Like everyone I have gone through a raft of emotions over the last few months. Shock that this virus was going to affect the UK, Scotland, ME! Concern that EVENTIT might be postponed or cancelled. Panic for the long-term future of our company. Then once I raised my head from my business bubble, fear for the health of my nearest and dearest and the future of our industry. Finally, I acknowledged the true scale of this pandemic and slumped onto the sofa, exhausted, tearful and feeling so completely out of control. That was until I decided to do a SWOT analysis and to my surprise found the opportunities were my biggest page!
Granted I have always been an optimist but even for me it seems a tad strange that during the worst disaster to hit the globe that I could still come up with a list of opportunities! But rather than dwelling on the long-term future and uncertainty ahead I focused on the here and now. We had time to take breath, regroup, step back, reassess where we are, where we want to be and how we might get there – albeit these plans are likely to keep changing as we navigate the ‘new norm’ but how often have we ever had even five minutes spare to take stock?
Appreciate that rather than stepping off the hamster wheel we have been rather unceremoniously catapulted from it but we can’t waste this time. I was excited at the prospect that our team would have time to rest and when they were ready to be able to focus on training, learning or research that we have all wanted to do over the last five years but never have the time.
I will confess that initially I felt guilty watching my fellow event professionals immediately stepping up to the plate to assist the front line, keep the industry updated on all the twists and turns of Government policy and regularly communicating with us all through social media while I took the opportunity to slow down, upskill and start planning our next move. That was before I realised that we all have different roles to play and I believe that ours comes at the next phase.
When we start to emerge from lockdown and our industry slowly comes back to life I want the EVENTIT and EVENTSBASE team to be refreshed, our products to be upgraded, ready for whatever restrictions might be placed on our sector so we can do whatever we can to assist our colleagues and partners to bounce back as quickly as is humanly possible.
We know that the landscape will look very different, some of our industry colleagues may not survive but if we have learnt anything from this it is that community matters and we need to all work together using the extraordinary skills, experience and resources within our industry to create a better future for everyone. An industry that is sustainable, fair, inclusive, resilient, creative, forward thinking and one that we can be proud to hand on to the generations to come.
We will be ready to play our part in this.
Judith Wilson
Events Director, Eventsbase
