Making Meetings Safer, Part 1

With only about one-third of planners having an emergency action plan (EAP), it’s not hard to argue the industry needs to help planners more when it comes to preparing for a disaster, whether it be an active shooter, weather event or medical incident. But where does a meeting planner begin?

Let’s start with an assessment, to find out why you need to plan and what type of emergency you may encounter. By doing an assessment you:

Create awareness
Set standards
Use best practices to:
Reduce risk of injury/death and to property
Assist in budget planning
Lower liability
Produce positive meeting reputation

During the assessment you consider your threats and hazards, your vulnerabilities and your impacts and consequences. After which you give context to each threat or hazard. Next, review your capabilities to respond to the treats, vulnerabilities and impacts (this includes prevention, protection, mitigation, response and recovery) and, finally, apply the results of your assessment.

To demonstrate, check out this simple example

The Annual Conference of Video Gamers Association

December 1, 2017 in Boston, MA

Approx. 500 attendees

Threat/Hazard = Snowstorm

Vulnerability = transportation, utilities at venue, communication systems

Impacts = injury, loss of life, destruction of venue, loss of revenue

Risk level = guarded (meaning chance of it happening is medium to high)

Capabilities = public health & medical services, community resilience, IT security, info sharing

Threat/Hazard = Finger injuries

Vulnerability = medical

Impacts = attendee participation