Planning a meeting? Tips from the pros will help you organize a great office gathering.

• Author: Campbell, Melissa

Steve Cobb is a good example of the importance of good, organized planning for events or meetings. If things had gone wrong, the ripples would have gone beyond the Anchorage borders; the entire nation would have known where to turn.

Cobb is the athletics director at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and last November marked the 25th anniversary of the Great Alaska Shootout. UAA invited notable college basketball teams from across the country to spend an extended Thanksgiving weekend in Anchorage's Sullivan Arena.

Every year, thousands of fans travel to the city to attend the games, while hundreds of thousands more plan their turkey dinners around game times on the cable sports channel ESPN.

It's not an easy endeavor to coordinate such a huge event: About 30 committee members, up to 60 volunteers and the bulk of the university athletics department staff, among others on campus, plan, organize and execute nearly everything one can imagine for the five-day extravaganza. These folks are responsible for the accommodations and coordination of 10 basketball teams, with roughly 20 players on each team, plus the coaching staffs and the officials.

"Other than the Iditarod, the Shootout is the biggest, most important event to the state," Cobb said. "All the time, we check, recheck and then check again to make sure that everything has been covered."

While planning your company's annual Christmas party may not take a full-fledged committee, the task can be daunting. There are many books focused on event planning, and the local convention and visitors bureau can help.

Here are some guidelines to organizing an event, conference or meeting, regardless of size.

1. Budget. Everything you do as an event planner hinges on how much money you can spend. A detailed budget should be the first item in a three-ring binder you use to keep everything regarding the event.

2. Organization. Keeping all documents together and in order is key in planning any gathering, If its a larger event, think about developing a committee to help with some of the tasks. The Shootout committee starts meeting in the summer for the holiday event, meeting several times during the months before the games and once after the fleet of teams heads home.

3. Basics. Know the event's purpose: office Christmas party, fund-raiser, awards banquet, whatever. Then figure out when the event needs to happen and how long it will be (an evening or a weekend) and be flexible on the dates. Ballrooms may not be available during the time you want, as many are booked two or three years in advance. This is especially true for dates around the holidays and during the regular convention seasons, said Joann Spears...