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.
Following a busy couple of years, three new roles have been created to streamline the business and prepare for further expansion over the next twelve months.
Tilly Broadbent joined as administrative assistant to support conference coordinators and executive conference managers. Tilly graduated from Leeds Beckett University with a first-class degree in event management in 2017. Since then, she has spent two years travelling across Australia and recently returned home to continue her career in event management.
Sarah Moore joined as business development and marketing manager, focussing on digital marketing and seeking opportunities to further expand the business. Sarah attained a first-class degree with honours in Business and Management at De Montfort University and previously worked within marketing for a specialist healthcare event management business. Sarah has additional experience in marketing across a range of sectors from construction to finance.
Matt Daly will join the team in February. In 2019 Matt spent six months at Millbrook and we are delighted that he is re-joining the team. Matt, previously the owner of a conference management company whilst living in Australia, also has extensive experience as a freelance event manager.
As well as the recently created roles, Dominic Legate has recently moved into a new role as operations and finance director. Dominic will oversee the day to day company processes and will be actively involved in the business development programme whilst continuing with his role as finance manager.
Fiona McDonald, Managing Director, commented:
“I’m absolutely delighted to welcome our new team members. Millbrook has continued to grow over recent years and we’re very proud of the work we have produced as a team.
“As a result, I have taken some time to review the structure of the business to ensure we continue to provide an exceptional standard of easily accessible, sustainable medical education and have the capacity to accommodate future growth over the next twelve months and beyond.”
In addition to our new team members, we have welcomed one executive conference manager back from maternity leave. Rebecca Hopper returned to work in September following the birth of her baby girl in October 2018. Two of our team members, Lizzie Head and Emma Robinson, are both currently on maternity leave and are due back to work in 2020.
Following a busy couple of years, three new roles have been created to streamline the business and prepare for further expansion over the next twelve months.
Tilly Broadbent joined as administrative assistant to support conference coordinators and executive conference managers. Tilly graduated from Leeds Beckett University with a first-class degree in event management in 2017. Since then, she has spent two years travelling across Australia and recently returned home to continue her career in event management.
Sarah Moore joined as business development and marketing manager, focussing on digital marketing and seeking opportunities to further expand the business. Sarah attained a first-class degree with honours in Business and Management at De Montfort University and previously worked within marketing for a specialist healthcare event management business. Sarah has additional experience in marketing across a range of sectors from construction to finance.
Matt Daly will join the team in February. In 2019 Matt spent six months at Millbrook and we are delighted that he is re-joining the team. Matt, previously the owner of a conference management company whilst living in Australia, also has extensive experience as a freelance event manager.
As well as the recently created roles, Dominic Legate has recently moved into a new role as operations and finance director. Dominic will oversee the day to day company processes and will be actively involved in the business development programme whilst continuing with his role as finance manager.
Fiona McDonald, Managing Director, commented:
“I’m absolutely delighted to welcome our new team members. Millbrook has continued to grow over recent years and we’re very proud of the work we have produced as a team.
“As a result, I have taken some time to review the structure of the business to ensure we continue to provide an exceptional standard of easily accessible, sustainable medical education and have the capacity to accommodate future growth over the next twelve months and beyond.”
In addition to our new team members, we have welcomed one executive conference manager back from maternity leave. Rebecca Hopper returned to work in September following the birth of her baby girl in October 2018. Two of our team members, Lizzie Head and Emma Robinson, are both currently on maternity leave and are due back to work in 2020.
But of course, there is much more to it than that.
The need to attend a conference is as strong as ever despite all the financial challenges that are currently in place and the scrutiny that healthcare professionals are under, but why is this so? Why is it so important that 11,000 healthcare professionals are prepared to travel from around the globe to attend a conference in San Diego? The answer is clear.
There is a need for that conference. There is a need to bring all those physicians together for a limited period of time to garner knowledge and information, to exchange ideas. To make new acquaintances. To build life-long working relationships. To put a face to a name. To discuss your own or someone else’s ideas. And, of course, to be educated.
For industry of course, the answers again are plentiful and similar. Meeting new customers, key opinion leaders, the future generation. Exchanging of ideas, demonstrating your products. Forging new contacts.
There are many reasons for holding a conference and there is no doubt that you cannot replace the experience of real life conference attendance, on your computer screen.
With the changes that have evolved in the workplace for both healthcare professionals and its associated industry over the past few years, organisers of healthcare educational events must recognise the changing needs of their delegates and sponsors and adapt accordingly. Balance does need to be introduced and working alongside digital providers to provide choice for the delegate as well as ensuring a financially satisfactory and accessible event must now be high on the organiser’s list of considerations when embarking on a new project.
Millbrook Medical Conferences and its sister company Millbrook Medical Logistics, recognise the need for organic growth and are committed to being part of the new era of conferencing but most importantly, Millbrook embraces change and the new challenges it brings.
As a recognised market leader, our new website gives you, at the click of a button, the opportunity to find, attend or organise conferences relative to your sector. Millbrook Medical Conferences will deliver the highest quality conference experience and will work to your bespoke requirements.
