A student’s guide for hosting a networking event

Organisation and logistics

First of all, it is helpful to work in collaboration with an organisation based within your university such as a student psychology society. If your university does not have a psychology society then you can approach your psychology department and ask, 'Can I put on a student-run psychology event?'. Your department will likely jump at this chance as it is a great opportunity for them to foster student initiatives. 

Once you are in agreement with an organisation, this gives you a base for social media advertising and also a team to help you organise this event. When you have the green light from your society/department you then need to set a date, book a room, and invite your lecturers. When setting a date, it is advisable that you give yourself at least a month or longer to plan and prepare; believe me this date approaches quickly. Once you have set a date you will have to book a room, I would advise booking a lecture theatre, so you are not limited on capacity. You should be able to do this via your university room booking system, if not, speak to a member of your psychology admin department and they should be able to help. It would also be worth booking a separate room for networking. 

The next step is to book in your lecturers. If you are a second or third year, it is likely that you know your lecturers and have already established a relationship with them. I would recommend asking your academic advisor/supervisor to start things off. Emailing lecturers can seem scary but once you have done it a few times it becomes easier, and often they are more than willing to discuss their research. 

An email should include your date, room, and specifically what you require (e.g. Hello lecturer, it is James Prentice from the psychology society, and I am emailing to invite you to an event we are hosting in March. We would love it if you would give a 15-20 minute talk to students on your research/topic of choice, followed by a short Q&A. The event will be held in the Mitre Lecture Theatre on 14 March from 12 – 3pm. Please let me know if this is something you would be interested in). Some lecturers will say yes, and some will say no, but after a week or two you will have enough talks for an event!

Soliciting funding

The BPS Southeast Branch is happy to support student-led events and has allocated a part of its budget to these events. If you want to solicit funding, you will have to prepare a short event proposal where you explain the following: What you would like to do, how much funding you need, what the money will be spent on, and how this will benefit the branch. 

The branch will benefit through increased awareness and advertisement of the event. This means the BPS Southeast Branch logo should be included in all posters and social media posts. The majority of the funding will be spent on catering, as it is simply a fact that more people attend events that are catered with food and drink. However, you can put on an event without any funding and simply ask for support and advertisement from the branch. 

Organising your advertising campaign

It is advisable that you make a poster for your event. You can either make this yourself using software such as Canva, or you can ask your university design team to make it. On your poster you should have the date, time, location, a short description, and the event timetable, optionally you can add a QR code for people to register their interest (you can set up a Microsoft Forms questionnaire to record numbers). 

You will have to confirm the titles of the talks from your lecturers before submitting the poster to be printed, so do follow up on your emails. Once you have made the poster you are ready to start advertising. The advertisement posters can be printed off at your university printshop; you may need to pay for this, but the money can take this out of your budget. The posters can be displayed all over campus to raise awareness. You can also put this poster on social media through your society and psychology department. This alone should garner attention; however, nothing is better than in-person advertising, so ask your lecturers if you can attend their lectures and promote the event. You can simply discuss the upcoming event for the first two minutes of the lecture. You can ramp-up or slow-down your advertising campaign according to the number of people registering using the QR code on the poster. 

Booking catering and managing your budget

Finally, if you would like to book catering for your event, you will have to do this through your university caterers. They should have a menu on their website so you can pick and choose what you would like to have. I would also advise buying paper plates etc, however this can be taken out of the budget provided by the BPS Southeast Branch. For the event ran in March we chose not to serve tea and coffee due to the cost, but this is at your discretion. 

I hope this guide helps! I appreciate this is a lot of information and it may seem daunting. However, if you give yourself enough time, you can put on an amazing event for your fellow students, raise your profile within the university, and add this to your CV. 

When I first started to organise the networking event in March, I had no idea where to start. However, I was lucky enough to be given good advice by the BPS Southeast Branch and the staff at the University of Chichester. 

Contacts

If you have any questions about this process or want to put on an event at your university, supported by the BPS Southeast Branch, do not hesitate to contact me at: [email protected] or the chair of the BPS Southeast Branch, Richard Pemberton: [email protected].