Organising a Grimshaw student delegation is a enriching and rewarding task but it requires organisation and efficient planning. I am the Grimshaw Trips Manager and my role is to assist those who want to organise a student delegation this year – you can email me at n.l.clark@lse.ac.uk if you have any enquries.
A Grimshaw student delegation will consist of a mix of formal meetings with various organisations and (optionally) visits to chosen tourists sites that you must organise. You will also be in charge of estimating a cost for the trip and completing a risk-assessment form. The delegations normally have about 10-12 students attending and, in order to attract interest and make these trips accessible, we need to be advertising and promoting them in soon as possible. Therefore, final itineraries are expected on November 29th.
With that in mind, I have produced a Michaelmas term calendar of events and deadlines that have been put in place to make organising the student delegations as smooth and efficient as possible.
Michaelmas Term
1st November: Email a confirmation of your interest. All prospective trip leaders should email me to confirm their interest. In this email, they should also suggest where they propose to do a student delegation and any ideas they have about an itinerary.
Obviously, these suggestions do not have to be definite; it is just so that I know roughly what to expect from this year’s delegations.
READING WEEK: Start research! For the departments that operate them, 2nd November is the beginning of Reading Week. I would suggest that this would be a particularly good opportunity to dedicate some time to researching.
You will need to research organisations which you want to meet with, and noting down any contacts or contact details you may have with them.
Examples of some relevant organisations include International Organisations, NGOs, embassies, government ministries, local universities, think tanks and newspapers etc.
A good starting point is LSE academics: figure out if there are professors specialising in the politics of the region – they will likely have many interesting contacts. For example, for a trip to the Hague, you could contact professors of international law.Another good starting point is the embassy of that nation in London: email them and ask what kind of assistance they are willing to give.
You will also need to research the logistical elements of your trip. You should begin thinking about flights, accommodation and dates.
13th November: Trip Leaders Meeting This will be to see your progress. By this point, you should have a good idea of what your trip will include, when it will be held and the rough cost of the trip. It will also be a good opportunity to get inspiration from the other trip leaders and catch up!
Note: after this meeting, you will have 16 days to finalise your plans and submit them to me. I will email you all a risk assessment form that must be completed by the final deadline.
29th November: Final Deadline
Itinerary, Risk Assessment, Facebook event This is the end of week 9 and your final and complete itineraries as well as a completed risk assessment form.
Trip itineraries should include:
Date of trip
Why this country?
What makes it an interesting and important place to visit right now?
Cost estimate
Tentative list of people organisations you will meet with (you do not need to have confirmed these yet).
How you want to receive applications, what information you need from applicants. (We recommend Google forms as a cheap way to keep applications organised without having to sort through dozens of Word docs attached to emails.)
The committee will then work on advertising (e.g brochures, social media), which should be released in Week 10.
However, you should create a Facebook event for your trip and assist in publicising it.
7th December: Keep track of applications Advertising for trips will begin now. You will start receiving applications, please keep track of everyone who has applied and their emails. Mark down those applicants which you would like to interview. We will hold interviews for those interested at the beginning of Lent Term.
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