Millbrook has been shortlisted for its work on the ‘BCIS ACI Virtual Experience 2021’.
Traditionally an in-person event, ACI (Advanced Cardiovascular Intervention) would usually take place at the Hilton Metropole every January welcoming over 900 delegates across the three-day conference. Due to the spike in COVID-19 cases over the winter of 2020, the decision was made early to go virtual in January.
Unfortunately, the decision was made to postpone the conference until the spring, hoping clinicians would have the capacity to join virtually when cases were expected to be more under control, allowing Millbrook to have a small studio holding a handful of panellists and speakers to show debates and discussion. The conference was a huge success, with interactive game elements and a focus on discussions and audience collaboration. Simultaneously, the conference championed a push for more female panellists and faculty members, and hold talks within the main programme on bullying and sexism within interventional cardiology, which are helping to change outdated views within the specialty. The feedback was exceptional from delegates, faculty and sponsors.
The ABPCO Excellence Awards is an annual ceremony for in-house and agency PCOs created to celebrate excellence in association conference and event organisation and recognise industry best practice.
Categories for the awards include Best Conference Award, both for agency and in-house PCOs as well as industry member and partner recognition awards. There are also Corporate Social Responsibility, Innovation Champion and finally Industry Contribution Awards for those with outstanding contributions to the events industry.
Winners of the awards will be announced on Thursday, 9 December at ExCeL London, marking the end of ABPCO’s Festival of Learning. Shortlisted events were selected by an independent panel of judges. However, winners will be selected following delegate judging prior to the awards.
Managing director of Millbrook Medical Conferences, Fiona McDonald, said:
“Millbrook are delighted to be shortlisted alongside MCI and Brightelm. These past two years have been incredibly challenging for the industry, it is amazing to receive recognition for our work and to celebrate the work of other PCOs and suppliers. No matter the outcome, we are grateful to be considered for our hard work. We wish MCI, Brightelm and all other shortlisted companies the very best of luck.”
Heather Lishman, ABPCO’s association director, added: “This is the eighth year that we have run the ABPCO Excellence awards and each year we see an increase in the quality of entries.
“2021 marks the end of another challenging year for our industry but our members have remained incredibly resilient and demonstrated this through the creativity and innovation they have brought to their events.
“This year saw new ideas, ways of working and relationships develop across the whole of the ABPCO membership, and this has translated into an incredible line-up of finalists. Good luck to them all.”
On Monday, December 7, the Association of British Professional Conference Organisers (ABPCO) hosted its annual Excellence Awards. The ceremony rewards excellence and professionalism in the world of association events, recognising professional conference organisers and event industry partners for their contributions to the industry. As you may expect, this year was a little different than normal with awards ceremony taking place virtually, allowing the attendees to vote for category winners and view presentations from nominees and winners.
For 2020, an additional award category was added, the Lockdown Hero Award, which recognises the professional conference organisers who have worked against the odds to create events during the COVID era. Millbrook was presented with the special award for its work in facilitating the Imperial College COVID-19 Cardiovascular Conference with two other organisations also recognised as Lockdown Heroes.
The live webinar was Millbrook’s first virtual event, taking place on Thursday, April 2, 2020, with just a 10-day lead time, no budget and the need for a significant global audience. This was important to ensure this vital information on COVID presentation in cardiac patients was shared worldwide to implement change and save lives.
The programme comprised of four highly-engaging sessions featuring 29 talks from 32 members of faculty. Within 10 days, a global audience was generated of over 5,600 participants across all four continents including delegates from Morocco, the USA, India, Norway and Sweden. Post-event, the webinar was made available on-demand and so far has generated a total of 9,300 viewers.
Millbrook managing director Fiona McDonald commented:
“During this extraordinary year, Millbrook, like all professional conference organisers needed to evolve for the COVID era. We have learnt how to use multiple virtual event platforms to become self-taught virtual event specialists in a very short time frame.
“I am so proud of the work our team has undertaken to ensure that medical education can still take place despite being unable to organise traditional face-to-face conferences. It’s been a huge learning curve, but we are extremely proud that Millbrook has facilitated the sharing of important COVID information to physicians worldwide.”
Barbara Calderwood, ABPCO co-chair, added:
“In a remarkable year we expected remarkable entries, and our membership truly delivered.
“ABPCO members demonstrated creativity, flexibility and tenacity as they organised events under very different circumstance compared to anything they have done in the past. Thank you to all our members for submitting their entries and well done to our worthy winners, who were chosen through a mixture of audience voting and judges’ marks.
“Through the addition of the Lockdown Hero awards we were also able to recognise a new breed of member, those who stepped out of their comfort zone and did something different for their clients, peers and audiences.”
ABPCO membership provides reassurance to prospective clients seeking the services of a professional conference organiser that their event is in safe hands. ABPCO members have been verified by both ABPCO and their peers and are recognised for their skills and experience within conference organisation.
Members of the Millbrook Medical Conferences team have been re-acknowledged by ABPCO in 2020 for their services to conference management. Fiona McDonald is recognised as a full ABPCO member honouring her 27 years within the industry during which she has organised hundreds of conferences and events across the UK and overseas. Full membership also recognises Fiona’s position as managing director of Millbrook Medical Conferences.
Lizzie Head, Emma Robinson, Rebecca Hopper and Harriet Sullivan are recognised as associate members of ABPCO. This level requires a minimum of two years’ experience of all services required in the preparation and running of conferences, seminars and/or other meetings. Applications for associate membership must be supported by references from at least two clients or venues. In addition, detailed reviews of the applicant’s last two conferences are submitted before consideration by the ABPCO executive committee before accreditation is approved.
Recognition from ABPCO is testament to the hard work and professionalism shown by the executive conference managers at Millbrook Medical Conferences. If you would like to find out more about our conference services or are looking to obtain a tailored, no obligation quote please contact us through the form on our website here.
If you would like to find out more about ABPCO, click here.
The decision was made collectively by council members of BCIS and announced by Nick Curzen, President of BCIS, during the BCIS AGM (annual general meeting). The BCIS AGM took place at the Advanced Cardiovascular Intervention (ACI) conference.
Millbrook is ambitious in its objectives for the evolution of the society to ensure sustainability and progression for years to come. Over the next six months, Millbrook will address the more immediate priorities.
The first and most important task is to revive the BCIS website to improve its functionality and enhance the user experience for BCIS members.
Secondly, Millbrook will redevelop and align the membership process to aid both financial planning for the society and provide consistency for members.
Finally, changes will be made to ensure an increase in the availability and accessibility of first-class education for BCIS members of all levels.
Five members of the Millbrook team will provide support to BCIS. Fiona McDonald will be the first-line key contact at Millbrook and will oversee and direct all work as general manager. Supporting Fiona and the BCIS Officers will be Dominic Legate (finance), Emily Husak (BCIS website and memberships and subscriptions), Sarah Moore (BCIS website and communications) and Tilly Broadbent (administration).
Millbrook’s executive conference managers will concentrate on the organisation of medical education across the UK.
Both BCIS and Millbrook would like to thank Azeem Ahmad for his sterling work as BCIS administrator for many years and wish him the very best in his future endeavours. Millbrook will continue Azeem’s hard work and will rely on his expertise during the handover period.
The British Cardiovascular Intervention Society will remain a separate entity to Millbrook Medical Conferences. In line with GDPR regulations, BCIS and BCS data will remain secure to BCIS activities and will not be used by Millbrook Medical Conferences for any reason.
There will be a transitional period whilst information and knowledge are shared to Millbrook Medical Conferences.
If you have any queries regarding this transition, or general enquiries for the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society, please email bcis@millbrookconferences.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1455 552559.
Millbrook has been shortlisted for its work on the ‘BCIS ACI Virtual Experience 2021’.
Traditionally an in-person event, ACI (Advanced Cardiovascular Intervention) would usually take place at the Hilton Metropole every January welcoming over 900 delegates across the three-day conference. Due to the spike in COVID-19 cases over the winter of 2020, the decision was made early to go virtual in January.
Unfortunately, the decision was made to postpone the conference until the spring, hoping clinicians would have the capacity to join virtually when cases were expected to be more under control, allowing Millbrook to have a small studio holding a handful of panellists and speakers to show debates and discussion. The conference was a huge success, with interactive game elements and a focus on discussions and audience collaboration. Simultaneously, the conference championed a push for more female panellists and faculty members, and hold talks within the main programme on bullying and sexism within interventional cardiology, which are helping to change outdated views within the specialty. The feedback was exceptional from delegates, faculty and sponsors.
The ABPCO Excellence Awards is an annual ceremony for in-house and agency PCOs created to celebrate excellence in association conference and event organisation and recognise industry best practice.
Categories for the awards include Best Conference Award, both for agency and in-house PCOs as well as industry member and partner recognition awards. There are also Corporate Social Responsibility, Innovation Champion and finally Industry Contribution Awards for those with outstanding contributions to the events industry.
Winners of the awards will be announced on Thursday, 9 December at ExCeL London, marking the end of ABPCO’s Festival of Learning. Shortlisted events were selected by an independent panel of judges. However, winners will be selected following delegate judging prior to the awards.
Managing director of Millbrook Medical Conferences, Fiona McDonald, said:
“Millbrook are delighted to be shortlisted alongside MCI and Brightelm. These past two years have been incredibly challenging for the industry, it is amazing to receive recognition for our work and to celebrate the work of other PCOs and suppliers. No matter the outcome, we are grateful to be considered for our hard work. We wish MCI, Brightelm and all other shortlisted companies the very best of luck.”
Heather Lishman, ABPCO’s association director, added: “This is the eighth year that we have run the ABPCO Excellence awards and each year we see an increase in the quality of entries.
“2021 marks the end of another challenging year for our industry but our members have remained incredibly resilient and demonstrated this through the creativity and innovation they have brought to their events.
“This year saw new ideas, ways of working and relationships develop across the whole of the ABPCO membership, and this has translated into an incredible line-up of finalists. Good luck to them all.”
