Practicalities of running a course
by Claire Groom
Like all our activities the organisation is done on a voluntary basis by committee members who also have busy demanding jobs. Typically, organising a course will be shared between two people with additional help being given for preparing invoices and will involve a fair amount of time during two to three months before a course. Advertising material has to be prepared, speakers to be found, a suitable venue to be chosen, menus to be planned, badges and course material produced, The organisers must also be available on the day to chair the course and ensure everything runs smoothly. It is rare that there are not some problems along the way, ranging from freak weather conditions making travelling impossible for some participants to attend, to incomplete application forms being returned - all of which take time to sort out.
A checklist has been produced for the organisers and this will help any new volunteers who may feel they have hidden organisational skills just waiting to be used.
We have been very fortunate in finding excellent speakers but we are always keen to increase the pool of speakers - again this will help us to run more courses. Our speakers are drawn from those who have working experience of the materials used but this means that they are only able to offer us limited time. There may be some readers who would be interested in leading a course on Statutes, Law Reports or the introduction to the English Legal system and if this is the case please contact us - there is an honorarium offered which may tempt some of you. Initially you could sit in on a course to see what is involved before committing yourself and you will find that previous speakers will be happy to offer help.
Our choice of venues is determined by the need to have ready access to all the basic printed and electronic materials, as the courses are very much hands-on with workshop sessions.
We are also keen to keep the cost of the courses low so that everyone from all sectors of the profession is able to attend. We have been able to offer courses in some outstanding academic libraries such as the Bodleian Law Library in Oxford and University College, London, as well as the Birmingham Law Society. We are very grateful to all the institutions that have hosted our courses but we appreciate that this involves a certain amount of disruption to the host library and we cannot expect them to offer their facilities more often than they do, particularly in term time, which is why we often run courses during vacation periods. Using commercial venues would easily double the cost of the courses.
We are keen to arrange courses outside London but this depends on willing local volunteers and suitable venues, and interestingly we have had feedback from participants who say it is often easier to travel to London than other major cities.
Some of you may feel that we should increase the number of places available on each course but this would be impractical with the emphasis on hands-on sessions and also we have found one of the hidden benefits of the courses has been the networking opportunity they offer to those new to the field. It is always good to see new friendships being made and people feeling they have made contact with others who may be able to help them out in a crisis! Such opportunities tend to be lost when the group becomes too large.
We hope this background information will help you to understand how we put these courses together and if you feel inspired to volunteer - as a trainer, if you have the facilities to host a course or in any other capacity - do contact the Committee Chair for an informal discussion to find out what is involved.
