The initiative group
The idea behind organizing a professional event usually belongs to a small group or a
person.
People who form an initiative group are usually highly motivated, perseverant, and good
organizers.
If a congress, conference, seminar, etc. is held under the auspices of a professional
organization from the country or from abroad, it must be permanently involved and
informed with respect to the progress made and in some cases permission must be asked
for certain professional or organizational initiatives or measures.
The organizing committee
According to the event, organization measures must start 1 or 2 years, 6 months to a year,
3 to 6 months, or one to 3 months in advance.
The organizing committee is usually made up of a President (who has authentic
professional prestige and is well known in the professional community) and Members
(who have a special status and/or professional and social role in order to make decisions
and obtain the necessary official, financial and logistic support for the situation).
The president of the organizing committee is in charge with the general coordination of
the organization efforts and will not be directly involved in the activity of subcommittees.
He or she will focus on scientific and professional aspects of the event (congress,
conference, seminar): setting a general topic and topics specific to each workshop,
inviting speakers, professional personalities, representatives of the authorities, etc.
The members of the organizing committee coordinate various subcommittees: scientific
(assessing and scheduling the papers proposed for presentation), financial, technical,
publicity, registration, general programme (scheduling speakers, workshops, hourly
exhibitions), social programme etc. While organizing the event they must be exempted
from a series of current professional duties. As the event draws near, they must meet ever
more frequently; the president will attend some of the sessions.
The activity of the organizing committee starts with setting the conference topic.
Usually, the topic reflects the professional interests of the given community, future
methodological development, practice, social impact and economic effects, and in case of
a counselling event: school counselling, family counselling, counselling disabled people,
adults, distance counselling, indiscriminate access to information and counselling, ethical
and qualitative aspects.