Here are ten great tips to help your next event run smoothly!

Encourage and equip event team members to take ownership of their responsibilities! A priority at the first planning meeting is to decide on all the roles of the team members. Make sure that everyone knows what they are to do and when it needs to be done by. Everyone should be working toward a common goal to stay "on the same page."

Hold productive planning meetings - live or electronically via a chat room or email. Everyone is busy so remember to start and finish on time. Have an agenda and stick to it. If you are meeting on-line, be sure and stick to the priorities. If working via email, remind women to reply to all when responding.

Have an appreciation lunch/dinner for the team right before the event. This is a more social type of meeting. It is a great time to pray together, share with each other, and take care of any last minute things.

Pray, Pray, Pray. Be sure to spend time at every meeting praying for the event and the women who will be attending. The day of the event, arrive at the site early and pray with your team. If you have time, go through each room that will be used and pray in them for the women who will be there.

Make sure everyone on the team has a copy of a detailed schedule of the event. A detailed schedule would include who needs to be where, when. Who is leading music, who is praying before the meals, who is introducing the speaker, etc. Break it down into whatever time increments work for you. This schedule is for the leadership team to know where they need to be and is not typically supplied to the attendees.

Have several ladies serve as greeters at registration and throughout the event. It may seem unnecessary if your women know each other, but it helps to make everyone feel special... and that is how you want them to feel when they leave your event!

Have small groups or table groups. This is a great way to build relationships between the women. Make sure that you have assigned and trained a leader for each group to help guide the conversation.

Have a good mix of activities. Your event should meet the spiritual, social and emotional needs of the women attending. Provide games, quiet time, free time, workshops, etc. Don't make the event too heavy or too light. Strive for a good balance.

Door prizes are a great opportunity to have some fun. Don't just draw names from a basket. Think of creative way to dispurse the treasures. At our annual retreat we have a pair of comedic gals to ring a bell at the beginning of each session and hand out a doorprize. We call them the Dina-a-ling Sistas! They were a big hit!

Stay on Time! You went to a lot of work to plan the event and the timing of everything, so keep to it! Sometimes things happen that will throw your event off schedule, but do your best to stay on time.