Meetings + Events

By Sandra Eagle

The Canadian Society of Professional Event Planners (CanSPEP) has come up with a novel response to the isolation and difficulties that is our current world situation at the moment. They figured when life gives you lemons—you make lemonade!

Each day they are featuring the CanSPEP Lemonade Stand—a ZOOM phone chat with a different topic hosted by some of their industry veterans to help their membership survive and thrive during a crisis. Sue Mercer, principal of Step In Marketing & Event Solutions, based in Toronto, and this year’s vice president of marketing for CanSPEP, says the idea came out of a past president’s council weekly call. “They were trying to figure out how they could help the current membership, based on their level of experience. After all, some of these planners had been through 9/11 and SARS, so they definitely had a level of experience and expertise with crisis situations.”

Sessions for the next week and beyond deal with counting your blessings, how to unplan a meeting, leadership in uncertain times, the power of your inbox, the silver linings playbook for surviving a crisis and volunteering. Mercer adds that all of the sessions are open to anyone, with the exception of the Friday morning call that is for CanSPEP members only. During this time CanSPEP is offering a monthly membership option. Contact membership@canspep.ca.

To view a full list of CanSPEP's Lemonade Stand Chats, visit canspep.ca.