Third Sector Forum – good for you?
Howard Lake | 14 October 2006 | Blogs
Third Sector magazine is running its annual two-day Forum for senior fundraising, marketing and communications directors from 8-10 November at The Oxford Belfry, Oxfordshire. It’s a good proprosition: up to 50 senior staff with budgets in excess of £500,000 a year get a free conference and networking opportunity in return for attending workshops, listening to speakers, and agreeing to a series of 30-minute meetings with suppliers. Needless to say, it’s the suppliers that pay to attend and make the event worthwhile for Haymarket, Third Sector’s publishers.
Speakers at this year’s event include Jon Scourse, director of the Fundraising Standards Board; Jonathan Powell, chief executive at Independent Age; Penelope Gibbs, director of the Voluntary Action Media Unit; Andrew Hind, chief executive at the Charity Commission; and Amanda Seller, director of fundraising at WSPA.
There are some tough reservations in the terms of conditions of booking. If you cancel within six weeks of the event (and we’re now only three weeks away from the event) you will be charged £1,000 + VAT. Cancel with just two weeks to go and you’ll be invoiced for £2,000 + VAT. Similarly any delegate that does not keep to the itinery of appointments with suppliers, or who “is there to sell their company’s products or services” might well be charged “the full cost of accommodation, meals and the equivalent cost of being an exhibitor at the Forum.”
I’ve never been to the Forum. It sounds a good idea. Anyone care to comment on how useful it is to senior fundraisers and marketers?
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.