January, the often dreaded month of austerity that follows a period of festive fun, excess and escape from reality, comes upon us with a tremendous shock to the system, as everyone tries to rev up their spluttering engines to tackle the New Year ahead. In the events industry we have a chance to reassess and regroup our thoughts, while we focus on our goals for 2017 – January being a month made for quiet reflection.
For a lot of us January is a chance for a re-birth, a time to re-focus and plan new goals:
‘…are we happy with our careers?’
‘What changes can we make to learn new skills and better our life chances?’
As founder of the CHS Group, we create events which connect UK hotels and venues with event professionals. We also run a hugely successful student volunteer programme alongside our Conference and Hospitality Show at the first direct arena in Leeds, which I strongly believe nurtures the next generation of event professionals, by giving them first-hand experience of helping run a large scale event in an exciting venue.
I lecture at many Universities and talk with students about working within the Events Industry and over the next few weeks I will map out the best route to achieving your first job in events management, as well as top tips for finding a mentor, approaches to lifelong learning and increasing your skill set.
Aside from January being a time of reappraising and skills auditing, my general thoughts for 2017 and trends in the events industry can be found here