I see that the training event scheduled for the end of the month is no

E-mail from Human Resources Manager to Event Coordinator

I see that the training event scheduled for the end of the month is now a full-day event. From what the presenters tell me, we have at least six, and possibly seven, hours of content that people need to absorb. While I’m glad it’s going to be a valuable day, I’m worried about people’s ability to sustain attention that long. What are we doing about giving them breaks? And what about lunch? Our on-site cafeteria can’t handle that volume of people, but if we release people to go off-site for lunch, we’ll need to give them a longer lunch break, and that cuts into time we need for programming. What are your current plans?

E-mail from Event Coordinator to Human Resources Manager

Our schedule calls for a keynote to begin the day, a series of breakout sessions throughout the day, and a final plenary session to end the event. I’m sending the draft schedule for your review. We’ve arranged for box lunches. Our campus has plenty of outdoor seating, and the weather is generally dependable, so people can pick up a lunch and get out of doors. They’ll have a break from the meeting rooms but won’t be far afield, so there should be less wasted time. There are also two shorter breaks, one in the morning after the keynote and one just before the plenary session.

E-mail from Human Resources Manager to Event Coordinator

Thanks for sending the schedule. It gave me a much clearer idea of how the event will run. I like the idea of the box lunch, but what if the weather doesn’t cooperate? Do we have adequate indoor spaces for people to congregate? They need to get out of the meeting rooms and be able to interact a bit more. The plan for a morning and an afternoon break sounds good, but I’d make a couple of suggestions. Let’s move the afternoon break earlier, between the two afternoon breakouts. At the end of the day, we want to move people into the final session and wrap up. Also, if the caterers can handle it, let’s have the coffee (or whatever refreshments you’ve planned) in multiple locations,
perhaps a small setup in each breakout room. That may help traffic move to the correct rooms and keep us running on time.