EVENT PR MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES

Your Role:
To ensure the correct profile for the event is maintained throughout, from conception, through planning, to completion.

To protect the integrity of the event by ensuring that correct key message points are delivered to all parties involved.

To be fully aware of the "no press" brief and to work consciously with all Elan Vital managers and departments to ensure this.

To be objective and forward thinking.

To plan realistic contingencies for handling any matter which might arise that has the potential to attract media attention.

To be able to competently represent Elan Vital, to speak clearly, to the point, and confidently about its aims and objectives, the nature and purpose of events, the role of the guest speaker and his subject.

The Press Statement:

This statement is written to provide either the press or any other enquirers with current information about the programme and Maharaji's role at the event. Please note that Maharaji/Mr. Prem Pal Rawat is invited to attend the event as guest speaker to give an address on human potential and the individual learning process on this subject that he teaches. The event may also contain video presentations of addresses given by Mr. Rawat. Some events are open to the public and some are solely for those who already participate in this learning process. Make sure you are clear on which type of event is being held and that the press statement confirms this.

Several copies of the press statement should be prepared on national Elan Vital letterhead and these should be used by yourself only, to give to the press if they come to any part of the programme. The press statement is not for distribution to the press in advance. The directive for all events is "no press". Do not have copies of the press statement at the event Information table.

Event PR Management Guidelines (page 2)

(In some particular instances, there may be a proactive planned press campaign around an event in your country, but this would be planned and organised by your world region PR manager, in conjunction with an independent PR/press officer and Ros Sutton. You, your national contact and your national team would also be party to such a campaign)

Please check the wording of the press statement carefully. Ask your national contact and legal contact to check it too. Make sure you are happy with the wording as written, if there is any other information you wish to include, or if there are any changes required for cultural, technical or legal reasons. Please fax your world region PR manager with any ammendments you may wish to make, together with any questions you may have on the general PR points below.

Elan Vital Background Statement:

Please also have a background statement on Elan Vital (or the equivalent non-profit association in your country). This should be checked for accuracy by your natonal contact and national legal advisor and should be brief and concise, and produced on national letterhead. The Background Statement can be used to answer enquiries about the organisation itself, to introduce the organisation to halls, venues, hotels, equipment hire, subcontractors etc.

Assistants and Assistance:

If the programme is large, (more than 1,000 reservations) select people to assist you, so that you have enough people to cover lobbies, sales and information and registration areas. (Where your country has a PR team, use all of these personnel.) Brief them carefully and thoroughly on PR protocol. Remember, even though you may have assistants, as PR manager for the event, you are the person who deals with the press. Cooperate closely with USS, Information, and all other departments during the planning as well as the operations.

National and Local Media:

Prepare a list of key national and local media well in advance, with the phone and fax numbers and names of the editors/producers. Read all of any previous press coverage on Maharaji in your country.

Event PR Management Guidelines (page 3)

Media Relations:

Have somewhere to meet with enquirers/media. If anyone does show up your interpersonal skills may be heavily drawn on. Always be calm, courteous, direct and informative. Make sure you are very clear on what Elan Vital is and how it functions. Make sure you are very clear on who Maharaji is, what he does, and why he is attending the event. Arrange the time, well in advance of the event, to talk through the functions of Elan Vital and what Maharaji does with your national contact and legal contact. Also ask your world region PR manager to give you a telephone briefing on this to refresh your skills.

Briefing other departments and personnel:

As well as taking care of any press enquiries, a key responsibility of the PR officer at events is to brief all personnel taking part in running the event on how to handle any press or media people that might arrive during the set-up, during the event itself, and during the pack-up. This particularly includes security and ushers, safety, information, sales, translation, donations, medical, hall liaison and the lobby. Also, making sure that both stills and video camera personnel are properly identified will greatly help. Those helping in all areas should be briefed, by you, on the following:

1) As press officer you are the only person who will answer press enquiries. Everyone needs to know where you are located and that if any media show up, they are to be cordially received and brought straight to you. If you could have a private area to receive people in this would be very useful. N.B. if media are located outside the event doors. they should be kept outside and you should be brought to them.

2) Security need to know where you are sitting while the event is taking place. If you are called out of the programme to deal with an enquiry take a back-up person with you. The back-up person can then go and get security assistance, or anyone else you might wish to call on. The security manager may wish to assign you with a security person and provide you with security radio contact if the event is large.

3) Everyone helping needs to know, in PR terms, the purpose of the event, what Elan Vital is, and that M. is an invited guest speaker and what he will be talking about.

Event PR Management Guidelines (page 4)

4) Those taking care of the donations need to be very clear that all donations go to Elan Vital to fund programmes, conferences and video events only. Donations tables can not receive gifts for the guest speaker.

5) Check with your national contact whether those attending are likely to bring gifts and cards for the guest speaker and what the approved policy is for this at the event. (The usual policy is to accept cards and letters only, but to ask guests to send gifts to the P.O. box.)

6) Ensure that everyone doing service at the event understands the capacity in which they are there, and that they know how to carry out the activities of the set-up and pack-up as well as the event itself without attracting media or any other attention.

7) Allow plenty of time for the personnel briefings and hold them before or at the start of the set-up. Attending each of the area managers' own personnel meetings is a good way to do this.

8) Always be prepared for the unexpected. The activities of every single person in every area, those attending the event, and those not attending the event, has the potential to affect your role. Work closely with the Event Manager throughout the planning, briefing, set-up, programme and pack-up.

9) Check daily with the Security manager if there is anything you should be aware of.

10) Check daily with the National Contact if there is anything you should be aware of.

11) If hotels are being block booked for the event, meet with the Hotels manager to help ensure that a uniform profile for the event is being maintained.

12) Ask yourself these questions: What is the profile of the event and how can I help to ensure that this is maintained right across the board? How low-key should the profile be? Should Elan Vital be displayed outside the hall? - in the venue's own forthcoming events calendar? on any hotel buses? - at any tables in the lobby or elsewhere?

Event PR Management Guidelines (page 5)

12) cont'd.

Do every single usher, security person, those at tables in the lobby etc. know what to say to an enquirer and where to bring them? Are the PR procedures clear? Does everyone understand the procedures and how they too can help support the PR function?

Always remember that the purpose of the event is for Maharaji and premies to come together, for the Magic to happen.

Ends
Revised July 1996
R.M.S