitors
IRE BUL FIN TUR BLRESPI TA HUN NOR
Site Visitor comparison with top 10 countries
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facebook.comsesam.co.uk
easa.tkgoogle
Direct 29.8% 35.3% 34.9%ReferralS earch Engine
Browser contribution to total visits
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 13 - Events
Prior to deciding to bid Paul and I discussed a number of issues, one was the
amount of effort that organising teams put in compared to the experience
they get out of it, 2 1/2 years of organising and the event whizzes by in 2
weeks. This was a particular problem for us because of the nature of the team
- we would be relying on bringing people in as organisers who had never been
to EASA before so wouldn’t know quite what they were letting them selves
in for, or what they would be getting out of it. We decided that the obvious
way to get around this was to reconsider what it means to be a host nation of
EASA, we decided to take it as a once in lifetime opportunity and to make the
most out of it - put simply we decided that in the run up to easa010 we would
run a number of build up events.
As well as providing the organisers with
interesting things to look forward to, these events provided the means to
achieve a number of things that were at the core of the ideals of easaUK2010.
It was our opinion that EASA has had a history of landing in a location for
two weeks bringing a huge amount of energy and generating interest and
then leaving. These events would allow us to work with interesting people in
artistic community before the assembly, meaning we could build a reputation
for achieving what we set out to do and therefore be more believable when
discussing collaboration for easa010.
Bringing EASA to Manchester opened the door of many important people’s
offi ces, we saw easa010 as an umbrella and platform for Manchester to take
advantage of, though working with people we could fi nd out their values and
from there put them in the consciousness of others and even pass on contact
details - we were operating in both the art circles and boardrooms.
Hosting events allow integration with members of different sections of the
Manchester population, and provide profi le for sponsors that EASA doesn’t
Events played a key role in helping us achieve both Integration and Legacy - two of our four pillars of the bid.
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easa010 Final Report
naturally have while also improving the profi le of EASA to aid recruiting new
sponsors.
As mentioned already they provided a creative outlet for members of the
organising team and will broke up the organisation process with fun events
- they allowed the team the chance to do things that normally we wouldn’t.
Documenting the event is responsibility of the event organiser and as
such should be considered during the planning stage. Documentation
allows the organisation to present events that have been held so far to
prospective sponsors whilst also recording the events for posterity.
Documentation will usually take the form of photographs and video
footage. This will be fi led on the offi ce hard drive in accordance with
guidance on fi ling. When documenting events it is important to consider
the merit of the footage being recorded. Whilst a lot of coverage can be
required to capture all aspects of an event, having a lot of images on fi le
for one event will generate future work for organisers having to decide
which are relevant for use. As a guide something in the region of 300
photographs for an event will normally, depending on quality, be enough
for most purposes.
Beyond internal documentation of events it is important to generate
general media interest in the events with the result of getting media
coverage for all easaUK2010 events. Mainstream media attention is
useful to the organisation as it is a tangible result that lends further
credibility to EASA.
Events were proposed by any member of the organising team at any time.
The fi rst event that we took part in was the offi cial opening of a new pubic
space in the Ancotes region of Manchester. The event organisers set up a
web site for ideas to be posted and then voted on. Realising the opportunity
to be involved we posted an idea - Faceless Identity - based on the theme
for the summer assembly. Having submitted the idea we mobilised the EASA
>>>>>> External
Organisers document: 050
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Section Two: Organising
network through promotion on the blog and also by setting up a dedicated
facebook page, on top of this we promoted the vote through our newsletters
and the web site. Within 7 days, despite entering over a month after the other
contenders, we were the number one rated idea on the web site and were
invited to take part in the day. The experience allowed us to demonstrate the
numbers behind us on the continent, and it helped us realise the amount of
work needed to get people to vote. The event itself was a good introduction
to working with others - long discussions were required to wrangle who would
get the boxes for the event. And we even got our selves in the paper, albeit a
passing mention, more than 12 months before the assembly.
Run up events also gave us a trial run in contingency, and planing for things
that may go wrong. At a preview evening for an exhibition I was approached
by the organiser of Future Everything, an international conference that had
been running in Manchester for 15 years. He was interested in what we were
doing and we discussed how EASA could be involved in the upcoming Future
Everything event. After lots of meetings, e-mails and ohone calls we were in a
position where EASA was collaborating with three other parties on the project,
but it was clear time was against us and many things remained unclear -
the critical thing became making sure we could walk away from the project
with our reputation intact. It was vital that there was a paper trail available,
e-mails and minutes from discussions, showing clearly what we had agreed to
matched with what we had delivered.
As already mentioned, when we moved into easaHQ it was clear the space
could be divided between the need for offi ce space and the opportunity of
gallery space and therefore the ability to host our own events. After deciding
to open the gallery we discussed the kinds of exhibitions it should be available
for - what did easaHQ Gallery stand for? We moved into the offi ce in March
2009, around 1 1/2 years after the decision to bid, so 1 1/2 years into
the process of organising EASA. In this time we had met many people as
passionate about the city of Manchester and the art community as we were,
Exhibitions <<<<<<
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A full list of exhibitions held at easaHQ is available in Section Five - Appendices
but we had not been really able to connect on a level more than as visitors to
a gallery - outsiders - HQ gave easa010 the chance to become embedded in
the scene in Manchester. Our own experiences of gaining a foothold, being
taken seriously and looking for spaces gave us fi rst hand knowledge of the
diffi culties in the modern world dominated by market forces for emerging
artists to get a fi rst exhibition without experience. We also knew that without
a reputation we would struggle at fi rst to attract exhibitions to the space.
For all these reasons we decided that the gallery would be free to use, but
exhibition priority would be given to Architecture, community groups and
emerging art talent, the space was not to be used by established artists or for
commercial purposes.
The decision not to charge for use of the space also insulated us from the
possibility of contractual problems with either the exhibitor or the landlord.
When you start charging for something
you create the situation of customer
and service provider, and as a student
team with no experience of running a gallery and our attention fi rmly on the
summer assembly it would is reasonable to expect some hiccups along the
way, so providing the space for no charge left us free to focus on the assembly.
Our agreement with ASK was based on the idea that the space was being
used to organise EASA not to generate income, though all the money would
have been going to the assembly any attempts to create revenue though HQ
itself would have left us in a vulnerable position and would have damaged the
reputation of our words.
Architecture
If you build it (t)he(y) will come. Not true, a gallery without exhibitions will
remain that way, the best way to advertise a new gallery space is to host
events there and promote them. Being students of architecture Tom and
I both knew the demand for spaces outside of the School’s 3 fl oors of the
Chatham tower for exhibitions and events - so we started with our contacts
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Section Two: Organising
there. We hosted the 2008 Manchester School of Architecture event month
exhibition, which was also the closing party for the Manchester Architecture
and Design Festival. Following EASA 2008 we hosted the [Re]Map 590 BArch
unit book launch as well as the MA fi nal exhibition.
Emerging Art Talent
In absolute truth the exhibitions varied wildly in both quality and hassle factor,
but each one brought its own merit to the process. Through easaHQ some
artists were able to exhibit for the fi rst time while some gained experience
of curating. Through the exhibitions we met many interesting people, some
became involved in EASA, others spread the word of what we were doing, some
taught us the benefi ts of collaborating and some showed us the potential
pitfalls.
When we moved into HQ we had some pretty big ideas - moving into your own
offi ce will do that - but so did our landlord. It may have been our intention to
paint the building, but it was Julian’s insistence that drove it to happen. Julian
told us that 13,500 vehicles passed the round-a-bout situated next to HQ on
their way in to the city centre and as many went back the other way - that is
a lot of people to see the building every day, and an indication as to why so
many people knew the location of our offi ce so easily.
We decided that instead of simply designing a new paint job for the building
we would open it up to the EASA network and beyond. This meant producing
a brief, making a competition info pack and promoting it on sites like bustler.
The competition info pack was downloaded over 1,500 times and we had
interest from fi ve continents. We set up a judging panel and drew up a
short list for them to see. After deliberation a winner was chosen and the
announcement was made at our fi rst exhibition / house warming in easaHQ
complete with candles and home made cake.
Following the decision we entered into the legality of the design - we needed
Painting competition <<<<<<
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to gain advertising consent, a version of planning permission. With minimal
tweaking to the submitted design we submitted the drawing and the fee (there
is always a fee) and permission was granted. Painting began, and let me tell
you painting white walls white is a drag, but not so much as painting hundreds
of perfect squares in grid formation. A special mention for organisers Miles
Reay-Palmer and Emma Uncles is due at this point for their fortuity and
stubbornness to get it done.
It’s clear that the experience of running this competition gave us great
experience for running the workshop competitions of Hope Mill and
Docu+Mation.
In 2009 the Manchester Architecture and Design Festival announced the
model of that year’s festival would be strikingly similar to that of easa010 -
work done by students of architecture would be displayed in city centre public
space. Our intention was always to inspire this kind of response in the city,
but the team felt that with the festival happening a matte of months before
easa010 it would be good for EASA UK to be involved and therefore avoid the
appearance of stealing what in reality was our own idea.
The support of the school was critical and, once again, fantastic. Both Colin
Pugh and Head of First Year and event month coordinator Helen Aston were
accommodating and as a team we were invited to tutor two workshops.
Alex Maxwell and I tutored a workshop called ‘Spatial Propaganda’ and
was run in, where else, easaHQ. The workshop looked at the importance
of communication and the relationship with architecture. Students watched
exerts from fi lms and worked on videos to express a single aspect of a building.
[cma]
A lot of people we were, and wanted to collaborate with were involved in the
Manchester School of Architecture event month. Our major collaboration on
>>>>>> Workshops
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Section Two: Organising
this front was working with the university to produce 2 workshops with 1st
and 2nd year students from the school. There were 20 or so other workshops
too, run by masters students, kind of like easa. We used easaHQ to host the
workshop sessions, which were once a week for a month. Chris and Alex ran
a workshop about Branding, whilst Tom and I a workshop about narratives in
architecture. The outputs were exhibited at the climax of the event month at
Manchester’s CUBE gallery. As well as networking with people who could help
us for the summer assembly, this was also a great way to speak to students
about easa, who would quite often let it slip past them, we corralled some
volunteers. The overall experience was refreshing to a team under a lot of
stress, and reminded me of why I wanted to
organise easa010 in the fi rst place, and there was
a lot of free wine that month.
[pfa]
So far we have been to extrapolate lessons and benefi ts from events run
tangentially to the organisation of easa010, but we also ran two events aimed
solely at the network.
In February EASA UK hosted a SESAM in Manchester. The SESAM ranks up
there with our best ideas during the organisation process. SESAM allowed
us to do a lot of the things that would be required in organising EASA but
with a much more manageable number of people - time tabling, promoting,
applications, getting fees, organising food.
SESAM also gave the newer members of the team the opportunity to take
responsibility and the established ones to hand it over. We decided that
running the SESAM would be the second year’s of the team with the older
members available only for advice and support if called upon. In many ways
this was a sink or swim scenario, but we reasoned that if the worse happened
getting dinner for 12 people was a fi nancial pain, but not fi nancially crippling
Though out the planning and discussion of all events, the summer assembly must always be considered the priority and central to your thinking.
EASA <<<<<<
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A full review of SESAM is available in Section Five - Appendices
as it would be with 400 people here.
SESAM really gave an opportunity to get a feel for the things you can anticipate
but until you go through it wont know for sure, like what it is like to anticipate
people’s arrival, or to have a group of people depending on you for every
aspect of their day.
We knew we weren’t the fi rst team to run a SESAM in the same year as an EASA,
Italy did so the previous year, but what we did differently was the scale and
purpose. I would recommend all organising teams to run a small international
event in the run up to the assembly, but limit the size or the effort put into
the organisation could leave you jaded for the real thing. The injection of
EASA spirit that only comes from being around EASA people (free from the
pressures of organising) makes it worth it on its own.
The workshop of SESAM was entitled
‘First Sight’ and focused on the preconceptions and fi rst impressions of
EASA participants in Manchester. Over the course of two days of walking
tours the participants were shown the glossy council brochure sights of the
city and then taken on back ally tours by born and bread Mancunians. The
out put from the workshop was a piece of installation art to be included in
‘EASA an Exhibition’ at easaHQ, the fi nal day of the SESAM coincided with the
preview night of the exhibition attended by many of our partners, backers and
prospective sponsors. The added attraction of having EASA participants from
the mainland was a great draw and it proved to be one of our most successful
exhibitions.
[cma]
A SESAM (small European schools of architecture meeting) was organised
during the winter for several reasons.
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- It would serve as a proving ground for us as on organizational team, testing
the systems and methods we had put in place and the infrastructure, events
and workshops - albeit on a much smaller scale - that we were planning on
scaling up for the summer assembly. We had to go through every process
that we would have to do before the summer. Starting with looking for
accommodation, organising the catering, and formalising the workshop with
its tours and guides around Manchester that complemented and informed it.
Also the participants’ process was very enlightening. From devising the forms
and promoting the event, through to dealing with applications and questions,
communicating with embassies and the foreign offi ce over visa applications
and requirements, it was a hugely valid learning tool.
- The event was also held as a precursor to a large
retrospective exhibition about EASA that we were
putting on in the easaHQ gallery. Featuring lots
of archive material and showcasing all the work the organisers had done up
until that point, it was a chance to show the city of Manchester what we were
about, what we were doing, and how they could be a part of it going forward.
The SESAM workshop was given a room of the gallery, and occupied it with
the output of their week long workshop. The brief and theme for the SESAM
was ‘fi rst sight’. It was an opportunity for us as organisers to expose a small
group of European students, a mix of those with EASA experience and those
completely fresh, to Manchester, to a preview of easa010 and to our approach
to organising a summer assembly.
- It was also intended that the SESAM would introduce those members of the
organising team who had had no direct experience yet with EASA to get a feel
for the atmosphere and feeling generated during an EASA event.
- We, perhaps I, had hoped that it would give an opportunity to those in the
team who had not yet really engaged in the organisation process to take a
SESAM was planned, among other things, as a way to test ourselves before the main event. The feedback from participants was generally very positive.
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Following the SESAM the team held a special review meeting and a Final Report for the SESAM was drawn up, it is available in Section Five
leading role in the preparation and see the project through to its completion.
Unfortunately this didn’t happen to near a level I had hoped, and I oversaw
much of the organisation myself. I don’t want this to sound self-deprecating,
I was happy to take on the work and have no complaints, just that it was an
opportunity for someone to step up and no-one did. Perhaps it was I who
stepped up as my attitude and level of commitment noticeably changed after
the SESAM. Saying this, when the event started there were very noticeable
contributions from a few of the team, while everyone was involved in the set
up of the exhibition.
Some constructive criticism that came out from the weak long event was that
our involvement in the actual workshop was very minimal, and that we took a
backseat approach to its application. Considering the effort we had put into
this, and what the output meant to the exhibition this could be seen as very
valid. We put in a lot of effort into
the last week before the exhibition
opened, which took our team away
from the SESAM until the evening. Ways to overcome this are two-fold. Prepare
the bulk of the exhibition before hand, and put aside an amount of the team
to run/coordinate/take part in/be with the participants. Unfortunately we
were bound by when we had access to archive resources, so it was a case of
all hands on deck when we got them.
[ama]
Where the SESAM was outward looking and engaged the existing EASA network,
we also ran a conference that was inward looking to the UK with the intention
of starting the process of creating a network of Students of architecture here
in the UK. The quite remarkably named United Kingdom Architecture Students
Self Actuated Projects Conference was a fi xture in our thinking of how to
convert the energy of EASA in the UK into something permanent - more of
which in Section Four.
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Though the organisation of easa010 we had the opportunity to go through the
EASA archive giving us an interesting insight into the history of the assembly,
and we met many UK participants from days gone by. Though these two
things we learned a lot, particularly about the UK involvement, that hadn’t
been passed on in the traditional word of mouth manner that EASA runs on.
We found that EASA began as an off shoot of the UK based winter school series
- a much used name, but in this instance it was driven by the founders of
EASA in a similar style to EASA. We found out that 1991 wasn’t the fi rst INCM,
that there was a record of autumn meetings as far back as the fi rst year of
the assembly - 1981, when it was held in Delft, where it was decided to make
EASA an annual event.
Where as EASA went from strength to strength winter school slowly lost
momentum when the original personalities left, it stuttered along until the
late nineties but the fi nal one was held in 2000, and since then there has been
no student for student movement in the United Kingdom.
Having spoken to a number of Heads and Professors around the country as
well as the huge UK team put together to organise EASA it became clear that
the appetite for the resurrection of this kind of network matched the clear
need for it, so as a fi rst step we decided to host a small conference.
The conference consisted of a day of seminars run by the directors of
easaUK2010 Ltd as we fi rst went through the importance of running events for
yourself of all scales from a workshop to an international architecture festival,
and then drew on our own experiences to pass on advice on how to achieve
these things.
The conference helped the main organisers to focus their understanding, it is
one thing to know what you are doing but it is only when you try to explain it
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to someone else that you become critical of your own methods.
[cma]
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Chapter 14 Spaces
Up until this point we have talked at length about the process of organising
easa010, this chapter will cover all the aspects of the assembly itself and the
work that went into making them happen.
Organisation is a process of give and take, the only way to make progress is
to set out your objectives at the very start and work around the possibilities
and restrictions that occur in the pursuit of your vision. No where else is this
approach more critical than in the choice of location and the following search
for spaces for the assembly.
Our main driving point for decisions was the desire
to move away from the ‘ideal’ EASA mind set, and
the idea that there was some golden formula for
the perfect EASA that could be transferred, year on year, from country to
country. This meant handling every decision with care and attention, but we
believed that the reward would be a summer assembly unique to the location
and therefore unacceptable and hopefully unforgettable for all involved.
Early in the organisation process we realised that this constantly questioning
approach could lead to a lot of naval gazing and slow progress, so when it
came to looking for spaces our approach can be explained (yet again) by using
the four pillars of the bid, for each we will look at the positive and negatives
thrown up.
Urbanity
Inspired by the experience of EASA in the city in 2006 the decision to hold the
assembly in an urban location was essentially the fi rst decision we made, the
second being which city.
The decision of location was the single most critical decision for
“I want to walk out of the door and be in the middle of the city” pfa 2008
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the success of the assembly. With the whole of the United Kingdom
available as a potential location a number of key factors were focused
on.
The organisation team decided very early that the event should be held
in one of the UK’s many vibrant cities to showcase most fully what
contemporary UK has to offer. It was also felt that an urban environment
would be more stimulating for the production of what we are
determined will be a successful and inspiring assembly. Immediately
Manchester was singled out as the ideal location to host an event of this
type for numerous reasons.
The city enjoys inspiring past, among many other things Manchester
was the birthplace of the industrial revolution and later played
an integral role in the information revolution, where better to
bring architecture students to inspire them towards the future of
architecture?
Manchester also enjoys a healthy status on the world stage, with the
recent hosting of the commonwealth games and both major UEFA
club football fi nals. Finally and possibly most importantly Manchester
was seen as a positively minded city, with a track record of supporting
events, that would embrace the EASA community and show the
ambition required to live up to the expectations and efforts the
organisers are investing in bringing this internationally respected event
to England.
Among the negative of hosting EASA in a city are: raised visibility to the
authorities, more potential neighbors and therefore problems from creation of
noise, there will always be other things going on in the city you must compete
with for funding and fi nally the classic from INCM discussions - a city offers
distractions that participants may fi nd hard to resist. In honesty we probably
put more effort into understanding the complexities of planning an event
like this in an urban setting than we did looking at the positives, naturally so
because they need more attention to deal with, but organising in a city does
come with substantial benefi ts compared to rural or small town locations.
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Mostly the positives come down to choice and competition, there is a greater
fl exibility of services available so its possible to shop around and drive down
prices, there are back up options incase - as happened with us - contractors
and suppliers let you down at the last moment, there is a real depth of talent
to draw on, for participants it is much simpler to get to, and there are more
options for events on the timetable.
Density
The point of this pillar was to keep EASA feeling like EASA, without density it
would be easy for 400 students to be swallowed up by a city of 1,000,000.
When looking for spaces density was not the top of our priorities, it was
something we had to discuss at regular intervals as our portfolio of spaces
grew, changed, and contracted until we had our fi nal solution.
Integration
We decided that more comfortable EASA experiences come when you know
your stuff is safe, because of this we always wanted the accommodation
spaces to be closed to the public, how then do you achieve integration. As
with density, integration was something we discussed as it became clear
which buildings we would be using, and as almost the opposite of density the
two were considered as balancing forces, creating an acceptable trade off of
density to achieve integration.
Legacy
In terms of spaces legacy was the least impacting of the four pillars, but as
you will see in Part Four: Output the spaces we occupied have a huge impact
on legacy.
Having worked out our requirements we needed to fi nd spaces, which sounds
simple - fi nd a building, talk to the owners, strike a deal. It is as simple as
that, but there are a few other things we kept in mind. It had always been
our intention to have the accommodation and workshop spaces in place when
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Section Five: Appendices contains a glimpse of an alternate reality, two alternative easa010s that could have been.
we went to bid, we had 12 months to work on it until that point, and that
would give us a year and 9 months to organise everything else. At the time
of the bid we thought we had reached a pretty solid understanding that we
would be able to use a building in Ancotes - Hope Mill - and that’s the bid we
submitted. Unfortunately almost at the same time as the bid, it became clear
the people we were dealing with couldn’t make the assurances we needed.
This left us with no spaces at all, but we were not to worried at this point. Way
back at the bid stage we reasoned that there were three windows in which we
would be able to get hold of spaces and in each we stood a better chance of
getting what we wanted, one was at the bid stage - around two years before
easa010, the second was 12 months before, as companies move in to the
same operational year as the assembly they would be better placed to make
the decision of use, and the fi nal - though scary - window would be in the
three months before the assembly. We had success of some kind in all of
these windows.
Our approach for looking for spaces
started with us talking to major developers, we then moved on to having
many, many meetings with various people in the council at fi rst to ask for
buildings, but in the end to ask for simple advice and suggestions. Paul and
I walked every inch of the city centre noting empty, disused or even just large
buildings, we’d then start the hunt though public records to fi nd the owners
and contact them in the hopes of securing the space.
In the end we got hold of and used a huge variety of spaces, but there were
more that we secured and didn’t use, and there is the third category of spaces
we were offered, had planned on, and subsequently lost - an indication of how
we learned to cope for what was to come during the assembly.
[cma]
No spaces, No easa.
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An EASA with multiple sites was necessary in our case. To have acquired
a campus big enough to host the entire assembly, would have resulted in
easa010 Manchester, not being in Manchester at all.
By having Downtex as our hub, we tried to keep the communal and homely
feel that easa does so well. At the same time participants would be able to get
out into the city exploring on the way to their workshops. The location of the
major sites was not strategic, but ended up triangulating the entire city. The
weekend events changed this, and I will talk about that in due course.
On the whole, you should start gathering the spaces you need early. However,
don’t panic if you are reading this the month before are short of one or two.
Spaces you acquire from private companies will be a lot easier to negotiate the
closer to the assembly they are. As for spaces from the council/municipality,
these should be booked early as spaces in the calendar will fi ll up.
We rented the Downtex from 1st June - 1st September. We found the building
in mid may and as soon as we had the keys the assembly felt very real. People
in the UK weren’t very respective to the idea of 400+ students sleeping in their
buildings. We thought at fi rst we would be able to persuade some forward
thinking property owner or council member into helping us fi nd a building,
and we’d be able to get it for free. This became a big time waster (despite
actually getting one two days after signing for Downtex). Using our contacts
to get information and more contacts was the way to go for us. Downtex was
well located and affordable so we went for it, despite it needing a lot of work.
Hope Mill, the home of all the built workshops, was made possible by a
mutually benefi tting offer, the design competition. The owner of the building,
David French was keen on the idea easa as it would help to put the mill
more on the Manchester arts map, a market they were moving into. The big
downstairs rooms used for the majority of the workshops are normally rented
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easa010 Final Report
out at cost. By putting the same money into the studio conversion competition
we got the downstairs space and the chance to hold an international design
competition which would bring a lot of press and sponsorship opportunities,
and importantly bring an architectural element into being an organiser. He
got studios built and designed by architects. Win Win. EASA has lots to unique
things to give, not normally lots of money.
Hive was a last minute and vital addition. This kind of space was created for
events like easa, so they were great to work with and didn’t charge us. It acted
as overfl ow for classroom activities and provided us with a genuine gallery to
exhibit work in, great for visibility.
Madlab was the home for the media workshops, and very close to The Hive, so
the two site worked well together allowing the limited number of computers to
be shared. The building is normally a research facility for digital technology.
People like this were all interested in easa and the prospect of working with
architects, it was lucky to meet one with the keys to an offi ce.
easaHQ was home to all the organiser for a year either side of the assembly,
and for the event itself with the volunteers. Having somewhere completely
of your own was invaluable. It really did, and still does feel like home. This
was leant to us rent free by a big Manchester property develop, ASK?. Having
an offi ce space to yourselves keeps easa separate (to an extent) from your
personally and professional/university life. The building also functioned as a
gallery for students and young artists to help us promote ourselves prior to
the summer assembly.
After the eviction from Downtex, the Sugden Centre became the easa sleeping
accommodation. To get this at such short notice was one of the biggest
achievements of the organising team, and proof of the saying “its not what
you know, its who you know”. The situation wasn’t ideal, as participants had
to be out of the gym by 10:00 every morning, but as the space was cleaner
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Section Two: Organising
and more spacious than Downtex there weren’t too many complaints. This
lack of possibility to sleep in the day resulted in an unprecedented level of
workshop attendance, and in my opinion one of the major reasons easa010
workshop standard was so high.
After the suspension of the alcohol licence KRO2 became the easa bar. This
was again fortunate, as our caterers owned this bar and were happy to let us
buy their beer and sell it for a profi t. This helped ease cash-fl ow diffi culties
incurred by losing our own bar. The close proximity to the Sugden centre that
KRO2 had helped to keep hub feeling we originally planned for, albeit in a
different part of the city.
Getting between all these different spaces was
extremely time consuming for the organisers.
Three of the four main organisers were the
only people insured to drive the two easa vans. This was due to the age and
lack of licences of the less involved members of the organising team. This
resulted in three of the most knowledgeable people being behind the wheel
for the majority of the working day, which is defi nitely not advisable to future
organisers.
The morning bus ran 3 times between 09:20 and 10:20 to take participants
to the most distant workshop site, Hope Mill. We saw this as essentially for
the success of the workshops, due to the distance and the possibility of rain.
[pfa]
At the time of booking the club visited on the fi rst night out in the city - Sankeys Soap - had been rated as the No.1 club in the world by Mix Mag.
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Chapter 15 - Timetable
Planning out the timetable for easa010 was a delicate operation, the timetable
for an EASA can never be refi ned it can only ever achieve the status of best fi t.
For 2010 we had a couple of really long meetings at key stages - the times
we had accommodation in place - to set out some preferential options, we
decided that there would be no lectures opposite workshops, for example,
so instead we would have dinner lectures to complement a lecture day at the
start. We realised there would be a draw with participants to go and see what
the city had to offer, so it was decided to start with walking tours and to have
a number of nights out in the fi rst week, this worked also with having more
nights in during the second week once people were fully in the fl ow of the
event, and wanted more parties together.
With these main thoughts in place, and once the
accommodation was confi rmed, the rest of the timetable came together as
places and people were either booked or declined. From this point the thought
was about the experience of the participants. The fi rst day was dedicated to
orientation and getting settled in, there was the fi rst meetings and a welcome
talk with safety advice, the night was planned as DJs from the organising team
playing UK only music as a welcome.
The second day was for the workshop presentation in the morning and
stretching of legs with walking tours in the afternoon, rounded off with the
offi cial opening with the civic reception in the town hall, that night back at the
accommodation was the UK evening - intended to dig a little deeper into the
cultures of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than people might
have known before.
Day 3 started was the lecture day during the morning and early afternoon,
after which was the workshop fair, having workshop presentations the day
before was intended to give participants as much time as possible to discuss
With 24 workshops 5 minutes each is 2 hours, meaning presentations run to an unkindly tight schedule.
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The results of the decisions can be read in Section Three.
options and make a decision. That night was the fi rst club night. On Tuesday
the workshops started, and for many (me included) this traditionally marks the
real start to EASA, and from here on out there was a rhythm to the timetable.
Worth mentioning is the timing of Day workshops, we avoided having them on
the fi rst day as we wanted everyone to attend workshops that day, and we also
avoided having any on the fi nal two workshop days.
The most striking difference of easa010 to recent EASAs was it’s urban location
which gave us an opportunity to re-imagine the traditional end of EASA
exhibition and in turn redefi ne the attitude to the workshops, thus easaDAY
was born. We decided that we would use the fi nal day of the assembly to take
over public locations, both indoor and out, for a city wide exhibition of work
from the assembly.
To do this we needed to work on a
number of things at the same time,
we obviously needed indoor spaces and permission to use public outdoor
spaces. I met with various members of the council to fi nd out who specifi cally
we needed to approach to gain permission, I even set up a collaborative build
up event so we could get the relevant experience of the process - a good
decision as the build up event fell through due to insurance issues and a
compression of time. Other build up events had allowed us to network with
various artists and gallery owners which, with the usual number of false starts,
allowed us to make some good connections for indoor spaces to use on the
day - more on the spaces later in the chapter.
Just as importantly we also needed to work carefully and closely with the
workshop tutors in order for them to get a relevant space for their output,
it was important that we didn’t dictate to the workshops where they should
be, but likewise we wouldn’t necessarily be able to secure their fi rst choice
location, this is one reason we held the workshop application deadline as
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early as possible. Once we’d chosen the workshops we invested a lot of time
talking to the tutors via e-mail and face to face to workout issues such as
spaces and materials.
[cma]
easaDAY most certainly goes into the list of very good ideas - it generated a lot of interest in the assembly overall and allowed us to give something to the city.
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Chapter 16 - TalentThe issue of talent - people giving lectures, walking tours etc - would have a
signifi cant impact on the feel of the assembly and therefore required careful
consideration. The selection of Mancunian lecturers, for example, would
allow us to consolidate the feeling of integration between the event and the
location, but we felt we needed a good balance to this in order to achieve the
other goals of the assembly, such as leaving slots free for participants to sign
up for, both to give evening lecturers, or to arrange evening entertainment.
Through various discussions on individual parts, such as lectures, parties etc
we decided on the key aspects to achieve in the selection of talent for and the
associated planning of each event on the timetable.
Variety - We for lectures we didn’t want an endless
parade of Architect’s talking their buildings,
lovely as they might be. Architects would be invited, but we would seek out
others with something to say.
Identity - As far as possible events should at least intend to relate to the
theme. Obviously this would be less so with evening entertainment, perhaps
20% of the nights, but a lot more with the lectures, around 60%.
Manchester - Where possible we wanted to give people a feeling that the
assembly was very defi antly Mancunian, we wanted to keep the soul of the
assembly untouched but to provide a nonhomogeneous, new experience. To
do this we planned about 33% of the nights to be in the city, along with a
UK music theme to the fi rst night in, we also approached Mancunians and
Manchester practitioners to make up about 50% of the lectures and Day
workshops.
Interesting - This was the one underpinning rule. When talking to people
The results of the decisions can be read in Section Three.
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about the topic of their lectures we asked only that they be interesting to young
architects. Apart from that, they could be on general themes of Architecture,
Identity, Manchester, Urbanism or anything really.
The fi nal and most signifi cant goal we set our selves was to break the
feeling of workshops tutored only by students and lectures given only by
professionals. To improve on this we approached a number of Manchester
based professionals from different fi eld with the suggestion of running a
workshop, this lead directly to Datascapes. We also ran an essay competition
for all participants to write an essay on the theme Identity. From these entries
11 were selected to give short talks - how ever long they felt comfortable - as
part of the main lecture series.
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Chapter 17 - Workshop SelectionThe fi rst thing we wanted to right with workshop selection of previous years
was to have the selection date before the participant application deadline.
Allowing denied tutors the opportunity to come as participants themselves.
Our deadline was in early February for this reason, and also that we could use
the revealing of the workshops as part of an exhibition about easa at HQ.
The submission deadline was a week previous to the big reveal, and we
selected twenty of the sixty workshop over one weekend. The decision time
was very quick as we had a sesam to run, and workshop posters to print. Some
felt it was a too rushed process at the time, and in the following weeks there
were a couple of workshops we weren’t even sure why we had selected them.
EASA workshops at proposal stage are often very
vague, so I would recommend choosing on a
balance of strength and clarity of concept, cost,
initial feasibility and your personal knowledge of the tutors if they’ve attend
an easa event previously. The workshops we feared would be weak ended
up being some of the strongest, going to prove how much workshops can
transform.
The process itself involved invited whoever wanted to attend from the
organising team. About twelve people attended. This was a good number as
it allowed everyone to read each application and the pass it along. Following
this we used a simple, Yes - No - Maybe pile system and select by consensus.
Having an impartial invigorator present during the selection part of the process
would have been valuable to allow quieter members of the team to voice their
opinions with more ease.
We knew that being in a city, plus the architectural beliefs of the organising
team that having lots of big build workshops was important, but not our main
aim. We knew we needed them to make easa enjoyable to certain participants,
All workshop applications are collated in Section Five.
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and saleable to certain people in Manchester. With this in mind we aimed for
a mix of about 8 built, 8 media and 8 theory, with a handful of workshops
blurring the boundaries between.
As for legacy, we knew how hard it would be go get a permanent project built,
and we already had enough planning and legislation to keep us busy for a
lifetime. After none of the permanent big build application didn’t stand out to
us we aimed to fi nd such a project through our contacts in Manchester. Most
people in Manchester we met were more interested in smaller scale projects
and day workshops. In the end the permanent workshop came through our
own means of the competition and allowed us to give others the chance to
design (which is kind of the point of organising) and not lose to much control
over a potentially fantastic/potential nightmare venture.
[pfa]
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 18 - ParticipantsStarting at the beginning with the NCs (your new best friends).
It is absolutely critical that you make sure the e-mail list is up to date. Roles
often swap round from year to year often after the summer event the role of
the NC will change hands. E-mail all countries to make sure you are up to date
with their situation. If someone doesn’t receive the messages and information
it can be incredibly frustrating for both parties. It will stand you in very good
stead. Send an e-mail de¬tailing the plan you intend to follow for the process
of application including dates, fees and even essays if you wish! This is a more
in depth look at how ours panned out:
The mathematics
Having decided all the workshops, the number of participants needed to
fi ll their varying sizes is then calculable. Countries with special quotas for
past and present organisers must be removed from the overall places for
workshops. The places left over were then divided equally between the 39
remaining countries.The 4 countries that have priority (Spain,Italy, Lichenstein, Denmark)
removed from the 43 overall countries providing 5/6 participants.
Basically having 6 participants (from the 39 remaining countries, not 43)
= 341 total participants overall with 12.25 per workshop.
Having 5 participants = 302 participants overall with 10.625 in each
workshop.
I get the feeling this is a little on the small side.
Whatever you decide make it clear that that is the fi nal number of places
available and people who e-mail you everyday do not get more places, stress
this point or have a standard e-mail ready to reply to ALL the NCs who want
more places!
19th February
The Application Form
Make sure you are careful when creating the application form; it is one of
the most important documents you will be making. Bear in mind information
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As part of the application process, all participants were asked to write an essay on the theme of easa010. Though there were too many to reproduce in the Final Report a selection are collated in Section Five.
needed for those countries that require visas. It would be much more sensible
to gather all this information in one go from everyone instead of trying to
track down much needed information later on. Find out what information is
needed to create a legitimate invitation letter and create the template ready
for fi lling in as soon as applications are ready. The ‘International Relations’
unit of your university will be able to help you with this since they deal with
international students making applications to study. This is an example of the
information and layout required for invitations to be sent to the UK Embassy’s
from the University of Manchester.
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Essential details to include on the application form are as follows:
Name /
Current Address /
Home Address (if studying abroad) /
Mobile number /
Contact e-mail /
Date of Birth /
Passport number /
Gender /
Dietary requirements/
Emergency Contact /
Medical needs /
Visa requirements/
Date of arrival / departure /
Visas.
Your responsibility with visas is to send invitation letters, on time, to the
participants for use in their application. You can do no more than that and
neither is it your responsibility. Visa can be applied for three months in
advance of a visit to the UK embassies, meaning the invitation letters should
have arrived by this time. You should have your Visa Invitation Letters ready
to be sent to the participants as soon as you confi rm their places, some letters
took more than a month to arrive and I understand this is quite normal, factor
in this time to the plan.
Make sure all letters are HAND SIGNED and on headed paper, otherwise you
will they are not recognised by the embassy. The original letters must be sent
to the participants to take to their interviews.
NCs will e-mail way in advance of any quota announcement since this takes
such a long time to organise and should be one of the fi rst things prepared by
the organisers but is often left too late. If you prepare the letters and before
the quota announcement you could even get them to fi ll in their details on the
invitation letter, with their application. Transferring all the details takes a long
time for one person to do and can easily make and error. Make sure you scan
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Invitation letter on page 145
all the letters and keep a record of all the letters. E-mail the correspondents
to check whether the information is correct before you post them.
With around 200 invitation letters, one small mistake in their details can mean
the difference in some¬one coming to EASA or not. Check through the details
yourselves and make sure NCs and participants also see the letters before
they are sent.
I worked hard to get an invitation letter from Manchester Metropolitan
University, a recognised body by the UK Border Agency which should have
been a smooth cruise through customs. We also sent a letter from easa010
detailing exactly what the event entailed. The specifi cs included in the letter
were: The participants full name and address, address of the UK embassy in
their country, passport number, fees paid for food and accommodation. Here
is the easa010 invitation letter:
The participants who require visas also must
start to gather their own information ready for application. Visas in the UK can
be applied for three months in advance of the visit.
Check what evidence they need to prepare for their individual application, for
the UK this involved:
1. Evidence from your university that you are in an Academic Institution
2. Evidence that you will be study here and have an invitation from a university.
3. Evidence of accommodation that has been arranged.
4. A passport photo
March 23rd -7th April
Quota Announcement: the fi rst round
Each country has places for SIX participants.
NCs are included in this fi gure.
Past and future organisers benefi t by being allocated more places,
These are as follows:
Spain = 20 places
Italy = 15 places
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Section Two: Organising
Liechtenstein = 10 places
Denmark = 15 places
This is the TOTAL number of participants you are allowed, not
additional to the six above.
Please note these places are for the specifi ed countries only. You cannot
exchange places to different countries and participants can only be
accepted from the nation they are living in.
In order to expand EASA’s reach, we are trying to involve a few
participants from outside of Europe. 20 places have been allocated
to the wider world, in the hope that EASA inspired assemblies could
happen further afi eld. These will be divided between continents with 3
people per continent.
- Applications must be e-mailed directly to me: [email protected]
- They must be in PDF format.
- The picture must be on the form and no more than 150 dpi.
(This is most easily achieved by taking into Photoshop and fi lling in the
form.)
I would very much appreciate it if you could fi ll in the summary form
attached to allow me to get an overview of where you are at with fees
and sponsorship. It would help me a great deal.
I hope this is clear. Remember the closing date for the fi rst round is 7th
April at 12pm. No applications can be accepted after this period.
A few things that were overlooked:
An important thing to note is having a system of naming the fi les, people call
the PDFs all sorts of incomprehensible names and this can get very confusing.
It will save you a lot of time instead of renaming fi les as I did, a logical approach
would be: Country> First name > second Name
Make sure you stress that everyone puts their photos on the application form,
not as a separate fi le. Otherwise it takes ages to do this!
Also include the fees to avoid confusion:
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GROUP 1: 100% = 270 euros
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,
Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, United Kingdom, Malta.
GROUP 2: 80% = 216 euros
Greece, Portugal.
GROUP 3: 60% = 162 euros
Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moscow
(*), Po¬land, Slovenia, Slovakia, and non-European participants (such as ELEA,
CLEA etc).
GROUP 4: 40% = 108 euros
Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Armenia,.
GROUP 5: 20% = 54 euros
Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Georgia, Moldova, Russia (**), Ukraine.
7th April
Receiving Applications
Make sure all applications are organised within their own folders. When
handling 400 applications things start to get confusing, I found the most
logical way around the fi ling system to be:
participants folder > country folder > applications folder > fi le named correctly
as before > essay folder > fi le named correctly as before
This may sound time consuming but went people start to change people
around applications can easily get mislaid. If you have time, it is a good idea
to make an excel document of everyone’s details so that all information can
be accessed at one time rather than opening individual fi les constantly, a
laborious task but recommend. This only left two days to sort everything out
from the fi rst round. With hindsight I would leave more time, a week or so, to
organise and process the information and decide on how extra places are to
be delegated.
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Section Two: Organising
9th-19th of April
The Second Round
Lots of people have asked for more places already and I can now
confi rm that some more places will be granted since some new and
exciting projects have just been unveiled in Manchester....!
EACH NATION CAN SEND A MAXIMUM OF TWO MORE
APPLICATIONS (IF NEEDED).
Please send these to me again by the 19th APRIL in PDF format.
(Just the same as before.) Keep in mind that it may be good to keep
some people in reserve list in case people drop out. These will then
be confi rmed on the 20th April and a total payment for each country
calculated and e-mailed to the NCs. Payment will commence for that
week only from the 20th- 26th April. Please contact me if you have any
problems. I hope you are all happy and well.
This was worked out by adding the addition places from the competition and
any remaining places that weren’t fi lled and dividing them equally between
the countries. I would suggest under estimating the number because for some
reason or another people just keep adding on to the list - be fi rm!
In hindsight this was a misjudgment which in turn had knock on effects that were felt right throughout the assembly. In the desire to turn away as few people as possible and to respond to the huge demand from the network for places the wrong criteria were placed on the decision to add more spaces.
At the time of the announcement the team had just lost their fi rst choice location of accommodation and as such were back to looking for space. The addition of two places per nation for 39 nations plus the addition of the Docu+Mation workshop places added 86 people to EASA, putting this is around the number of people at INCM 2008.
This added number caused huge restrictions to the possibilities of spaces we could identify for accommodation as the total delegates shot from 349 to 427. This affected potential options that weren’t large enough, it affected the planning application process for Downtex, and it affected the atmosphere in the Mill as each event space was legally large enough for 300 (physically around the same).
Though possibly seeming innocuous at the time the team should have discussed the decision in depth as the number of participants
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at EASA is as vital a component to the event as the budget and location.
20th -26th April
Payment
E-mail each country stating how many participants/ tutors / NCs they owe
money for. Make it clear and concise:
All fees should be paid in ONE lump sum by ONE NC. Please make
a reference of the COUNTRY you are paying for on the bank transfer.
EG: United Kingdom. Bank charges must be paid for in full by each
individual country otherwise we cannot accept your payment.
Please send an e-mail to both :
&
Detailing the following:
Country:
Name of NC making the payment:
Account Number:
Sort Code:
Amount Transferred:
The payment should be made in to this account:
Working out who has paid on your bank statement can be very confusing if
you don’t have a ridged system in place. NCs can make a reference titles for
their transfer which we asked them to state their ‘country’ only. This makes
things a lot clearer, but failure for many NCs to do this also means it is very
useful to have their bank account number to check back where the money has
come from. Also make sure you bill the NCs in EUROS because exchange rates
change and you may well lose money if the exchange rate changes.
After the storm
Once all applications are in and payments paid, people like to swap things
around, drop out and generally mess up your fi les and documents. It is a never
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Section Two: Organising
ending process until the event so be prepared for change and embrace. There
are often ongoing issues with visas, many of which are beyond your remit and
out of your control. You do not have a free pass through the embassy and
beyond ‘inviting’ the participants to the assembly it is very diffi cult for you to
do much more, but you can try.
Six weeks before the start of the assembly, an e-mail of confi rmation was sent
to all the NCs containing the list of participants I had down to come and their
e-mail addresses. This was a critical to make sure everyone had the correct
information in time for registration.
Then there are many questions to be answered from 400 eagerly awaiting
EASA’uns. Something which you might like to add to the web site is a ‘Frequently
Asked Questions’ part in which all problems are solved and will save you many
hours in typing the same thing over and over. Some very crucial questions that
I am sure will crop up are:
1. Can people come early?
This depends if the accommodation is ready, ours defi nitely wasn’t but meant
we needed a helping hand. It is very diffi cult to say yes because a few hundred
people would come and really EASA is for the two weeks but fl ights often
dictate the dates more than the organisers.
2. How do I get involved?
We would get a few hundred e-mails in from people looking at the web site
and wanting to know more. It would be of great help to have a list of the NCs
e-mail contacts for each country to allow people to get involved and save you
much time.
3. How money is paid?
Through the NC then paid collectively once
4. Can we come as guests or helpers?
These are very diffi cult places to allocate. In the end we decided people we
knew and trusted could be part of the organising team, not guests. We decided
to have guests makes a mockery of those working hard every day and people
would have to earn their keep! The helpers were an infallible part of the team,
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people with experience and calm in chaotic situations. Choose your helpers
wisely!
5. Can we have more places?
Places were always allocated openly to everyone, make it clear that because
NCs e-mail you it does not give them access to a infi nite number of places.
Places stack up without you even realising and numbers must be set to a fi rm
fi gure.
6. Can people have their money back if they cancel?
This will happen a few days before the event, and if there is no chance of
the place being refi lled then this would be no, often places will be taken up
by someone else in the team and they can just swap around. However in the
EASA guide it is a strict NO. People can often claim money back off their travel
insurance though.
I think these are the main questions asked but keep adding as you go along....
Overview
The application process worked very succinctly but don’t underestimate the
size of this job. You will get an average of 10-20 e-mails per day asking for
things, maybe we should have kept more contact with the NCs and updated
them more regularly to avoid this but obviously everyone is going to have
their own individual questions. I did this as the same time as my course, the
dates decided did not always fi t very well around life - make sure the dates
application are in don’t clash with hand in dates for you projects and give
yourself as much time as possible to get things ready. Participant places are
determined by the number of workshop places; make sure these are sorted as
soon as possible to give as much time for visas can you can. It is really nice
to get to know everyone slightly before they arrive though because you never
have enough time when EASA starts!
13th march ‘Sponsor a Participant’.
In order to strengthen the network and create a more stable model to create this
event for the foresee¬able future, we felt that each NC and their prospective
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Section Two: Organising
participants should make real attempts to drum up support and fi nances.
With such an unpredictable economic climate it must be made clear that the
EASA is to be built by everyone not just the organisers. This is reiterated in the
‘EASA guide’ that all participants are responsible for fund-raising. This was
our idea for sponsorship:
This would involve approaching sponsors for 100% of the cost of a
participant instead of the 20% fee which you pay. Easa subsidises the
cost of the assembly per person by 80%. This means it costs £875.00 for
each participant to attend the event.
We want to gain the most sponsorship we can as a collective network
and involve everyone in contributing to the event, to create the best
easa it can possibly be. So we are asking you to go for the full whack
(£875 or as close to this as you can get) when asking for sponsorship
rather than just covering your own costs.
Several teams did donate very generously to the cause but this could be more
widely and rigorously approached and give a sense of achievement for all
that come to the event, that they were part of the making of the EASA. It is
defi nitely something to be worked on for the future of the event and the well
being of the organisers.
[jsh]
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 19 - Waste Management
Waste management is a vital component of a successful EASA, primarily
because 450 people in one place for 2 weeks create an unbelievable amount
of rubbish. As with most aspects of the assembly, none of us had much of
an idea as to how to go about dealing with and disposing of general waste,
organic waste and recycling in such quantities, and we also had little idea
of how much it would cost. As it is such an important and costly aspect
of the organisation it is vital that as soon as the sites are secured that the
team begin working on waste management. It is not the most glamorous of
tasks, but if there is not an adequate system in place the assembly could
easily be jeopardised, as people will not want to live and work surrounded by
rubbish; it is unseemly and unsanitary. In this section I describe the different
waste management systems we used at Downtex and Hope Mill, in section 3 I
describe how they worked and how they could have been improved.
Downtex - Before EASA
As Downtex was uninhabited before EASA moved in there was no pre-existing
system for dealing with waste at the site, as there would have been had we been
occupying a school or university campus. We researched different companies
that dealt with the waste at music festivals, and the possibility of constructing
our own system using different companies to deal with the different types
of waste, but eventually we decided on using the contractors responsible for
Manchester’s residential waste management: Enterprise Manchester. We went
with Enterprise because they could provide the entire service and this was far
more convenient for us than to try to organise different companies to take
care of different types of waste.
Through discussions with Andrew Turner, our contact at Enterprise, we
organised a refuse strategy that was essentially a large-scale version of the
standard domestic one. This consisted of 3 skips in the car park of Downtex:
1 for general waste
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easa010 Final Report
1 for card and paper
1 for bottles and tins
These skips could be replaced when full with 24 hours notice, which meant
that we didn’t have to commit to a certain number of them beforehand, which
was good as we had little idea of how many we would eventually need. Along
with the skips we hired approx 13 sets of wheelie bins to be distributed around
the building. Each set consisted of
1 for general waste
1 for card and paper
1 for bottles and tins
1 for organic waste
These wheelie bins would then be emptied into the correct skip each day by
the country doing the cleaning duty. Hiring the bins was very cost effi cient,
approx £3 per bin for as long as we needed them, and it meant we were not
left with 50 bins to dispose of at the end of the assembly.
With regards to organic waste we decided that it would have to be removed
from the site each day as the proximity to the River Irwell meant we were in
danger of attracting rats. We agreed with our caterers that they would take our
organic waste away when they came to pick up their leftovers each day.
So in theory we had a simple effective system prepared for handling the waste
at Downtex
Hope Mill - Before EASA
As with Downtex our site at hope mill wasn’t equipped to deal with the
numbers of people working there for the 2 weeks, however as there were only
150 participants there during the day we did not need such a large scale of
refuse management. To deal with the general waste we ordered another skip
from enterprise, and we hired 4 sets of wheelie bins like the ones used in
DOWNTEX to be placed in the different parts of the building. With the recycling
we used a different company called Emerge Manchester, who are a charity that
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Section Two: Organising
charges companies for daily recycling pickups to fund their charitable work.
The system was that you bought bin bags with their logo on, and then placed
them on the pavement at the end of the day to be picked up by the Emerge
truck as it drove around the city, a “pay-as-you-throw” system. Through
some negotiations we managed to get 200 of these bags in exchange for
promoting the charity through our web site and promotional materials. So
the recycling bins in Hope Mill would be emptied into these branded bin bags
at the end of each working day to be picked up, and all general waste would
be for the skip. The plan with the organic waste was to transport it back to
DOWNTEX each day to be bundled with the organic waste there before our
caterers collected it.
Once again, the system was in place for all refuse
to be disposed of properly and effi ciently.
[jfr]
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easa010 Final Report
page 160
Section Two: Organising
Chapter 20 - Food
Calculating Quantities
One of the biggest feats we had to undertake during organisation of the food
was calculating the quantities. Even though quantities needed for the assembly
could only at most be estimated, it was crucial that the amounts were as
accurate as possible as these numbers had an impact on many other areas of
organisation such as budget and logistics. To put this into perspective early
on; the total cost of feeding the participants was one of our biggest outlays
monetary wise during the assembly; totalling just under £30,000, broken down
into £1500, £2500 and £26,000 for breakfast, lunch and dinner respectively.
This meant that it was clear that these fi gures
were to be monitored closely to ensure costs
didn’t spiral out of control unnecessarily.
However, it did make sense to over-estimate numbers for the fi rst few days
of the assembly rather than fall short of providing anything. We were always
going to be able to change the amounts we bought when needed which would
subsequently reduce our estimated costs and in turn alleviate funds.
Our total participant number was 427 with extra needing to be added for
helpers, volunteers and organisers. We worked on the basis of 400 participants
eating breakfast, 460 eating lunch and 460 eating dinner. From this rough
consumption estimates were calculated per person to establish the daily
amounts needed. These numbers shall be covered in more detail in a later
section.
Sourcing Suppliers
Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
As stated earlier, due to the large costs involved extensive time was spent
Note: a 1p increase per person per day equals a total increase of £69, an increase of £1 equals an increase of £6900.
460 (catered for) x 15 (days of meals) x £0.01 = £69
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Note: if a participant drinks four cans of beer (on average) in a day450 persons x 15 days x 4 cans= 27000 cans
Beer is sold by the crate = 24 cans27000 / 24 = 1125 crates
You can fi t 56 crates on to a pallet1125 / 56 = 20 pallets
This is enough to fi ll 2 articulated Lorries.
researching the lowest costs possible for each individual item making up
the daily meals. In the UK we are lucky that the supermarket industry is
very competitive, with companies constantly battling to have the best value
products. With the use of price comparison web sites and online shopping
facilities it was easy for us to discover the cheapest prices and it became clear
that ASDA would be cheapest for almost every single item, even over the bulk-
buy ‘cash and carries’. Knowing this, we approached ASDA directly to come to
an arrangement with them to supply the large amounts we needed. They were
happy to do this, however wouldn’t offer us any discount.
In the weeks leading up to the assembly, frequent visits were made to the store
we were dealing with to speak to various managers. However, with the way a
supermarket is run; the only form of
contact was either a visit in person
or via a telephone call through
customer services. This meant that
when trying to arrange any kind of
orders with them we were always
left unsure as to whether they would
hold their word, as they had no obligation to fulfi l our requirements at any
time.
There were some items that we needed in very large quantities daily such as
bread for the sandwiches and the fruit. We made the decision to have these
supplied via local businesses that would be able to deliver every morning too
exactly where they were needed. To source these it was as simple as ringing
various businesses from internet directories and establishing quotes. This
proved very successful and prices for these were extremely reasonable and
the service was impeccable.
We felt that the main meal of the day dinner would be best outsourced to a
catering company . This was probably the only way we could have done it;
however, if another method was available I believe this would have still been
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Section Two: Organising
the best decision. Having the most important meal of the day outsourced to
a professional company meant that the quality of food was extremely high. It
also ensured prompt serving times and a good variety, something that always
seems to be a major concern with participants at previous assemblies. To
source a caterer we again tried to get the best value for money. KRO caters
were extremely competitive and came in at £4.50 per person, per day. It is
important to mention that ‘haggling’ in these situations using other quotes is
extremely successful.
Café & Bar
In the current climate, revenue sources during the assembly become crucial.
While taking every effort to reduce the cost for participants, profi t made over
the café & bar allows money to be fed back directly
into the assembly specifi cally the workshops.
This leads to a situation where, as organisers, you
must fi nd means to retail at a cost below that of shops – which unfortunately
are still your rivals – but also turn enough of a profi t to add to your overall
budget.
With this in mind, it made sense to maximise the profi ts where possible. A
major part of our efforts was to source the alcohol served over the bar as
cheaply as possible but still retaining quality. For this we decided that cans of
Carlsberg would be the best option. This was because it isn’t considered to
be a ‘low-rate’ beer and it didn’t come with the high cost of a premium rate
brand.
In the UK, supermarkets buy alcohol from suppliers and sell it at a loss to attract
customers into their stores. This meant we were able to buy a fair amount of
alcohol at a very low price. However, the promotions that allowed us to buy
the beer this low level were only available for a short period of time coinciding
with the World Cup, and before the assembly started, capital available for
such expenditures wasn’t in large quantities therefore we couldn’t afford to
Due to the conditions in Downtex it was impossible for us to install a kitchen, and impractical for us to cater off site and deliver ourselves
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To fi nd a caterer we went through an initial process of researching the market and calling various companies for outline quotes. Following this Chris’ Dad, who worked for many years in the catering supply industry, produced an invite to tender which was issued in a competitive nature.
From the entrants we received we invited three to come for interviews, and Chris met with representative to discuss the respective bids. At tender the cheapest quote we received was for £3.50 including VAT (Value Added Tax 17.5%) per person per day, with Kro at £5.99 excluding VAT. In the interview process it we were confi dent that Kro would deliver quality on a daily basis and be able to work within the nature of the event. Also after discussing the nature of the event, including issues like students bringing their own plates etc, we were able to negotiate the price from £7.03 per person per meal down to £4.50.
buy huge amounts. However, we were lucky to fi nd a company by the name of
‘Bargain Booze’ that had an on-going promotion throughout the duration of
the assembly allowing us to buy alcohol at a very cheap price.
For spirits and mixers it was surprisingly cheaper to get them from ASDA
than any other sources and there was never an issue in getting the quantities
needed. The items we were unable to get from ASDA at the cheapest cost
were mainly branded items concerning
the café &bar, items such as Coca
Cola cans, Walkers Crisps and bars of
chocolate. We used a local cash and
carry Bookers. This also meant that on
our revealable items, we could pick up
needed supplies at short notice without
the chance of losing money through
loss of sales during the assembly.
Purchase and Storage Strategy
The purchasing and storage strategy
came hand in hand. We needed to be
able to buy as much as possible in one
go to satisfy the quantity requirements and at the same time have enough
infrastructure to store what was bought. This separated into dry store and
refrigerated store for both the bar supplies and food supplies. Dry store in
general was simple and only required the needed secure space which meant
we could buy as much as we wanted and knew it wouldn’t become spoilt. The
refrigerated storage was slightly more diffi cult as this would require close
attention to stock levels because large quantities couldn’t be kept for long
periods due to the limited refrigeration space.
Pricing Strategy
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Section Two: Organising
Once the costs had become apparent we needed to establish the prices of
the profi table items during the assembly. As stated previously in the report
we had budgeted the assembly on what funds we had available and anything
taken over the bar would essentially become profi t that we could feed back
into the assembly. With this being understood, we knew that we were able
to have complete control over pricing and therefore keep the costs as low as
possible for participants, but at the same time, we wanted to make a healthy
profi t to improve the EASA experience. To facilitate this we decided that a
maximum 100% profi t would be applicable were
appropriate.
System of Operation, Staffi ng Arrangements and
Roles
The roles broke down into specifi c task areas;
organising and supervising the serving of
breakfast; organising and supervising the
preparation and delivery of sandwiches;
supervising the serving of dinner and running the bar. To allow the smooth
operation of this we decided to create a solid team of four organisers,
comprising of Miles Reay-Palmer, Dido Graham, Julija Dubrovnik and myself;
Jonathan Curtis. This meant that throughout the two weeks one organiser
would be responsible for each role. Alongside this, a set number of volunteers
were time tabled to assist the organiser in the running of each operation;
specifi cally preparation of sandwiches and the running of the bar. The system
of operation of each role broke down into the following:
Breakfast
Breakfast was served between 8am and 10am. The organiser on duty aimed
to be at site for 7am. This allowed the organiser enough time to arrange the
quantities for breakfast and to begin setting up. The breakfast was to be
served in the usual manner; by the participants of the time tabled country. It
Two issues to remember. 1. Unlike shops you have no overheads in terms of wages. 2. Be sure to put a portion of your initial budget into stocking the bar and cafe, after this restocking can be done from revenue from tokens. We achieved this by scheduling purchase of some materials for built workshops for late in the fi rst week, safe in the knowledge that design work would dominate until then.
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Having met with representatives of In-Bev, the world’s largest brewing company, and Carlsberg it was clear that it was not only cheaper to purchase through retail, but also we would be able to manage the quantities we purchased more easily. To deal direct with a brewer we would fi rstly have to set up an account with them, but we would also have to make the order in one go, allowing no room for revision. This did mean that we would have to collect the orders our selves.
was required that the organiser be there earlier to begin setting up in-case
participants were late. Breakfast was arranged in the typical buffet fashion
allowing a queue of participants moving down the tables being served. The
organisers’ role was to watch over proceedings and restock supplies from the
store when needed.
Lunch
Lunch was served between 1pm and 2pm and consisted of one sandwich per
person and a piece of fruit. These sandwiches were made by four helpers and
one organiser during the period of
breakfast at our HQ building. It would
be the organisers’ role to insure that
the sandwiches were made correctly
and the appropriate numbers of
meat and vegetarian sandwiches
were prepared. The time allocated to
make sandwiches was between 9am-
12.30pm. It was arranged that the van driver would collect the sandwiches
from HQ and deliver them to the info points at various locations within the
city; the organiser on duty would help with this.
Lunch remains one of the most tricky aspects of organising EASA. It was said that ‘an army marches on its stomach’, and the same is true of EASA workshops. It is vital that every effort is made to provide participants with opportunity of three meals a day – though it is impossible to make sure they eat them! Lunch was an issue at two of the three previous EASAs I had attended – in Budapest 2006 participants made their own at breakfast, so they were responsible for if they ate lunch, though this can lead to a loss of control on quantities it seems the best option.
In Ireland in 2008 lunch was made and delivered to the workshops, meaning participants needed to be at their workshop to get their food, this of course puts the responsibility on the tutors to make sure their participants get their fair share. In Italy 2009, by far the most generous lunch I’ve seen at EASA, the lunch was prepared by the participants as part of the breakfast duties. The lunches were then supposed to be collected by tutors only at lunch time. The main issue was participants helping themselves to sandwiches throughout the morning as they felt like it. Bizarrely, as can happen at EASA, when the sandwiches
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were made, but not available until collection to ensure everyone could eat, the person in charge of the kitchen often met with hostility and resentment from participants.
In Manchester we had no possibility of food production in the accommodation area due to the industrial nature of the building and the prohibitive cost of renting catering facilities for the duration. So the decision was taken that organisers would make the lunch in the kitchen of their accommodation and delivery would be by van on an alternating daily basis by Alex Maxwell and me (Chris Maloney). In many ways this worked out well, but it seemed we were consistently making about 100 sandwiches too many, having been to each site twice there would still be sandwiches in my van and left over’s on the sites. It had been made plain to the tutors that is they were to be elsewhere at lunch time they were to let the organisers know, so all we can suspect is that people bought their own, or didn’t turn up to their workshops every day.
Dinner
Dinner was to be served between 6pm and 9pm.
As stated previously, KRO prepared the food off
site and delivered to Downtex each evening. In
the same method as breakfast, participants of the
time tabled country served the food overseen by
the duty organiser. Dinner was served in the bar
communal area and eaten in the large dining area
known as the ‘Aviary’. The caterers dealt with the organic waste from the
previous evening by collecting it when delivering the next nights food.
Café & Bar
The café & bar was situated in the heart of the accommodation operating from
the same point. We had very strict limitations over the licensing agreement
which meant alcohol could only be served from 12pm until 1am Sunday to
Thursday; and 12pm until 3am Friday and Saturday. – see licensing in this
chapter - We decided it would be best to open the café at 10am to maximise
sales of coffee and confectionery around breakfast time before the start of
workshops. It is important to note that during the organizational discussions
we decided that if any construction workshops, i.e. involving the use of
power tools, were to be active at the accommodation building, we would not
As an alternative to the dinner arrangements, and an unscheduled surprise for the participants, on two evenings we organised a hog roast dinner, with veggie burger barbecue for vegetarians. The response was overwhelmingly positive, further proof that good food makes for happy campers.
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The drawback of the token system is the relatively large unit of 50p allows limited ability to adjust prices.
serve alcohol until these ceased operations. We made this decision purely for
insurance.
For the operation of the café it was decided that this required only one
organiser and one volunteer. The organisers’ role was to evaluate stock levels
and sales from the previous night. The fi ndings of this evaluation would then
be passed to the organiser responsible for purchasing to ensure stocks were
kept at adequate levels. The volunteer at this point would be there to help
when needed and to serve the café.
We decided upon operating a ‘can bar’ over the traditional use of draft. This
decision was made purely for logistical reasons. We felt that the risks and
drawbacks of using a draft system outweighed the cost benefi ts and believed
we could provide a much better service over the bar using cans by reducing
waiting times. Alongside this, we
served a variety of spirits and mixers
such as vodka, gin, whisky and rum
with coke, lemonade and tonic. It was decided that every measure should be
an offi cial UK double, the maximum legally allowed to be sold. This was due
to the cost of spirits being relatively low with aim to providing better value
for the participants. When the bar was fully operational it would require one
organiser and two volunteers. This would allow for re-stocking to take place
and the adequate number of staff to meet demands.
A large part of our ethos was to minimise waste as previously stated in the
report. To ensure this would be most affective we decided that we would
only serve drinks into the participants own cups. This meant that no plastic
disposable cups were handed out over the café & bar which would therefore
have a dramatic reduction in clean-up and disposal costs. We had a large
stock of cups that could be bought by participants for a small fee to use for
the duration of the assembly.
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Section Two: Organising
Token Operation
Everything sold over the bar was with the conventional token strategy. We
decided to keep the tokens as the standard value of £5 dissected into 50p
segments. We believed that in some past assemblies there has been an issue
with the attempt of forgery. With this in mind we decided to design a token
with anti-counterfeit measures. One mainly being a very light blue pattern
which wouldn’t show up when photocopied and the other being that the token
would only become valid when stamped with an offi cial ‘easa010 Manchester’
stamp that we designed and made. This would only be done at info point when
purchased. We believe this was a very successful way of operation.
[jcu]
Millfo Point
Having numerous locations for EASA Manchester
presented us with many logistical problems, one
of them being the need 2 locations where we sold food and drink. Whilst it was
not absolutely essential to have a café in Hope Mill as there are shops in the
vicinity it was a valuable source of revenue for the organisation and was far
more convenient for the participants themselves. We realised quite early on
that the café would also become a de facto info point, so Hope Mill Info Point
became Millfo Point.
General Set Up
Luckily the interior space of Hope Mill already had a bar installed so we did
not have to build one as in Downtex, and from here we sold all the food and
drinks, stored valuables, cups, cleaning supplies and stationary. There were
approximately 3 members of the team behind the bar, 2 in charge of the tool
box, and 2 people at all times acting as security for the workshop space. There
was a bit off ebb and fl ow with the numbers of the UK team over the 2 weeks
and generally we were a very well staffed Millfo Point. In terms of sorting
out Millfo point we simply added a fridge, a toastie maker and a small set of
For a report on the operation of these spaces please see Section Three: easa010
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easa010 Final Report
drawers to keep valuables in.
[jfr]
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 22 - Rota
Rota’s are very useful things. Particularly when organising 60 individuals, in
various locations, across a 2 week period, 24/7. Due to the huge size of the
assembly team, it was vital to instigate some form of routine and timetable
to ensure everything ran as smoothly as possible. Embrace the spreadsheet.
Where To Start:
The fi rst consideration when approaching the organisation of the rota is the
timetable for the assembly. What are the key events? When are the workshop
days? When is the excursion? It is important to make provision for potential
date changes and additions; you must be fl exible. Do ensure that any changes
to the timetable are relayed to the rota.
Organisers, Lead Helpers & Volunteers:
The rota positions for easa010 were split into 3 categories: Organisers,
Volunteers & Lead Helpers. Different tasks require a variety skills or specifi c
knowledge. During the year before the assembly, Organisers will fall into
specifi c roles, which will generally dictate their responsibilities during the
assembly. It is their responsibility to relay information and delegate to the
Lead Helpers & Volunteers who will be working alongside them.
It was important that Volunteers & Lead Helpers had an enjoyable time as
well as working with us. Shifts were approximately 8 hours a day (Although
this fl uctuated with each different task), and each person had a day off. The
concept of a “rotating rota” was implemented to ensure volunteers experienced
a variety of tasks & shift times. Due to the 24/7 nature of an easa, people
are working throughout the night; ensure there is time for sleep after the
graveyard shift!
Teams:
Each vital location across Manchester, and specifi c everyday task had it’s own
EASA is not a holiday
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easa010 Final Report
team, consisting of Organisers, Volunteers & Lead Helpers:
Events Team (lectures & evening activities)
Info Point Team (ran info point throughout the assembly)
Bar & Food Team (stock & running café/bar, making lunches, overseeing
breakfast & dinner)
Hope Mill (tool box, café & workshop coordination)
HIVE & Madlab (workshop coordination)
Roamers (exclusively Organisers: transportation, stocking, money coordination
of event as a whole)
This resulted in an effi cient workforce who knew the roles expected of them,
and made the rota far easier to digest.
In Practice:
The rota was sent out via e-mail a week before arrivals. This helped to answer
any questions, and to change any mistakes. Each member of the team had
a specifi c colour and letter that they would refer to on the rota. Volunteers
registered on the fi rst day (which clashed with arrivals, it would be advisable to
have them arrive a day earlier to orientate) and were given a brief presentation
explaining their roles.
The rota worked well in the initial days before the “big move”- and it was
important to ensure this was continued, and adjusted to the new locations,
to provide a sense of organisation and calm to the chaos that preceded this
upheaval. Regular updates of the rota were provided on info point.
A rota is vital when working with large numbers of people- no questions, no
confusion, and no fuss.
Participant’s Duties:
EASA is not a holiday, and with 450 people living together for two weeks,
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Section Two: Organising
it gets messy. All participants must undertake responsibilities during the
assembly. These are not that strenuous, but absolutely must be done. It is
the Organiser’s responsibility to provide the information and equipment to
ensure these tasks are completed.
Duties perform two roles during EASA. One is to ensure tasks that require a lot of people for a short amount of time can get done without dragging organizers away from other tasks. The other, even more important, is they are the door through which participants really feel part of the EASA family, part of the daily operation of the event. Without tasks it would be easy for a feeling of served and servers to grow during the event. It has been our experience that duties actually remove this feeling over time, with the second week of all EASAs standing out as more community based than the fi rst.
An explanation of roles & the timetable was provided in the welcome pack: no
false expectations of a fi ve star retreat. When considering the timetable, ensure
that there is a fair share of duties across all the countries. Countries with fewer
participants should be paired together, and those with large numbers divided.
It is the NC’s duty to ensure their country is prompt and complete their task
allocated to a suffi cient standard. Info Point was the “Duties Station”: it was
from here that instructions and equipment were given. A huge A1 poster of
the participant’s duties timetable also provided participants with a gentle
reminder of when their shifts were.
Appropriate numbers of cleaning supplies must be bought (buying in bulk
reduces the price considerably). We were lucky enough to neighbor a cleaning
supplies company, who provided us with free some products. The more
supplies you have, the happier your participants (less waiting around).
A typical shopping list for cleaning supplies should include:
Bleach
All Purpose Cleaner
Washing Up Liquid
Anti Bacterial Spray
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easa010 Final Report
Sponge Scourers
Dish Cloths
Bin Bags
It was decided to provide participants with a toilet roll each as part of their
welcome kit to reduce waste. There was no soggy toilet roll on dirty bathrooms
fl oors, and people were far more considerate concerning usage…
NC Duties:
Part of our strategy concerned a considerable amount of stewarding &
circulating throughout Downtex. Tedious and boring it may have been, but
safety is a priority. It was decided at the previous INCM in Liechtenstein, that
NC’s should be given more roles during the assembly. It was concluded by
the Organising team that NC’s were to be given shifts stewarding doors and
circulating on the nights of “internal” events. Many embraced these new roles
and were a great help, however frustrations arose when NC’s did not turn up
to vital shifts. This was partly due to the new role of NC’s that they may not
have been aware of, or the context of these shifts: in the middle of the party,
sat by the door. After a few teething problems, and an NC meeting, we were
back on track.
Relocation Relocation:
With the relocation of the accommodation, and the bar, duties either changed,
or were no longer valid. We were left in the predicament of determining what
roles were still required, what were not, what new roles had arisen, and how
we were going to relay this information to the NC’s. Info Point provided
snippets of information, but unfortunately many people abandoned their
duties. With such an extreme change of situation, Participant’s & NC’s Duties
were unfortunately overlooked. The easa spirit prevailed however, and many
were kind enough to help out whilst not on the rota.
[eun]
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Section Two: Organising
Our ambition of holding easa010 within a major city centre presented us with
many opportunities to showcase Manchester, and all it has to offer. The theme
of “Identity” leant itself to various locations and interactions across the city.
Naturally, this requires a large workforce, and a lot of spreadsheets.
How To Get Volunteers:
It is a rather daunting prospect… how to get architecture students involved
in volunteering for an event the majority have never heard of, let alone been
to. A tactic of mine was to not shut up about it for an entire year, it seemed
to work.
Following EASA Italy those who were interested in easa010 after returning to
University from a blissful summer and got involved became Organisers. They
were able to follow the journey of easa010 and have a lasting input into the
decision-making. There was no advertising campaign at this point, it was
those who listened, used their initiative, and made a particular effort to get
involved. These are the kind of people who you want on your organising team.
The campaign to get volunteers started in the New Year 2010. To start posters
were dotted around the architecture department, enigmatic in style to promote
a reaction. This campaign continued until around April, and interest came in
drips and drabs. It is important to be patient; generally people will leave it
very last minute to become involved (I had an application the day before the
assembly started…). EASA does sell itself.
Around April we began holding lectures, travelling to nearby Sheffi eld University
to spread the word. By presenting and explaining your own experiences,
people are able to obtain a far better understanding of the easa concept.
Short presentations were given in lectures, and an easa010 fund-raising event
was held, which not only provided us with income, but in addition a larger
Chapter 23 - Volunteers
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easa010 Final Report
audience. An advert in an RIBA magazine provided us with national coverage,
and people were contacting us via the web site.
An e-mail relationship was set up with each individual enquiring about
volunteering. Answering questions as clearly and precisely as possible is a
great help. By providing an accurate description of expectations and roles
before the application process, people know what to expect.
Application Process:
It is a wise decision to have a template e-mail for those enquiring about
volunteering. This should include:
Dates
Cost (we asked volunteers to cover food and accommodation costs, £5 a day)
A short explanation of what easa is
Expectations & Roles
Think about how many Volunteers you will require. Due to the multiple
locations, we knew we needed a team of around 50 to be effi cient.
Have a contingency. Some may not turn up, or leave. We were able to provide
each volunteer with a day off as we had enough people to cover shifts. 10
extra individuals should cover it.
The application process for volunteers is very similar to that of participants.
It is, however, recommended that you ask for their mobile number too- very
useful for when someone does not turn up for their shift! Ensure that all details
are exported into a spreadsheet for ease of reference, and no loss of details.
A week before the assembly, a Welcome Pack, specifi cally made for the
volunteers was e-mailed out. This provided volunteers with details of their
rota, what each task involves, and what they should expect. We had excellent
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Section Two: Organising
feedback from this document, which meant that each individual knew what to
expect.
Potential Issues:
Without volunteers, easa010 quite simply wouldn’t have happened. They
were vital in holding the assembly together, even when we had to relocate.
However, it must be remembered that their affi liation with EASA only lasts 2
weeks- and many may be (and were) seduced by the partying aspects of easa.
It is advisable to highlight the importance of their roles, and ensure that in the
event of a volunteer not turning up to their shift, or being incapable to fulfi ll
their role, that someone is able to cover.
[eun]
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easa010 Final Report
page 178
Section Two: Organising
Chapter 24 - Info Point
Info Point is the true hub of an easa, and a secret weapon in ensuring
participants happiness. A well organised info point = happy participants.
For us, Info Point was the fi rst introduction to all participants as it took on
the mantle of registration. First impressions are important; a well-rehearsed
registration process puts participants at ease after a long journey.
Do consider that Info Point will generally be populated by those who are new
to easa (more queries), visitors, lecturers, deliveries, and in our case security
and the fi re services. It is important to show an organised team, try to prepare
for visitors in advance if possible, or create posters for those questions that
seem to reverberate constantly (“No, the internet is not working yet, sorry!).
Location:
Info Point had various incarnations across the assembly, and multiple locations.
The principle Info Point at Downtex was located in the Loading Bay, instantly
recognisable upon arrival, which is particularly useful to visitors. By placing the
entire Info Point upon a stage of pallets, there was a clear defi nition between
Info Point and circulating space (no invasions!), and it also saved us from
many a fl ood…
We found that throughout the assembly, it was vital to have a separate offi ce
space to the info point to work at (if you want to get anything done without
a thousand questions bombarded at you). This also provided a sanctuary for
those who needed a small nap to get through the long working hours (40
minute nap does the trick nicely).
Smaller versions of Info Point were also the Café in Hope Mill, and at MadLab.
These were not fully-fl edged info points, but satellites, answering any
questions and keeping participants up to date.
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easa010 Final Report
Info Point took up two locations when we moved to the Sports Centre. A
temporary satellite answered questions & sold tokens, and provided an
extensive lost & found collection. Eventually a lost & found fashion show was
provided to reunite lost items with their owners.
Equipment:
As few workshops were taking place at Downtex, we merged the stationary
depot with Info Point. Stationary goes missing constantly; try (if you can) to
have a logbook of Stationary items (although as we found, this is diffi cult to
stick to in busy periods). It is therefore extremely important to ensure that you
are well stocked. Specifi c items that you will require include:
The obvious: Pens, Pencils, A4 Paper, Stapler, Ruler, Glue, Sellotape, Scissors,
and Scalpels
The absolute necessities: Blue Tack, duct tape, permanent markers, Exercise
Books (Very useful as Log Books), Sticky Labels
Electrical Items: At least 2 printers, extension cables, megaphone, torch,
batteries, telephone, Internet
First Aid kits, and certifi ed First Aiders are vital to have at the Info Point to
ensure the safety of all. We also kept a “First Aid Guide” within the First Aid kit
to jog the memory of the sleep deprived, however you will fi nd the majority of
cases are common sense.
Lockers:
A secure room was dedicated to lockers, which were in fact kitchen cabinets
with labels of each country’s name attached. Only NC’s could log items in and
out (all noted in the appropriate log book) to prevent a traffi c build up at Info
Point. This worked well, there was only 1 large padlock to the room, and the
key was in the complete control of the Organisers. No 48 separate keys for
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Section Two: Organising
each country, or lost keys.
Lost & Found:
The “dynamic” nature of our relocation saga undoubtedly increased the
number of items of lost and found. Although every measure was put in place
to try to reduce this, we were rather overwhelmed by the sheer quantities of
items we had. All items of value were kept behind info point, with clothes and
bulkier items in large boxes. As these overfl owed, we ended up with piles
everywhere, and a mess. It is advisable to keep a note of each item handed in,
with a description, so that people can look through words instead of clothes…
and make less mess!
Recharging:
A recharging station was located behind info point, with about 10 plug sockets,
which seemed to be suffi cient. Items were left in the responsibility of the
owner, upon a “fi rst come fi rst served” basis. Participants are told beforehand
to bring adapters; it is not your problem if they do not have them!
Tokens:
Tokens provide a huge percentage of income during easa, in cash. It is very
important to have a safe box that is regularly emptied (the money being sent
straight to the bank..) To avoid any money going missing, token sales were
marked in a Log Book, with any discrepancies easily spotted. We had a system
of stamping each token when it was sold to “verify” it. This helped avoid the
situation of tokens being plagiarised, an unfortunate but true situation that
could arise.
Merchandise:
We really missed a trick with the merchandise. Grand designs were projected,
with an entire workshop dedicated to producing merchandise, instead of
producing it before the assembly started. Unfortunately faith was given to
this being undertaken, however for various reasons no results were produced.
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easa010 Final Report
Merchandise can be a money maker, and it is worth considering this before
the assembly, buying & printing in bulk to gain a reduction in price.
Attitude:
The most important aspect of working on Info Point is your attitude. A smile
goes a long way. As soon as participants seen concern within the organisers,
this creates gossip and tension within the assembly, the last thing you want.
We had a huge amount of unexpected situations, one blow after another. This
hugely affected the organising team, as the assembly seemed to be crumbling
around us. But by putting on a brave face and pulling through, along with the
incredible easa spirit of the participants, we made it out the other side. By
raising spirits, being friendly and smiling you can get through a lot.
A great example of this was on a typical Manchester summer’s day: pouring
rain. Info Point was fl ooded, and everyone was arriving after a long walk back
from Hope Mill soaking wet, cold and fed up. So us Info Point girls got out our
sunglasses, turned up the volume to some particularly cheesy summer tunes,
and danced around like maniacs. It did the trick. We had everyone singing
along, dancing, and most importantly laughing (at us). It may have been sleep
deprivation but it was jolly good fun.
[eun]
page 182
Chapter 25 - Downtex
Section One: Bidding
Downtex is a former industrial building on the banks of the river Irwell just
outside the inner ring road on the north side of Manchester city centre. It
consists of two distinct halves: a nineteenth-century brick mill building of
four stories and a basement, and, across a double-height loading bay, a lower
modern steel shed with offi ces and a mezzanine fl oor that covered most of
the area. (Maps, fl oor plans and photographs accompany the text and are in
the appendix).
The building presented an exciting opportunity. It was the most promising
potential venue because it was close to the correct size, near enough to the
city centre, available for a low rent for a short period of time, and, crucially,
the landowner was open to the idea of it being used for parties and sleeping
accommodation. The building was also interesting in itself; in the past, EASA
has occupied unusual environments including a converted train, second world
war ship, and abandoned factories. Here was a genuine mill, an authentic
piece of the gritty red-brick Manchester that the world knows.
For all these opportunities, the state of the building was far from perfect.
Thieves had stolen the electric wires and pipes, so none of the lights or
plumbing was functional. The roof leaked in many places and as a result the
fl oors suffered from damp and rot. All of the windows had been bricked up,
so the fl oors were dark and unventilated. The building was full of rubbish and
was fi lthy. It had been used by squatters and there were hypodermic needles
around the back. There was a lot of work to do.
The Task
It would be a race to make this building ready for the Assembly. The task
of preparing the mill was dominated by the regulatory requirements of
authorities such as the county fi re service, a task which was complicated
signifi cantly as the fi re service continually increased the standard of work
required to reach a satisfactory condition throughout the period leading up
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to approval and afterwards. This escalation of requirements would eventually
have consequences which threatened the continuation of the assembly, as
recorded elsewhere.
In order to sleep people in the building we would have to obtain temporary
planning permission for sleeping. During the process of obtaining planning
permission, the fi re service, police, and environmental health would be
consulted by the planning department and they would have to be satisfi ed
with the proposals. We also had to obtain a premises licence in order to sell
or serve alcohol, play loud music, show fi lms, and allow dancing. Police,
fi re, environmental health and the planning authorities were again statutory
consultees in this process.
We had always expected to have to do some work to build the easa
accommodation; we wanted a really personal, cool place that we could do
whatever we wanted to. We had a big pool of labour to call on. Some of us
enjoyed the practical work involved and had the necessary skills to do as much
of the work as possible. We would pay for labour only when we really needed
to, get materials for free, and fi nd the most effi cient and creative solutions
wherever we could.
On the 28th May we walked around the building for the fi rst time with an
enforcement offi cer from the county fi re service. The advice which he gave
would form the basis of our plan of work.
The original list of work to be undertaken at Downtex was as follows:
Work necessary for the fi re service to not object to our planning and licensing
application
1. Clear all fl ammable rubbish from the basement.
2. Clad both sides of the old doors with plasterboard, to increase their fi re
rating to ½ hr
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3. Where doors to stairs are missing or irreparable, to replace them with
new ½ hr fi re doors
4. Seal all other openings to the staircases with minimum 1-hr fi re
resistant construction. This meant boarding over three large internal window
openings and rebuilding partitions.
5. Seal all other openings between fl oors.
6. All fi re doors to be smoke sealed and to have self-closing devices.
7. All fi re doors to be signed appropriately.
8. Break out existing blockwork wall in aviary, fi x roller shutter in opening
and construct escape staircase in courtyard to provide additional fi re escape.
9. The existing (broken) fi re alarm to be made to work and tested by an
approved electrician.
10. The existing emergency lighting to be tested by an approved electrician.
There were some places such as the back alley where supplementary emergency
lighting had to be fi tted.
11. Install a new push bar on the door at the bottom of the front staircase.
12. Ensure that the signage throughout conformed to modern standards.
Plumbing
1. The landlord agreed to replace the missing pipework in one side of the
building.
2. Replace all water supply pipework in the mill and repair leaks in existing
pipework and fi ttings.
3. Construct some sort of facility for washing plates and also for general
hygiene and brushing teeth.
4. Provide showers. We were not sure at this stage if we could afford to
provide hot showers or to hire specifi c shower cubicles.
Cleaning
1. Clear out assorted rubbish from courtyard and all other spaces.
2. Sweep, mop and power wash all fl oors.
3. Clear out existing WCs, which were full of excrement and paper.
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Other building work and security
1. Seal off former kitchen where the fl oor is structurally unsound
2. Remove fl ue blocking alley.
3. Build a bar and info point.
4. Work out a way of ventilating the toilets and sleeping fl oors.
5. Fix all broken roller shutters and doors to car park and side alley.
6. Repair and augment where possible razor wire to fence in courtyard.
7. Get the council to fell the large tree that fell on the fence from the river
side.
8. Repair holes in fence to river side.
Utilities
1. Sort out electricity contracts for both electricity supplies.
2. Arrange broadband internet supply requiring new telephone line.
Furniture and aesthetic considerations
1. Find and transport to the mill as many stackable chairs for lectures,
tables to eat from and work at, sofas and armchairs to relax on, and lockable
cupboards as possible.
2. Paint certain areas of the mill.
3. Improve the lighting of the bar area.
4. Break out and make good 1960s partition wall and suspended ceiling in
the main stairs.
5. Put up fl ags in loading bay.
Additional work that we had to do to satisfy the fi re service (not mentioned
during the fi rst few meetings):
1. Install double swing doors in a fi re-resisting wall between the bar and
the aviary.
2. Install double-swing doors in a fi re-resisting wall between the loading
bay and the Tin Room.
3. Install another, independent, comprehensive smoke detection and
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alarm system throughout both spaces.
4. Provide an additional fi re escape from the bar to the loading bay by
breaking through the window opening, making good and providing another
set of stairs.
5. Build a door to cover the opening made by removing the block work
wall over the additional fi re escape in the aviary.
6. Remove the treads of the stairs to prevent access to the mezzanine in
the tin rooms.
7. Replace all older type door closers with new lever-arm door closers.
Additional work that we had to do to satisfy the police
1. Arrange for a CCTV and recording system to be installed to cover the
licensed areas and the bar.
2. Arrange for a double-walled pen to be constructed to protect the
entrance to the premises.
3. Include signage identifying licensed areas, person capacity and signs
instructing people to respect the neighbors and be quiet.
Additional work that we had to do to satisfy ourselves
1. Arrange for scaffolding platforms to be installed in the Tin Room to
accommodate the greater number of people than we expected.
2. To provide hot showers.
The way the task was met
The structure of easa010 as an organisation would be critical in our efforts
to carry out this work. It is discussed in detail elsewhere in this report, but
it is important to summarise here the level of responsibility, knowledge and
commitment of the various members of the organising team and volunteers.
As a non-profi t organisation incorporated for the public benefi t, easa010 did
not pay any of those involved for the work they did as part of the organisation.
In this sense we were all volunteers. There was also a strong desire to
create a so-called fl at hierarchy, where responsibility for decision making is
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distributed equally across all team members. Inevitably, however, there will be
inequalities in the level of commitment that individuals can and will put into
such a voluntary enterprise. Possibly the clearest of these distinctions was the
difference between the directors, who had legal responsibilities with severe
personal and fi nancial penalties, and everyone else. The team was set up on a
responsibility/reward model, where individuals taking on more responsibility
were rewarded with greater infl uence.
It is important to provide this background in order to clarify the defi nitions
of certain terms used in this account. Many of the people who were members
of the ‘organising team’ had the same level of responsibility and commitment
as simple volunteers, and so will be referred to as such. Those who were
responsible for managing the whole project and would suffer if it failed, will
be called ‘organisers’.
We did the work listed above during the two months from June to August
with a minimum of employed labour. Many of the jobs were repetitive, dirty,
dangerous and hard, and the days were always long. And yet people came
back day after day, with the only reward being the work itself. This volunteer
spirit has much in common with the EASA spirit. Volunteers come because
they feel part of something good, they can see and feel proud of the progress
being made, and because the atmosphere is enjoyable and sociable.
Managing volunteer labour presents several unique challenges. First, it is very
diffi cult to predict who or how many people will turn up at any particular time.
If too many people turn up they will feel they are wasting time and are unlikely
to come back; if too few turn up certain tasks are impossible to accomplish
and deadlines are diffi cult to meet.
There are ways to get around the worst of these uncertainties.
1. Communication
We held infrequent meetings amongst the team at which we made it clear what
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the plan of work was and when it had to be achieved. In this way everyone was
made aware of the scale and complexity of the work, and could themselves
begin to suggest solutions and see how they could be part of the work. It
would have been better to have a brief meeting regularly such as every week,
as well as a continuously updated board with all the jobs on it.
2. Responsibility
At the fi rst of these meetings we divided the tasks up into areas and people
volunteered to take them on. For instance, the construction of the bar, where
those responsible for building would also run the bar during the assembly.
This gave the individuals concerned greater responsibility for the work so
that they could advance beyond simply turning up and needing to be told
what to do. In the case of the bar, this worked relatively successfully as it was
a simple, self-contained project for which we already had the materials. In
other cases, however, tasks were harder to defi ne.
Ensuring access to the building was a challenge that we had not planned for.
With any project like this, a great responsibility will fall on the individual who
has the keys to ensure that the building is open whenever people are available
to work. The effect of this is that it will mean that the most committed person
– usually the person responsible for coordinating the overall building project
– is dedicated to being at the building for most of the hours in the day, every
day. It requires careful planning to allow them to get away and work on other
essential work in the offi ce or buying supplies.
All of the tasks that needed to be done could be described in terms of skill. At
Downtex, the less skilled tasks were fewer in number but greater in magnitude.
Often those that were skilled were high in number but smaller in themselves,
for example fi xing the plumbing.
Matching the tasks on the critical path with the skill level of the volunteers
available is an essential job. When they fi rst started at Downtex, many of the
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volunteers were almost completely inexperienced at practical building work
and without careful guidance could harm themselves, ruin tools and materials,
and do work that took twice as long to put right. These issues will be familiar
to tutors of building workshops at EASA. The more skilled could spare only a
small amount of time from their own jobs to train others. A suggestion for the
future would be a kind of super-apprentice scheme, where two or so helpers
are trained by someone who knows for one day, and then they repeat the
lesson to others.
Another challenge is maintaining the variety and interest of the work. It was
a management challenge to try to balance the desirable tasks like building
things with the less desirable ones like cleaning, while ensuring that everything
progresses on time.
Special help
Certain tasks could only be undertaken by paid workmen. We brought in:
1. a scaffolding contractor to build the two additional fi re escape stairs
that we needed and also the raised sleeping platforms
2. a roller shutter installer to fi x a broken shutter
3. an electrician to mend the fi re alarm and test the emergency lighting,
and install the electricity supply for the showers.
Other work was beyond our ability but we knew people kind enough to help.
These were Paul’s father and Tom’s father Keith Bennell. Paul’s father is a
hands-on property developer and knows how to hang doors and build stud
walls. He lives in London but agreed to come up to Manchester for a week to
fi t the new fi re doors and board up the openings. Keith Bennell fi xed all the
plumbing and lighting in the mill, including cleaning and redecorating two
toilet blocks.
Sam Patterson, UK NC, was not technically part of the organising team but
spent a large part of the summer in Downtex, quickly becoming another
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Section Two: Organising
coordinator of the project.
Building as material resource/furniture
When we moved in, there was a lot of rubbish in Downtex, but a lot of it
could be useful to us. The melamine-coated chipboard was used to board up
openings and in the bar; pallets were used for the bar; the bar top was made
from a 1960s suspended ceiling; bricks and blocks for the retaining wall/
bench in the courtyard. This creative re-use of materials must be familiar to
those who have attended EASA, and it is becoming increasingly common in
environmentally aware trophy projects. For us it was an economic necessity.
As a former industrial building, Downtex had no furniture, which we would
have to provide. Because food is served over several hours and the lectures
are never attended by all participants at once, we did not really need suffi cient
seating for 450, more like 200 or so. It is possible to hire seating for events, but
we were anxious to avoid the cost and the risk of damage to hired equipment.
One member of the organising team was tasked with the job of fi nding free
furniture. In Manchester we are fortunate that there are numerous large
universities close together and we had had success asking them for old
furniture in the past. We found that the most effective strategy was to fi nd
a well-spoken, smartly dressed and knowledgeable member of the team to
go and visit the reception desks of all the university buildings. The reception
staff were often more than helpful, putting us in contact with the porters and
house-services staff who were grateful that someone was taking away their
old furniture for a good cause. We found that it was helpful if we at least
pretended to be a student at the institution in question.
We found that it was generally essential to get out and meet people face to
face. Our organiser did not make much progress over the telephone or through
e-mail with many of the institutions. There are wide variations however. At the
University of Manchester were simply told desk to speak to Simon Atkinson,
the waste disposal manager. Simon proved to be an enthusiastic, open minded
person who went out of his way to help us.
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The search for furniture for Downtex often coincided with materials for
workshops and furniture for other locations. We got most of our sofas and
armchairs from house clearances in Fallowfi eld, an area dominated by privately
let student housing, as well as other materials. From the Manchester Green/
Realcycle online swapping networks we got pallets, a piano, fridges, some
tables and most of the fi re doors. All of this collecting took time – to search for
items, to collect them and to unload them, but also opportunities presented
themselves over time. We could not have made use of these resources if we
had not had both a van and the accommodation for two months before the
assembly.
We passed the fi nal fi re inspection one day before the assembly was due to
begin. The pressure of that week had been tremendous, not only to make
Downtex meet very basic standards of accommodation, but also to meet the
ever increasing requirements of the fi re service inspectors. In spite of the
hard work that we had put in throughout the two months, work was not quite
fi nished even the day before. Now, we were able to make use of help from
participants that had arrived early and all the volunteers from Manchester.
[tbe]
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Section Two: Organising
Chapter 26 - Safety
It took a while to decide on the title of this chapter because it covers quite a
few things and mainly looks at the legal aspects that needed to be organised in
order to get offi cial permission for certain things. The chapter is certainly not
about Health and Safety, because, well we didn’t really go down that avenue -
Health and Safety is a phrase that is thrown around quite a lot, but is really not
relevant to easa010, yes we had requirements to meet that related to safety
but we didn’t have someone in a specifi c Health and Safety role. But this is
boring and could take quite a while to explain about something we didn’t do,
so just take my word for it.
In the end though I just thought about all the
times I was asked why we went through such
lengths to gain offi cial permissions and licences,
the only answer is that we did it for the safety of the participants - simply for
their wellbeing, not the responsibility we were under.
For future organisers thinking of skipping the legal part of organising, no
matter where you are based, let me fi rst say that if we didn’t go through
these avenues there would have been no insurance cover for the participants,
volunteers or talent in case of an accident. If a small issue had come up
bringing the authorities to the accommodation the attention would have
resulted in the whole assembly being shut down, and there would have been
no way back from that, we would have lost the trust of everyone associated
with it, we would have lost spaces, we would even have lost sponsor money
due to us. Possibly the most convincing thing I can say is you could go to jail.
It would be easy to think this is a chapter that could have little relevance for
future assemblies, the UK has its own laws, right? Today though EU law covers
most (of course not all) of Europe, so many of the regulations will be the
same. More than that though, this Chapter is more to do with way we had to
All specifi c documents including the terms and conditions for participants are included in Section Five
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do the things in general, rather than the specifi cs of the regulations.
The fi rst thing to stress is we had these issues in mind from the very beginning,
from right before we bid, which is why we had set out at the centre of our
organising strategy to meet with as many infl uential people as possible and to
gain their active support.
Knowing the implications of not getting these things in place in time I had
been hoping to have issues resolved well in advance of the assembly, and
we would have if we had not lost our fi rst choice accommodation location in
February of the assembly year. We fi nally secured an alternative in June.
To give an insight into the size of the task we faced you need to know the
process we should have gone through. To get a change of use on a building
we didn’t own we should have given the owner 3 weeks notice of our intention,
then put in the planning application which would take 8 weeks to process,
after getting permission for change of use we should then have applied for a
premises licence which takes another 8 weeks. Meaning the minimum length
of time to get everything in place was 19 weeks. This was the minimum
because if there were any ‘representations’ - basically objections - from the
public, police, fi re department, environmental health, highways agency etc,
etc, there would be another 8 weeks added to either or both the planning and
the licence process. Meaning the length of time could be 19 weeks, 27 weeks,
35 weeks... We had 7 (seven) weeks, less than the time it takes to process the
planning application alone.
This huge compression of time meant we needed to do both the planning
application and the licence application at the same time, and we needed all
relevant bodies to agree straight away.
To get the best understanding of what you need to do to meet the relevant
regulations try to get insurance, you wont without doing everything legally, or
>>>>>> Insurance
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perhaps worse, it wont pay out when you need it.
For those thinking about producing a waiver for participants to sign on arrival
to indemnify the organisation against being sued - they have no legal worth.
Under European law an individual can not sign way their rights, but, as we did,
it is important that you get all the participants to sign a declaration stating they
have read and understood the terms and conditions of being there, otherwise
they wont be covered by insurance incase of accident.
In total we had four insurance policies, building insurance for easaHQ, building
insurance for Downtex, event insurance for building things, sleeping and
such like for the two weeks of the event, and single day event insurance for
easaDAY’s public spaces.
Downtex is a commercial building in an area zoned for commercial, not
residential use. In order to sleep there legally, to get an alcohol licence and
be covered by insurance, we needed to gain permission to sleep people there,
this meant a full planning application for change of use for a given period of
time.
As we’ve seen already, we had a lot less than the required time to get the
application through and absolutely no room for mistakes. It was now all
our efforts in meeting with the council, running small build up events and
generally building a reputation in the city paid off - when putting in a planning
application for an international event it helps that you have the written support
of the leader of the council, as well as written and active support of the Events
Team at the council as well as the Head of Planning, no less. It also helped
that we were a bunch of architecture students, and having two years practice
experience I was familiar with planning application requirements.
(The majority of the information that follows directly with our experience with
licensing in England & Wales, and specifi c information for other countries
Planning permission <<<<<<
Licence <<<<<<
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should be referred to when seeking a license. However, the information and
advice seen generally should hold true across countries.)
Why
After agreeing terms on the mill, we started thinking about how each thing
was going to work within its context. The bar/cafe/party space was forecast
as the most used space during the assembly, so therefore the most ‘revenue-
able’ area. A bar we could sell alcoholic drinks at, cash or token, would be a
great profi t earner.
To sell alcohol in the UK you need a licence, or if the event has a limited number
of people and duration a Temporary Events Notice (TEN) can be applied for. We
looked at the possibility of running the bar from TENs, but a few factors meant
it wasn’t going to possible: limit of TENs for one location, arrangements with
other events organisers, time limit would impose nights off on the bar which
is not ideal for our main revenue source. So we would need the mill licensed.
Getting a Licence
The licensing laws in the UK changed recently, with the intention to help both
the licensees and the authorities giving out the licences. While this may be
the case, it has introduced various new steps and legislation that created new
bureaucracy and cost for current licence holders and those wanting to gain a
licence.
After some research, our fi rst task was to get a member of the organising
team a personal licence (1). This required a day’s training on alcohol law and
the licensing objectives, followed by an exam set by the licensing authority. I
was nominated/nominated myself for the position. In all honesty, the course
and examination were relatively straightforward and based upon common
sense, much like a driving theory test.
Next came the laborious process of the premises application. There was a lot
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of work and planning which needed to be done before we could start fi lling
out the application form. Things like areas of control, fi re escape routes, noise
control, provision of sanitary services, refuse disposal strategies and security
strategies were being set up to support not only this, but further planning
applications, fi re inspections, etc.
We tried to get all the main responsible authorities - Police, Fire Department,
Environmental Health - to the venue to talk through and explain what we were
doing and what we wanted to do, as on paper it looks rather extreme. This
perhaps was the fl ip side of EASA being such a unique event, and it not having
a recent precedent in the local area.
It was a huge task of negotiating, accepting
compromises and conditions on the licence and
a number of grey area liberties, but we were
granted our premises licence by Licence Hearing at the Town Hall on July 29th,
48 hours before the bar opened for business at the start of easa010.
Responsibilities
The main responsibility I had as the licence holder and designated premises
supervisor for the bar at easa010 is that I am the one making or authorising
the sale of alcohol for consumption on the premises. In practice this is near
impossible, which is why all persons of the organising team who worked on
the bar signed an agreement with myself, authorising them to sell alcohol,
after a basic training session on the licensing objectives and the law in regards
to the sale of alcohol.
The DPS is also required to spend a signifi cant amount of time on the premises,
given that I was responsible for the day-to-day running of the bar. I was
also making sure that no licensing offences were committed, such as the sale
of alcohol to persons who are drunk or allowing disorderly conduct on the
premises.
Permission is not enough in itself, with regular visits a possibility adequate training as well as vigilance in terms of restrictions is essential.
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As we found, moving the easaBAR II to a licensed premises takes pressure off the organisers, but the feeling of easaBAR I was never recreated.
Advice
If you are holding EASA in a city or town, fi nd a bar that is already established
and can accommodate you for the duration of the assembly. It will cut out
a lot of stress, time, effort, stress, resources and stress. It may be diffi cult
negotiating the opening times, drinks and snacks costs and space, but there
will be less opportunity to trip yourselves up. (2)
Do not underestimate the amount of disorderly conduct EASA participants can
produce.
Start your research early. We managed to get a licence in the shortest time frame
possible, through some very rushed hard work, some useful connections in
the city council, smiling faces, and a small miracle. An extra three (two?) weeks
would have made a big difference.
Speak to people who have been
through the process before. Tips and tricks of negotiating the legal minefi eld
this area is are invaluable, from the language you should use, to highlighting
the relevant parts of the application to each authority.
(1) For any licensed premises, the new system requires a DPS (designated
premises supervisor) to hold a personal license, and the premises itself to
have a premises licence. More information on the Licensing Act 2003, its
measures and objectives can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Licensing_Act_2003
(2) Advice given to me by two Policewomen who deal with the licensed premises
of North Manchester.
[ama]
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As part of the exhibition on easaDAY we were to utilise public spaces, this had
the support of the head of Events Team at the council and therefore we had
assurances that there would be no problem getting the spaces once all the
required information was submitted by us.
This fi rst meant negotiating with the tutors to get a rough defi nition of their
use of the space, then a long conversation with insurers to get a quotation for
the day - required by the council - and submission of the application.
It must be impressed on every single member of the team just how serious this
work is. In all honesty we struggled as a team because often, despite warnings
to the contrary, people would not recognise the
importance of doing things a certain way until it
had caused problems - once again it is diffi cult to
recognise the results of good work, but easy to see the results of bad work!
The seriousness of your legal responsibilities should be respected at the
beginning of organising, throughout organising and during the event too.
So let’s start the review with the problems, and let’s the problems with the
problems we caused from within.
It’s been said a number of times that we had only 7 weeks to concurrently
get planning permission and a licence for entertainment and the provision
of alcohol. To do this Alex Maxwell and I (Chris Maloney) worked on the
frontline, researching, fi lling out forms and meeting relevant people. In the
back line there were a number of people working on the fabric of Downtex.
Due to the short amount of time to get everything done the people at Downtex
were working on getting the place clean and tidy as well as working on fi xing
it up to the standards required by law. The third element of compression of
time came because we weren’t just applying for permission to carry out work,
we were doing the work at the same time.
easa010 owes a huge thank you to Anne Schofi eld of CityCo for making this part so easy for us.
Public Spaces <<<<<<
Review <<<<<<
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Organising EASA is not just draw in plans, making timetables and building bars, there are elements of huge individual responsibility and it is down to the team as a whole to respect this and support each other in a mature manner.
The major internal problem the team had was this element of organising
required a chain of command, something the team had not had until this
point. This resulted in Alex or I receiving instruction from the Fire department
or police for the minimum requirement for us to gain permission, relaying
this to the team working on Downtex to fi nd later that they had modifi ed the
instruction to their own idea of what is good enough. This simple lack of trust
in the judgment of Alex and I lead to a signifi cant amount of time wasted on
multiple complicated explanations of what was needed and why, when time
was already at a premium, it also lead to things just not being done because
those responsible for doing it couldn’t see the need.
It is a terrible feeling to stand in front of people capable of shutting EASA
down as the company signatory on legal documents and being made to look
like a liar because what had been
agreed, drawn and submitted had not
been carried out.
This problem continued into the assembly itself, the most striking example
coming with the fi rst visit by the fi re brigade. On coming into the site the fi re
offi cer and I stood next to the info point and asked the organiser at the time
to fi nd the fi re log book for inspection, we then toured the building. When
we returned to the info point to look at the log the organiser asked ‘what log
book?’. Right there and then we could have been shut down due to lack of
regard for the seriousness of tasks. The next day I went back to info point
and asked the same organiser, this time there was a log, but it was not fi lled
in! It was fi ve days into the assembly - and a lot of shouting later - when the
log was fi nally working as it should.
Both of these situations placed a huge amount of pressure on the people
ultimately responsible in the eye’s of the law, and demonstrate the problems
that occur when the ideals of an organisation meet the every day reality of
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legal structures. Unfortunately in the case of easa010 their were people who
were insistent on equal footing on decisions but not on responsibility, leaving
those who had signed to work, and to worry, to a disproportionate degree.
We also faced external diffi culties to getting the application accepted. We had
learned about the space when an associate organisation held a club night in
the building, this was a double edged sword though as the event had received
dozens of noise complaints from local residents and was therefore a known
location with the authorities, each of which was initially very negative about
using the building for anything other than warehouse space.
Our approach of - meet people, listen, talk, meet again - worked to overcome
the initial resistance to the assembly, we found
that once we had got representative to the site,
shown them our info documents and explained
the history to EASA there were few if any problems in principle. EASA is not
quite unique, but it is unusual. This is always a benefi t, although it also means
you must work harder to make it understood to outsiders.
To understand the situation you are facing you need to understand the role of
the person you are talking to. In most situations the person you need to grant
you permission is the person responsible if anything goes wrong, they are
unwilling to make compromise because it is not in their interest to put their
job on the line for your event.
Having cut a swathe through the problems, it is worth refl ecting on the success
too. A lot of things needed to come together for us to gain all the permissions
required to get easa010 the go ahead, and having spoken to people in the
profession since there is a general feeling of disbelief that we managed to it
in such a short time scale, this is an achievement that can not be down played
- a few weeks into the process one organiser asked me what we would do if
we didn’t get permission, my response was that there would be no EASA, this
We struggled to get the Police down to the site in the run up though due to their World Cup commitments.
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is how close we came.
Ultimately we faced problems from the Fire Brigade, which I talk about in
length in Section Three, but this doesn’t take away from the fact we received
permission in the fi rst place. In fact the pressure felt getting the permission,
including having our fi nal fi re inspection on the eve of the assembly, gave a
huge amount of experience of coping when we had to look else where.
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Chapter 27 - Review
Our organising period stretched over two years nine months, so it is fairly
diffi cult to review! I’ll start by listing the signifi cant choices we made along
with a brief summary of what informed the choice.
National EveningIdentity / tradition
National evening didn’t exist in its current form until 2004, previous to that
countries would do their own presentations on evening right throughout the
assembly. Once again the short living memory of EASA had turned it into a
tradition written in stone. We decided that on a variation to national evening
we would split the night into two halves and each country would be paired with
another on the opposite night. The two countries
would then have to represent each other rather
than themselves. We made sure we gave all NCs a good advanced warning so
they could prepare, talk between each other - or not.
QuotaIntegration
In recent years an excel spreadsheet has been employed to work out how
many participants from a country can attend EASA, this was based on the size
of the country, involvement etc. The spreadsheet seemed to us an arbitrary
way of working out the numbers wrapped in the mystique of a mathematical
formula - none of us were comfortable with it. We reasoned that the difference
in bringing 4 or 8 participants when you were faced with a country with
thousands of students was ridiculous any way, we discussed it and decided
that a fundamental part of EASA is the cultural exchange, and we all miss
out if some countries are smaller than others. To this end we decided that
easa010 would have equal representation from all countries in EASA.
Library / Debate spaceIdentity / interaction / density
For a review of all these choices in practice see Section Three
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We sent out a plea for people to bring books and journals for a library that
would be part of our cafe. This wasn’t a new idea, but it was something that
hadn’t been part of the EASA set up for quite a few years. The idea was that
the space could be a place where people could take a short break from their
workshops without getting distracted by the lure of the city’s cafes.
Day workshopsIdentity / interaction / density
Day workshops, like the debate space, were included in the timetable to give
participants the chance to vary what they were doing without completely
abandoning their workshop. We decided to limit the number of day workshops
so that the impact on the main workshops was limited. The day workshops
also gave us a chance to bring in some really interesting people who weren’t
able to give us a whole two weeks of their time.
Student LecturesIntegration / identity
There was a feeling in the team that though we’d had some great lectures in
the recent years there was now a feeling that lectures were for professionals
and workshops were for students. We felt that having participants take part
in the main lecture evenings easa010 would get more of a feeling of being
student for student, we hoped it would send a message out that the organisers
valued the input of the participants. Speaking to former EASA participants
from the 90’s and 80’s during the organising we had this thought reinforced
- originally EASA was more involved in discussions and talks of this kind.
Lecture sign upIntegration / identity
We decided that after selecting some essays to be part of the main lecture
series we would leave some spaces blank to allow participants or tutors to get
up and talk about whatever they wanted, it could be their essay, it could be
their workshop progress. We hoped that this kind of encouragement to be
part of the timetable would help people feel more involved in the assembly, an
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indication of the fl exibility we had built into the entire timetable - our desire
not to overly control the proceedings, rather to give a form work for easa010
to be defi ned by the participants.
DatascapesIntegration
We had hoped to have total of fi ve competition and invited workshops, in the
end we had two competitions and one invited Datascapes. We invited the
tutors of Datascapes to be involved as we felt that it would be interesting to
give participants the option of working with student tutors or professional
local tutors. It was a shame that a workshop we had lined up with a prominent
local architect didn’t go ahead.
Workshop applicationsTradition
Umbrella is a grey area. It has been a workshop at EASA since EASA began
- personally I think this is a good thing. It had become tradition that the
organisers of EASA would invite the tutors to run Umbrella, but we felt that
this was not the right way to do it - we were proved right with disagreements
that arose - some participants felt that Umbrella was a certainty to be selected
and that the previous tutors should select the next. We decided that both
approaches were not in the best interests of EASA, an organisation that doesn’t
vote for reasons of openness should not have a situation where tutoring is
closed and decided in private.
We opened Umbrella up to all comers, as we invited people to propose a
‘media coverage’ workshop.
Docu+MationLegacy
We decided that we wanted to run a workshop dedicated to documenting and
information gathering at easa010. We also decided this workshop would be a
competition workshop with a difference, rather than a competition for to fi nd
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tutors we held a competition for participants. We decided that we would hold
this competition back until after all quota places were fi lled in order to relieve
the headache for NCs.
easaDAYIntegration / legacy / urbanity / interaction
Debate has raged long and hard over how to get a better feeling of location in
EASA, how to integrate with the local community with more than just parties.
We decided that a great potential for integration lay in the fi nal exhibition,
we also thought that the exhibition could be so much more than a series of
rushed posters. easaDAY was set up to be a chance for the workshops to
display their output as an exhibition of public space intervention, then head
off to the fi nal presentations for a chance to see the work others had done.
Welcome talksIntegration
Integration is not only about how to interact with the location and residents,
it is about how to integrate participants with the assembly. In recent years
there is a general feeling that there has been a swing in attitude to a situation
of service and servers leaving a strain on the organisers, but also a gap in
what the assembly could be. We felt this was one of our biggest challenges,
and one we would not be able to fully overcome, but one we could attempt to
improve upon, turn attention to and hopefully improve for EASA 2011.
As well as being as communicative as possible in the build up, using inclusive
language and stating the roles NCs, tutors and participants would play in
making easa010, we realised the importance of holding a welcome talk on the
fi rst day as well as having an offi cial opening to the assembly.
DutiesIntegration
Duties are central to what EASA is all about. At recent INCMs there has been
a lot of talk about how duties had become a tourist attraction for participants
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and not engaged with. Again though the organising we had chance to see what
previous assemblies had done and it became clear that recent assemblies had
adopted the same model - food service and cleaning - for reasons of tradition
mostly. A good example of taking things to the extreme, on The Train duties
included an 8 hour stint in the kitchen cooking.
We decided that to best cover the needs of the event we would focus the
duties on what would have most benefi t. We felt duties should be relevant in
order to give participants a feeling of being productive.
Lead HelpersIntegration
From the outset of the process we had been keen to make the organisation of
easa010 a multinational cross border affair, this can be seen in the presentations
given in 2008 INCM and 2009 EASA. We opened up the chance to be involved
to the whole network as it was in 2008 and from then kept a large number of
people on the organisers mailing list, this helped us stay more connected to
the network and also to get an outside opinion of what we were doing. In the
end as well as bringing in volunteers from the UK we opened up the chance for
non-UK and former UK EASA participants to come along as Lead Helpers for a
period of time - not guests. These lead helpers would provide experience and
knowledge for the organisers as well as volunteers.
Having gone through the headline decisions in terms of the assembly itself it’s
worth doing the same for some of the organizational decisions, don’t worry
though, I will get on to what could have gone better at the end.
easaHQIntegration / legacy / identity
Both the securing of an offi ce space and the use of half of it as a gallery were
100% gold standard good decisions. The offi ce gave us a presence that lead
to a respect with people we talked to, and it changed the mind set of us
organisers. To insiders and outsiders we were more than just another student
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organisation.
The gallery gave us two things that are hard to get and yet invaluable - contacts
and experience.
SESAMIntegration / identity
SESAM could have been a major distraction if handled in a different way, but
we kept it small both in length and numbers of people. Holding a SESAM gave
us experience, but it also gave us an injection of the EASA feeling. Having
a lot of EASA people around at the end of a long cold winter really helped
with our focus and moral, the hope is it also sent out a positive message
to the network about the intentions of easa010 - we left the tutoring of the
workshop to participants, we gave them experts assistance and guided tours,
we wanted to show we were active but also inclusive.
I mentioned before that this review is diffi cult, my aim is to give some
condescend notes from all the chapters in one place, but there is plenty I am
skipping over. But now I turn to some of the things that didn’t go so well.
Fund-raising + team
To be fair, we were in the worst environment for fund-raising possible,
but that said the approach of the team wasn’t the best. At fi rst the more
experienced members of the team were so tied up doing other tasks, such as
looking for spaces, that newer team members worked on fund-raising. This
produced absolutely nothing. And once main organisers got involved in the
fund-raising other elements of the organising suffered. Over all there was a
huge pressure placed on the team because of the economic circumstances,
and some team members didn’t strive to meet this demand, meaning the
usual suspects had to do even more work to fi ll the gap.
Media
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We had high hopes for our media push, but the truth of the matter is that
media doesn’t help your EASA as much as it helps the next one, so as soon as
there is a short fall in man power for tasks media is the fi rst thing to suffer.
In the end we still managed to get a wide coverage for the assembly and the
organising process, but we fell short of getting a marque journal to cover us
in any substantial way.
There are other small shortfalls, but you should read the whole document to
fi nd out more, others are covered in the next section. So to wrap up from me
I have a few fi nal thoughts.
Don’t be afraid
EASA has happened 30 times in a row now, and some years more than once
(in all but name). There is a huge pressure felt by organisers, and it is easy to
feel you are alone, that you can’t show any form of weakness because of the
judgment that comes at every turn. EASA can happen, and there are just a few
simple things to remember to make sure you have a success.
Prioritise. Towards the end of the organising process we split the budget
into four categories - things to keep people alive (shelter, food), things to
make an EASA (materials, tools), things to make a good EASA (lectures, waking
tours, parties), dream items (morning bus, sticks of rock) - this helped calm
the nerves in terms of 400 people arriving and needing food and shelter for
2 weeks.
Focus. Throughout the process you will have thousands of small decisions to
make, often members of the team will have to make decisions on their own
and without discussion with the rest of the team, this isn’t ideal. In order to
help us stay focused on our goals for the event we met regularly, once a month
until a year before when we went to once a week and in the month before the
assembly it was nearly once every two days. These meetings helped us to
keep the overall picture of the assembly clear. Another thing that worked
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well for us was defi ning the pillars of the bid, once written we could go back
to them and see if our decisions were working in that context. More than this
though, we developed little phrases to sum up our thoughts, towards the end
when we were negotiating with tutors and looking for materials and furniture
we worked to the mantra - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - intended as a list of
importance to both be environmentally friendly and cost effi cient. The most
notable among the others was the bold statement - Go big or go home - this
phrase came out every time we had a discussion that lead to doubt about
whether we could pull something off. It was delightfully Mancunian with its
aggressive undertones, but it could have been rephrased - dare to dream a bit
bigger - and still have the same essential meaning.
Connections. Meet as many important people as possible. People should,
where possible, work to their strengths, my main role was to meet people
and make them fall in love with EASA. easaHQ really helped with this, it was
a thing people could see, and it was run in the same ethos as EASA. Once
important people fall in love with the event you have collateral you can spend,
but don’t, you should save it for a rainy day.
Contingency. Always be working on a number of options at the same time,
you don’t need to have a plan B fully formed and agreed, but you should live
by the rule that until a contract is signed nothing is certain, until money is in
your bank the agreement doesn’t mean anything.
Communicate. Talk to the network when possible. You don’t need to tell
everyone all your problems, but do try and be human. You’ll be busy and
communication can take time, but still do it. The worst part of communication
is it can make you feel more isolated as a team as often you’ll be sending
out messages, or asking for input and you’ll hear nothing. Worse can be
the repetitive communication by the same small group of people, you should
always take on board what they are saying, but remember that just because
they are the only people contacting you it doesn’t mean they speak for the
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whole network.
Trust yourself. At the end of the day you have to make very tough decisions
and only you can take responsibility for them, hesitation can lead to huge
problems so be confi dent and considered. It is also important for the network
to have faith in what you are doing.
Remember - Go big or go home!
[cma]
If nothing else EASA provides the framework for the exchange of ideas and
information. This was also the key issue in organising the assembly. Holding
it the city context forced to meet and communicate with a variety of people
and institutions.
Early on we had forged strong links with the universities and school of
architecture and those links provided me and others on the team extracurricular
activities.
I was fortunate enough to be asked to be a guest critic twice for undergraduate
level reviews. After some initial nerves, it was a great experience, and I hope
my modest guidance, praise and critique were at least half as benefi cial and
enjoyable as their projects and presentations were for me.
Toward the end of the academic year I was asked to co-tutor a four week
long studio for level 1 and 2 students. A great insight in to the workings of an
educational workshop, the exciting and sometime daunting experience was
an opportunity to break down teaching into a progression of processes and
appreciate what went into university teaching.
The students’ response was mostly positive and the results were of a high
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standard. It was great that students of a relatively basic level responded so
well to what was a challenging concept and brief. It was a rewarding experience
that I am very thankful for to those who allowed me the opportunity, and
hopefully not my last foray into teaching.
[ama]
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